Crown of Bone and Ice

༺ 𖤍 ༻

❦ Jane Snow ❦ The stench of slaughter is the same everywhere; whether you’re knee-deep in snow at the walls of Winterfell or wallowing in the swampy sludge of the Riverlands, it’s always the same — the sour, heavy stench of human bodies, mixed with shit, the rust of iron, and the sweet, cloying rot of dying flesh, which creeps into your nose, settles on your tongue, and gets under your nails and in your hair so that after a while it’s impossible to tell where the world ends and it begins, because you yourself become that smell. The infirmary tent beneath the walls of Harrenhal breathed this stench. Every breath brought new moans, new wheezes, new curses and prayers addressed to the gods, who, by all accounts, had long since turned their backs on both this cursed castle and those dying beneath it. — Hold him tighter, Hallis! — Jane shouted. Her own voice sounded foreign to her, hoarse and strained. But the old soldier heard her anyway, clamped his hands around the boy’s thin shoulders, and pressed him against the blood-stained brown tabletop as if hoping to hold not only his body but also the life slipping away from it. — If he moves, I’ll cut his artery instead of his tendon, — she hissed, leaning over the torn leg. The Blackwoods’ young squire, still practically a child, sixteen winters old at most, lay there, clenching an old leather belt between his teeth. The belt was soaked through with saliva and blood. The boy’s eyes were wide open, his pupils swollen with pain and terror; his face had turned pale to the point of blue, his forehead wet with sweat. Where his right leg should have been was a pulp of mud, manure, broken bones, and shreds of skin, in which the outline of the limb was barely discernible. The stench was so foul that even the rats under the floorboards seemed to shudder. She lowered her gaze, feeling sweat run down her back beneath her coarse, thick northern tunic. The fabric clung to her body like a second layer of wet skin. Her hands were elbow-deep in blood, warm and sticky. It dripped from her fingers in heavy, dark drops and mingled on the earthen floor with the dried crust of previous victims. It seemed as if the floor itself had come alive, a greedy sponge, drinking up everything that spilled onto it. — Quiet, lad, quiet, — Hallis muttered, breathing heavily, the scars on his face contorting with the strain. — Lady Snow knows what she’s doing. She’ll patch you up, and you’ll be chasing hares through the woods again. — It’s a sin to lie to the dying, — she replied coldly, without looking up. The needle glinted in the flickering torchlight. Jane dipped it into a bowl of boiling wine. The steam hit her nostrils, acrid and sharp, momentarily cutting through the smell of pus and burnt flesh, but then immediately mingling with it, giving birth to a new, even more nauseating scent of war. The wine bubbled like blood in a cauldron. — He won’t be running anymore, — she added flatly. — But maybe we’ll spare his leg. The needle entered the edge of the wound. The flesh parted under the steel like soft, overly warm dough. The boy arched his back; the belt in his teeth creaked pitifully, and a muffled howl escaped his throat, more animal than human. Hallis leaned in harder, pressing him against the table. Jane didn’t flinch. Pity was a luxury she could not afford where a single wrong move of the hand cost a life. Jane left pity outside, where the fog hid the burning fires from view, and brought only hardness and weariness here. The leather apron, once yellow, had now become a blackish-brown crust of dried blood, over which fresh blood settled in scarlet, almost black spots. Her hair, pulled back into a tight northern braid, had come loose at her temples and clung to her damp forehead in dark strands. Sweat trickled down her temples, stinging her eyes; there was no time to wipe it away. Her back ached with a dull pain, her neck was stiff, and her fingers sometimes cramped, but after a month beneath the walls of Harrenhal, she had learned that as long as she stood, as long as she breathed and saw, she had no right to stop. The army had been camped outside Harrenhal for a month now. The Black camp sprawled around the cursed ruins in an uneven ring of tents and fires, and it was no siege, for the castle was theirs. It was something else, living flesh grown onto the molten stone. As if Harrenhal itself would not let go of those who had stepped into its shadow. Banners fluttered above the muddy pathways so that everyone could see whose command these tents were under. The black three-headed dragon of the Reynirs on a scarlet banner fluttered in the wind alongside the silver seahorse of the Velarions. A little further away were the Blackwoods’ raven tree on a yellow field and the Tull’s silver trout leaping over a blue wave. Bright, embroidered in gold, proud, as if they did not believe that blood flowed just as thick beneath any coat of arms. And between them were the northern, gray Stark direwolves on plain, faded cloth. The North had not come for glory or for lands. It had come because a word had been given, and in the North, a word is worth more than southern gold. Sometimes a long, serpentine shadow glided over the towers, and the air grew acrid, hot, smelling of sulfur and ash. Karakess, the Bloody Serpent, slept somewhere in the ruins, coiled in a red loop by a black stone, and even in his sleep he seemed deadly dangerous. So his rider, Daemon Targaryen, the Wanderer, was nearby—not a legend from songs or a ghost, but a living prince in the dim halls of Harrenhal, where the stone remembers the fire of Aegon the Conqueror better than the prayers of the living, and where dead kings whisper in the empty corridors. Part of the army camped outside, but the lords and commanders occupied the castle’s halls—those that had not yet collapsed, those where the roof did not leak rain and ash. In these halls, Daemon held his ground, surrounded by shadows and the stubbornness of ancient stones. Krigan Stark, her stepbrother and Lord of Winterfell, had sent Jane here not as a warrior. She was a guest, a pledge, a reminder that the North keeps its vows, even when they lead to lands where snow melts into mud and honor turns to coin. Her place was not on the battlefield, but among the wounded, among bandages, red-hot needles, hot water, and blood—blood so thick its scent seared into her skin forever. Before they set out, Krigan placed a black-glass dagger in her palm — not for feasting or for show, but for the night, when steel is sometimes useless. — The North remembers, Jane,” he said, placing the dagger in her palm. — But the North does not crave new graves. Heal our people. Watch over the fools I sent in search of glory. Then the blade burned her with a coldness like the ice of the crypts, which never melts. Now it hung from her belt, and sometimes, especially at night when Harrenhal whispered in the dark, Jane fancied she could feel the hilt breathing faintly beneath her fingers, as if a tiny heart were beating inside the black glass. — Done, — she exhaled, tying the final knot. “Bandage him up, Hallis. If there’s any poppy milk left, give him a sip. She stepped back from the table, wiping her palms on a rag that had once been white but was now the same brown as her apron. She took a step back and leaned against another cot. There was almost no room left in the tent. The wounded lay close together, on straw, on the bare ground, some simply where they had fallen. Blackwoods, Freys, northerners, mercenaries from the Free Cities — the blood on the floor mingled so thoroughly that it no longer mattered under which banner they had come here to die. The floor had long since ceased to be mere earth. It had turned into a sticky, viscous layer of mud, blood, pus, and urine, all mixed together. Every step echoed with a wet squelch. Rats, which no one had bothered to exterminate in a long time, rustled in the corners, sensing the approaching feast and unable to tell whose flesh lay before them. Behind the tent’s canopy, the autumn mist brushed against the ground, whitish and thick as sour milk. It encircled the camp, hid between the tents, wrapped around the sentries’ legs, and made them look like ghosts. Sometimes in the early morning, when the crimson embers in the campfires had not yet flared into flame, Jane sensed something foreign in that white mist — a thin, piercing cold that had no place so far south. It made her bones remember Winterfell, the woods gripped by frost from their breath, and the black line of the Wall on the horizon. The cold came and went like the breath of a sleeping beast beneath a rock. She tied the last knot and only then allowed herself to breathe. The mist behind the curtain stirred. It did not recede, as if frozen, losing its density, becoming transparent, deathly pale. And then the tent was flooded with orange. The light cut through the fabric, alive, hot, too bright for dawn. It fell on the faces of the wounded, flashed on the metal of bowls and needles, turned the gray morning into fire. For a moment, Jane thought it was a torch. But torches don’t roar. A roar engulfed the tent from the very first blast, deep, drawn-out, ancient. The earth seemed to groan under the weight of that voice. The cauldrons on their chains trembled, the poles swayed, and the needles in the bowl rang out with a thin, frightened clang. Karakses. The first thought was a familiar one. They already knew the Bloody Serpent’s voice here — raspy, shrill, frenzied. But this one was different. Heavier. Older. It echoed the days of the Conquest, when dragons were larger and their fire hotter. And yet, an unnatural silence hung in the air. There was no commotion at the entrance, no shouts, no clanging of armor. Nor did the name “Demon” ring out; usually it flew ahead of trouble, like a warning. Only light flooding the tent. Only a roar that made the air tremble. And an icy, instant certainty that this was a foreign dragon. — A dragon, — someone at the entrance simply breathed the word. — The Greens, — a new shout drowned out everything. The tent’s canopy arched inward like the chest of a man taking his last breath, and in the next second, a gust of wind tore it outward. Heat struck her face, dry, searing, suffocating. The fog outside boiled, turned to steam, and a wall of fire crept over the rows of tents and spears. Flames rained down from the sky like molten gold. It was a dragon’s fire. — Everyone out! — Jane shouted, grabbing her bag and feeling for the dagger at her belt. — Halis, take the boy. Hurry! But dragonfire heeds neither screams nor prayers. A jet of flame struck the tent roof. The oiled fabric burst into flames instantly, like a dry leaf near a torch. The wooden poles groaned and buckled. The straw beneath the sick caught fire one by one, and those whom Jane had been bandaging an hour ago were now writhing in the flames, not quite realizing that they were still alive and already dying again. The screams rose so high they ceased to be screams and became a continuous, deafening roar. Jane collapsed to her knees and covered her head with her hands. The heat scorched her skin. The air inside the tent turned into fire that was impossible to breathe. A burning beam crashed down nearby, cutting off the path to the far beds. Behind it, indistinct figures writhed in the flames. Someone was reaching out to her, hands eerily similar to those that had clung to her just moments ago, begging for help. Through the fire, Jane saw the squire’s boy. He couldn’t get up and couldn’t even roll over. He lay there, reaching out to her, his fingers already beginning to turn black at the tips. — Lady… Snow… — his lips moved amid the smoke. She lunged forward and took a step. Then another. The tent roof collapsed. Beams, fabric, and scorching air crashed inward with a deafening roar. The world swayed, and she instinctively crouched, covering her head again. Hot dust rained down on her shoulders, and smoke hit her face—thick, black, so thick she couldn’t breathe. Jane coughed, felt her way blindly along the ground with her palms, and crawled toward the strip of light at the entrance, where there was still air. The camp was on fire. The tents flared up like torches, the fabric bursting with a crackle and burning to ashes. People darted between them, barely human anymore, but pillars of fire rushing toward the river, toward the mud, toward any puddle where there might still be water. Horses wheezed and thrashed, biting at their bits, struggling in their harnesses. Several broke free, slipped out of their straps, and, mad with fear, charged toward the water, toward the shore of God’s Eye. Wooden carts burst into flames as if someone had indeed doused them generously with oil. And above it all, a dragon circled. A black moon in the sky. Vhagar. Jane knew that name, though she had never seen her. People whispered about the ancient dragoness by the campfires. They said she had carried Queen Visenya on her back, outlived her, her brother, his sons, and his grandsons. They said she remembered the taste of Harrenhal’s ashes, and when Vhagar descended, the earth itself remembered with her. Her shadow covered the camp, and beneath that shadow the fire seemed dimmer. Jane got down on all fours; her fingers found the hilt of the dagger on their own. The bag of herbs was already burning in the infirmary, and green glass bubbles flashed through the flames, bursting one after another. — No… — she blurted out. She lunged toward the tent, foolishly and hopelessly; her legs hadn’t yet realized that it was all over. But a strong hand grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back. — You’ll burn, you fool, — a man’s voice hissed hoarsely. She saw only part of his face — an unshaven cheek, a scar, a bulging vein on his neck. Perhaps she had stitched up his shoulder that morning. Perhaps she was seeing him for the first time. There was no time to ask his name. A second jet of flame struck from above. The man holding Jane burst into flames all at once, like oil-soaked tow. He didn’t scream, only exhaled sharply, as if the air had been knocked out of him. His hand clung to her tunic for a moment longer, his fingers clenching convulsively, scorching the fabric, and then his grip loosened. Jane lunged forward, slipped on the wet ground, and, losing her balance, slid into the drainage ditch. Icy sludge splashed her face; the stench of sewage cut through the smoke and, for a moment, was stronger than the fire. Water mixed with slop, manure, and blood crashed down over her head. The cold sliced across her skin like a knife. For a second, there was nothing but darkness and the muffled roar of the fire above the surface. She surfaced, gasping for air. Smoke rushed into her lungs along with it, her throat tightened with a cough, and Jane doubled over, trying to cough up all of this hell. When the ringing in her ears began to subside, the silence proved to be deceptive; it was filled with sounds. The crackling of burning tents. The neighing of dying horses. And new, unfamiliar sounds: heavy footsteps, the clang of steel, shouts that sounded like orders, not pleas. The Greens had entered the camp. Through the smoke, Jane saw dense ranks of men in heavy armor, green cloaks, torches, and spears. Coats of arms danced on their shields — the Haitawer beacon, the towers. They moved with dignity, unhurried, like executioners whom no one could stop. They were finishing off those the dragon hadn’t had time to burn. Vhagar roared over the camp, but her rider was already on the ground. The dragon’s shadow covered everything around them; a tall figure in dark armor emerged from the smoke. And then Jane saw him. He wasn’t running or swinging his sword in vain. He was simply walking. He was tall, clad in black armor, scorched in places by the heat, with a sword in his right hand and a tattered cloak trailing a trail of smoke and ash behind him. He walked, and the smoke seemed to part before him. He stopped about ten paces from her and removed his helmet. Silver hair, matted with moisture and soot, fell across his shoulders. His face was sharp, as if carved with a knife, with a hard line along his cheekbones. One eye was violet, cold, and watchful, like that of a predator eyeing its prey before striking. The left eye was hidden by a black bandage. For a moment, as the flame licked the smoke, an icy glint flashed beneath its edge, as if beneath the cloth lay a stone that had no place in a human face. It was Aemon Targaryen. The Dragon Prince. The One-Eyed. The boy-killer beyond the Storm’s End, the one about whom the northern fires whispered with hatred and fear. Jane rose, first to her knees, crawling out of the ditch, then to her feet. Water dripped from her, mud clung to her, but her back straightened of its own accord. He was looking straight at her. People were still dying all around them, tents were burning, Vhagar circled over the ruins, but in that moment, it seemed as though only they remained, with Harrenhal behind them. His gaze slid over her gray cloak, over the blood-soaked leather apron, over her hands. It stopped at her belt, at the black hilt of the dagger, which strangely absorbed the light instead of reflecting it. A predatory curiosity flashed in his violet eye. Jane slowly unfastened the sheath and drew the dagger. Obsidian caught the glints of flame; a cold blue light flashed deep within the black glass, like ice in an ancient crack. He wasn’t looking at her, but at the blade. Too long for a man with a camp burning all around him. — Dragon glass, — he said quietly, almost without emotion. — Not a very common choice for hands accustomed to a needle. Where did you get it? Jane didn’t answer. Her throat stung from the soot, her tongue felt as if it were stuck to her palate. Her fingers gripped the hilt so tightly that her bones ached. He was still staring at the blade, for a long time, too long, and then he let his gaze sweep over her slowly, appraisingly. He lingered on her hands, her wrists, her soiled apron. Above the ruins, Vhagar roared low and long, and the earth trembled at the sound, as if from a distant blow. Jane realized that if she stayed here, out in the open, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Harrenhall loomed behind her like a black maw, with gaping holes, arches, and shadows. Narrow passages, collapsed vaults, darkness where a dragon couldn’t squeeze through and a long sword would be a burden. There, she could disappear. There, she could gain precious moments. She took a step back. Then another, and she threw herself toward the ruins without looking back. Behind her, there was no cry, no pounding of pursuers’ feet. Only the measured sound of footsteps on the ash, unhurried, confident, like a hunter who isn’t afraid of losing the trail. Because in Harrenhal, there’s nowhere to run except into his arms. The mud squelched under her boots, clinging to her, pulling her down, but the North had taught her to run on worse roads. Jane dashed toward the melted wall, toward the gap where a door might once have stood. Her back burned under his gaze, but she did not turn around. Harrenhal was closing in. Dark moss dripped like rain from the towers; cracks in the stone looked like scars. The melted edges of the walls glistened like frozen glass. It seemed as though the castle was watching, gazing through the empty black eye sockets of the windows. She leaped over the low, crumbling rampart and darted through the breach. The air inside was different — cold. The mustiness and mold stung her nose, like in an old cellar where secrets had been rotting for centuries. But beneath that cold lurked another, a subtle, northern chill that gnawed at her bones. A cold that had no place in the Riverlands. The dagger at her belt twitched, as if it recognized it. The hilt, still warm just moments ago, turned to ice. Jane gripped it, feeling goosebumps run down her skin. Outside, the roar of battle and the dragon’s bellow had died down, replaced by a hollow, empty echo. The footsteps behind her grew clearer. He had entered. — Do you know how Harren the Black died? — His voice echoed through the courtyard, bouncing off the walls and returning multiplied, making it hard to tell where it was coming from. The inner courtyard of the Tower of Tears was littered with debris. Huge, melted chunks of stone lay piled in chaotic heaps. Once there had been halls, galleries, and staircases here. Aegon’s fire had turned it all into a frozen wave, frozen in the moment of impact. Jane pressed her back against a thick column, rough and damp, and felt the cold of the stone seep through her tunic. — He trusted in the thickness of the walls, in the height of the towers, — Aemon continued, — he thought the stone would withstand everything. His steps were measured. His spurs clinked, his boots scraped against the stone, his cloak rustled as it brushed the edges of the rubble. He walked as if this were hunting grounds. — And he was right, — the prince said. — The stone held. Only Harren didn’t. Jane unclenched her fist, only now realizing she’d been gripping the edge of the column so tightly it hurt. Her palm burned, her skin was raw, and blood mingled with the dampness of the stone. To the cellars, she thought. Down. It’s cramped down there. His sword will be a hindrance to him, and her chance to escape. She took a steady breath, forcing her heart to beat more quietly, and peeked out from behind the column. He was about ten paces away, a black silhouette against the distant glow of the camp. The sword in his hand was lowered, but his entire figure remained as taut as a string. His head turned slowly, his single eye scanning the shadows. On his left leg, near the thigh, a dark spot was spreading. It was blood. It oozed slowly but surely, soaking into the leather of his straps. He was leaning slightly on that leg. A wound. Small, but real. Jane lowered her gaze and felt for a stone at her feet — heavy, with a sharp edge. She clenched it in her palm. — Come out, — he called lazily. — I won’t do to you what soldiers do to captives. I need you alive. He paused and turned slightly toward her. For a moment, his face became almost beautiful, with the dead, stony beauty of a statue. — Healer, — he repeated. — With a dagger from northern horror stories. You might be useful to the king. Blood rushed to her temples. It wasn’t enough for him to burn down the infirmary. He wanted her hands, her head, her neck on a rope. Jane threw the stone. Not at him, but into the far corner of the courtyard, where rusty chains and fragments of bars lay in a heap of iron. The clang echoed across the courtyard, deafening in the silence of the stone. The chains rattled as if someone had tugged at them. Aymond spun around instantly. Jane dashed toward the black gaping archway leading downward. It was cramped, dark, and damp. There she could vanish into a crevice too narrow for a man in armor to pass through. The stone beneath her boots was wet and slippery. Her knee throbbed with pain as she hopped from one piece of rubble to another, but she could almost feel the cool breeze from the dungeon on her lips. — There you are… — he said behind her. A whistle cut through the air before Jane could figure out what exactly he had thrown. The blow struck her shins; it wasn’t steel, but heavy leather bound in iron. A scabbard. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed forward before she could put her hands out. Her face met the stone. Her lips split open, her mouth filled with the iron taste of blood and dust. Sparks flashed in her eyes. The dagger flew from her fingers, slid across the stone, and fell nearby. Jane tried to roll over and press her hands to her head. A boot came down on her back, pressing her into the ground. The weight of the armor and the body pressed down so hard that her ribs cracked. — There’s nowhere left to run, — he said quietly, in a tone that was almost satisfied. — Let me go, — she gasped, pressing her cheek against the stone and gasping for air. He pressed down harder. Her lungs felt empty, like a squeezed-out wineskin. Her fingers scraped against the stone, finding no purchase; her nails scratched the rough edge of the slab. The boot eased its pressure slightly. A gloved hand grabbed her braid, wound it around a fist, and yanked upward. Her back arched, pain shot from the back of her neck to her tailbone, and her vision darkened for a moment. The taste of blood on her lips. The cold of the stone against her cheek. And his breath, steady and calm, as if he had simply stopped to catch his breath. — To which house do you belong? — he said dispassionately, as if he were prying a secret from a stone. — None, — Jane replied hoarsely. — I belong to no one. The boot pressed her into the stone harder, not brutally, but methodically, like a butcher pressing down on a carcass before cutting it up. Pain shot through her ribs in a sharp wave. She tried to break free. It was useless. — A lie, — he said evenly. — Dragon glass isn’t worn by rootless rats. And with Northern runes, no less. Speak. — I’m not a rat, — she rasped, struggling to breathe. He leaned down and picked up her dagger. The obsidian in his hand didn’t glint; it absorbed the light, leaving only a dull inner glow, as if a flame lived within the black glass but found no way out. Aymond turned the blade and studied the simple, roughly carved runes, the ancient symbols of the First Men. — Not every healer is given a weapon like this, — he continued thoughtfully, as if talking to himself. — So you’re not just a healer. His boot pressed her a little harder into the stone, just enough to make her ribs respond with a crunching pain. — Tell me your name, — he said. Not a command, but a statement. — And whom you serve. He crouched down beside her, holding the dagger before her face. The black leather band covering half his face made him look like a statue, cold and indifferent. And at that moment, the sky howled above them. Until then, Vhagar’s roar had echoed over the tents, now closer, now farther, greedy and triumphant. Now it had changed; a wariness had crept into it, a heavy, drawn-out discontent, like that of a beast that had caught the scent of something it did not understand. A shadow fell over the courtyard. The wind struck from above, ruffling Jane’s hair despite his grip. The stone beneath them trembled. A crackling sound came from somewhere overhead. Not sharp, but drawn-out, and all the more terrifying for it, as if it were not a tree being broken, but a giant spine. Dust rained down from above, filling her eyes, mouth, and nose. Small stones rustled in the cracks of the old masonry. Vhagar was landing. Not on the open field before the walls, but directly onto one of Harrenhall’s walls — the very lowest one, beneath which they stood. She sensed something below, beneath the ruins — a faint, icy scent, a call no less ancient than the fire in her chest. She sensed the ice seeping from the dungeons, the runes whispering in the darkness, and the blood of the Targaryens, already spilled here and yet to be spilled many times over. — No… — he breathed. This “no” was not the kind spoken to a child when taking away a toy. It was the angry, resentful “no” of a man whose will someone had dared to defy. — Vhagar, dohaerys, — he barked upward in high Valyrian, like a whip being cracked. — Halt. But the dragon did not listen. Her weight settled against the wall. The stone groaned. The cracking grew louder. Jane looked up. He was still holding her braid, clenched in his fist. Over the edge of the courtyard, instead of a strip of sky, a dark, cracking mass of wall now hung. Sparks flickered in the cracks; dust rained down. The slab began to fall. Right on top of them. He had a choice. Behind him, a few steps away, gaped the breach through which he had entered the courtyard. One leap, and he could have jumped back, leaving her here, under the stone. The body pinned down by his boot wouldn’t even have had time to cover her head with her hands. Jane saw his eyes dart upward, toward the falling stone, then to the gap, then to her, sprawled on the dirty floor, and back up again, to where his dragon — older and more stubborn than he was — was choosing where to land, guided not by command but by an ancient call. He cursed viciously, filthily, in Valyrian, and let go of her braid. Not to run. He rammed his shoulder into her chest, knocking her off her feet, and they tumbled across the stone. The world spun — debris, dust, fragments of sky, the shadow of a wall, the whistling of air. They crashed into the dark opening of an old archway leading down into the cellars. He fell on top of her, pinning Jane to the floor. His hands clasped above her head, his gauntleted gloves pressing into the stone, forming a sort of pitiful, yet still dome-like structure over her skull. His weight crushed her ribs and forced out the last of her breath. He smelled of iron, smoke, and blood. The vault collapsed. The crash was so loud it crossed the threshold of sound and turned into pure, blinding nothingness. Stone broke, crumbled, and fell. Large slabs struck his back, his armor, the arch above them, and the floor. Dust exploded in a cloud and filled his mouth, nostrils, and eyes. Something heavy slid down his shoulder, grazed Jane’s cheek, leaving a fiery streak. She didn’t know if they were falling. There was only the crash, the weight, and the pain. Then one particularly heavy blow. Everything shook, then froze. And silence fell. Not complete silence. Somewhere far away, fire and stones were still crackling, and someone was screaming. But all the sounds had become muffled, as if they had both been wrapped in a thick blanket of earth.

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