The girl child was waiting for them, standing on one end of a natural bridge above a yawning chasm. Down below in the darkness, Bran heard the sound of rushing water. An underground river.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran II.
This will be an analysis of the underground river that runs through Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers’s weirwood cave in A Song of Ice and Fire. We first officially learn of its presence when Bran, Jojen, Meera and Hodor first approach Bloodraven’s weirwood throne in A Dance with Dragons, Bran II. I will look at the river’s possible connection to Gorne’s Way and why this river might be important, not least because Jojen appears to dreamed of it all the way back in Bran’s final chapter of A Storm of Swords.
Introduction: Jojen’s dream
And there was no way through.Bran had told them there wouldn’t be. He had told them and told them, but Jojen Reed had insisted on seeing for himself. He had had a green dream, he said, and his green dreams did not lie. They don’t open any gates either, thought Bran.
A Storm of Swords, Bran IV.
In A Storm of Swords, Bran and his friends camp in the supposedly haunted Nightfort, the former seat of the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch prior to the construction of Castle Black. They are then awoken by the return of Samwell Tarly, Craster’s daughter-wife Gilly and her baby ‘Monster’ who subsequently guide them to the mysterious undead black brother, Coldhands. We as readers are distracted by the sudden arrival of Samwell and the panic it provokes from Bran and Meera, the former having just skin-changed Hodor on purpose for the first time, we can be forgiven for not really paying attention to Jojen.
Upon realising that the massive figure ensnared in Meera’s net is not the Rat Cook of Old Nan’s tales but just a fat boy of the Night’s Watch, Jojen very suddenly puts the following question to him;
“How did you get through the Wall?” Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. “Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You’re not even wet…”
A Storm of Swords, Bran IV.
The question of how they are going to get passed the Wall has been looming over Jojen ever since Bran and Meera reluctantly agreed to follow his plan. Bran repeatedly states that it is impossible to re-open the gate at the Nightfort, which has been purposely sealed since the castle was abandoned. Meera even climbed to the very top of the Wall to look for another way over and reconfirmed there is no way through the Wall at the Nightfort and certainly no way to go over it.
“It’s a sheer drop, and the ice is so smooth . . . I might be able to make the descent if I had a good rope and an axe to chop out handholds, but . . .”
“. . . but not us,” Jojen finished.
“No,” his sister agreed. “Are you sure this is the place you saw in your dream? Maybe we have the wrong castle.”
“No. This is the castle. There is a gate here.”
Yes, thought Bran, but it’s blocked by stone and ice.
A Storm of Swords, Bran IV.
Jojen is correct that there is another gate at the Nightfort, aside from the one Bran knows of. However, he does not know the location of the tunnel, has made no mention of a river so far, nor of a well. All he knows is that there is a gate in the Nightfort. Gate, not river. We might conclude then that the first time an underground river comes to Jojen in a dream is that night, after Sam returns through the Black Gate;
“We should sleep,” Jojen said solemnly, after they were full. The fire was burning low. He stirred it with a stick. “Perhaps I’ll have another green dream to show us the way.”
A Storm of Swords, Bran IV.
He is anxious to come up with an answer for Bran and Meera but he is stumped and they are growing more sceptical. Having run out of options, Jojen falls back to his usual recourse of going to sleep and waiting for an answer from the gods. Upon seeing Sam emerge from the well, if we presume he had just dreamed of their group passing through some form of an underground river, it is natural he would put two and two together. It is only after this very sleep that Jojen awakes to blurt out the idea of an underground river being the path forward.
Though Sam is able to show them the way through the secret Black Gate with the suspiciously weirwood-like carved face and a magically opening mouth, proving that Jojen is correct about the gate being at the Nightfort, there is no river at the bottom of the well. None of them gets wet and the only dampness experienced by Bran is when he feels a salty warm tear from the weird opening mouth falls onto his face, anointing him for the journey.
Bran, Hodor, the Reeds, and Summer move forward to meet Coldhands and the underground river is forgotten.
Connection to Gorne’s Way
“You know nothing, Jon Snow. It went on and on and on. There are hundreds o’ caves in these hills, and down deep they all connect. There’s even a way under your Wall. Gorne’s Way.”
A Storm of Swords, Jon III.
In the same book, A Storm of Swords, we also learn of Gorne’s Way from Ygritte’s conversations with Jon, a long-lost secret cave system which would allow people to pass beneath the Wall. In her story, the King-beyond-the-Wall, Gorne, and his brother Gendel (perhaps a nod to the monster of Beowulf?) led a host beneath the Wall using a network of tunnels known as ‘Gorne’s Way’. When they emerged, they were immediately caught by “the wolves of Winterfell”.
“There was a battle,” Jon recalled. “Gorne slew the King in the North, but his son picked up his banner and took the crown from his head, and cut down Gorne in turn.”
“And the sound o’ swords woke the crows in their castles, and they rode out all in black to take the free folk in the rear.”
A Storm of Swords, Jon III.
Jon was told, perhaps by Old Nan or even Maester Luwin as part of his history lessons, that both wildling brothers were slain by the symbiotic efforts of the wolf-Starks of Winterfell and the crow-men of the Night’s Watch. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” is Ygritte’s response as she proceeds to tell him the end of the Freefolk version;
“Gendel did not die. He cut his way free, through the crows, and led his people back north with the wolves howling at their heels. Only Gendel did not know the caves as Gorne had, and took a wrong turn.” She swept the torch back and forth, so the shadows jumped and moved. “Deeper he went, and deeper, and when he tried t’ turn back the ways that seemed familiar ended in stone rather than sky. Soon his torches began t’ fail, one by one, till finally there was naught but dark. Gendel’s folk were never seen again, but on a still night you can hear their children’s children’s children sobbing under the hills, still looking for the way back up. Listen? Do you hear them?”
A Storm of Swords, Jon III.
Ygritte’s ending is clearly one worthy of Old Nan and would undoubtedly make Bran’s skin crawl delightedly, and Jon tells her as much. However, by taking out the embellishments, we learn that there is a cave system underneath the hills and one goes under the Wall that is known to the wildlings as ‘Gorne’s Way’. Ygritte even tells Jon that Mance looked for it but was unsuccessful. Even when Jon tries to find Ygritte, who has only ventured little ways in, he finds himself running into several dead-ends that immediately befuddle and confuse him.
The location of the entrance to the cave Jon and Ygritte were in is at an opening somewhere near Stonedoor and Greyguard, which is west of Castle Black, east of Shadowtower and, interestingly, north-east to the Northern mountains where the hill clans make their home. It might well be the case that Gorne’s Way’s southern exit lies somewhere in those hills, even in the cave where Bran and his friends sheltered alongside the Liddle.
Only once did they encounter any of the mountain people, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent them looking for shelter. Summer found it for them, sniffing out a shallow cave behind the grey-green branches of a towering sentinel tree, but when Hodor ducked beneath the stony overhang, Bran saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized they were not alone. “Come in and warm yourselves,” a man’s voice called out. “There’s stone enough to keep the rain off all our heads.”
A Storm of Swords – Bran II
Therefore, it is feasible that one could bypass the Wall, most of the freezing landscape of the lands beyond the Wall in favour of the dark yet warmer subterranean tunnel.
“…Come now. It is warmer down deep, and no one will hurt you there. He is waiting for you.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran II.
The biggest difficulty will be knowing which way to go once down there.
The Blind Spot
Jojen’s eyes were a dark green, the color of moss, but heavy with a weariness that Bran had never seen in them before. The little grandfather. South of the Wall, the boy from the crannogs had seemed to be wise beyond his years, but up here he was as lost and frightened as the rest of them. Even so, Meera always listened to him.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran I.
We hear nothing of the underground cave system on the North-side of the Wall until Bran and his friends reach the abode of the Last Greenseer, Brynden ‘Bloodraven’ Rivers. Instead, throughout the journey from the Wall to the cave, Jojen’s input as the self-appointed ‘spirit guide’ for the team diminishes significantly and he grows weaker and less vocal than before. Moreover, it appears that Jojen’s “sight” is no longer providing him with hints as to where they need to go and what to do.
Buried under drifts of snow, the round stone houses could just as easily have been boulders or hillocks or fallen logs, like the deadfall that Jojen had mistaken for a building the day before, until they dug down into it and found only broken branches and rotting logs.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran I.
This may imply Jojen is no longer receiving visions of the path forward in his dreams. Bran and Meera are used to following Jojen’s instructions, albeit reluctantly at times, hence why they probably investigated the deadfall in the first place. Though Jojen is weak he is resolved to reach the three-eyed crow and offset Meera’s concern for his welfare and her hesitancy to obey Coldhands.
While Meera was always willing to give Jojen the benefit of the doubt prior to their journey beyond the Wall, she was more argumentative towards Jojen south of the Wall. Her reason for taking Jojen so seriously could be for numerous reasons. One reason might be due to cultural sensitivity as the crannogmen appear to have a society similar to the Children of the Forest where green seers – and presumably those with green sight – were considered the “wise men”. Another possibility is that her father, Howland Reed, told her to take Jojen’s advice seriously as there are hints that Meera may have been often sceptical of them until recently;
“My brother has the greensight,” said Meera. “He dreams things that haven’t happened, but sometimes they do.”
“There is no sometimes, Meera.” A look passed between them; him sad, her defiant.
A Clash of Kings, Bran IV.
Now, perhaps because of Jojen’s recent run of success, she is relying on Jojen’s supposed greater wisdom and is made all the more anxious by the fact that he is essentially coming up blank.
“Why won’t this three-eyed crow come to us? Why couldn’t he meet us at the Wall? Crows have wings. My brother grows weaker every day. How long can we go on?”
Jojen coughed. “Until we get there.”
[…]
Bran thought that Meera meant to argue [with Coldhands] until her brother said, “Do as he says. He knows this land.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran I.
What Jojen says comes from his own inner wisdom, not his dreams. He is undoubtedly wiser and in some ways more mature than his big sister. With the deadfall, he was going by sight and instinct, two things by his own admission he lacks compared to Meera. My sister is a hunter… [she] has sharp ears, keen eyes, a steady hand with net and spear. (ASoS, Bran I). Her instinct is to mistrust Coldhands and her reasons are numerous: partly because she has sensed something is “off” about him (i.e. his “deadness”, which she and Bran suss out between them) but it is also because she is convinced – and might very well be correct – that Coldhands is going in circles.
“That river we crossed this morning is the same one we crossed four days ago, I swear. We’re going in circles.”
“Rivers turn and twist,” Bran said uncertainly, “and where there’s lakes and hills, you need to go around.”
“There’s been too much going around,” Meera insisted, “and too many secrets. I don’t like it. I don’t like him. And I don’t trust him.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran I.
It would be easy to dismiss Meera’s concerns as her simply being mistaken. There are folks east of the river that flows by Craster’s Keep, so, if Coldhands led them in a straight line they would likely need to cross both. However, Meera’s awareness of her surroundings is nothing to be scoffed at and her concern over Coldhands’s choices is understandable.
For what it is worth, there is no suggestion that Coldhands wishes any ill-will against Bran’s companions and, if anything, acknowledges the importance of Meera as a defender. “You’ll stay.” he tells her as he leaves to face the mutineers, “The boy must be protected.” (ADwD, Bran I.) He also seems to acknowledge that she has a good sense of direction since he provides instruction for her to “turn north” to find the refuge point. Therefore, if Coldhands has been leading them in circles, he probably knows it hasn’t escaped her attention — though Jojen’s counsel will ensure she follows his orders.
Despite her senses tingling so profusely, Jojen appeals to her common sense; that they must remain with Coldhands because there literally is no other option. He has no dream to speak of and can only appeal to Coldhands as, literally, their only hope of survival;
“Jojen, did you dream this?” Meera asked her brother. “Who is he? What is he? What do we do now?”
“We go with the ranger,” said Jojen. “We have come too far to turn back now, Meera. We would never make it back to the Wall alive. We go with Bran’s monster, or we die.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran I.
The reason for this might be surprisingly simple — the Wall.
It is stated plainly that the Wall “is more than just ice and stone,” and does, in fact, have “spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong.” (ASoS, Bran IV.) They prevented Coldhands from passing the Wall and appear to have interfered with Jon and Ghost’s magical bond. When Jon was forced to leave Ghost behind beyond the Wall, their connection was severed and their ability to feel one another was gone. It was only once Ghost himself returned to the Wall that Jon felt his presence again. (ASoS, Jon XII.) Therefore, we can hypothesise that perhaps the magic that was sending Jojen his dreams or even keeping him healthy could not reach him while he was travelling overland beyond the Wall. While it might be a stretch to argue that Jojen’s life-support is reliant on him not having a massive ice Wall in the way, it is certainly worth considering.
Jojen’s lack of dreams and deterioration might be down to the physical toils on his body. While there is no real indication that he is particularly sickly, (unlike the television adaptation Jojen does not suffer from epilepsy, though he may suffer from less severe spasms), we are told that he nearly died as a small child from a fever, which also seems to have been his magical awakening much like Bran’s fall was. “When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.” (ACoK, Bran IV). Bloodraven also later describes a typical greenseer.
Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
Fans have suggested that Bran, despite having lost the use of his legs, there is little indication that he suffers from further complications or that it has taken an overall toll on his health. In comparison, Jojen deteriorates from the wise little grandfather figure south of the Wall to a scared little boy, he is also by far the weakest member of their little pack. Originally, his dreams were his contribution. He was not a prince like Bran, nor big and strong like Hodor, nor as good a hunter as Meera, yet somehow it was always Jojen telling them what to do. (ASoS, Bran I). Yet he has lost that now, reduced to dreaming as other boys do. He is a seer who cannot dream and see the messages from the gods. In a sense, he has lost his purpose.
Until they reach the cave…
Investigating the Underground River
The last part of their dark journey was the steepest. Hodor made the final descent on his arse, bumping and sliding downward in a clatter of broken bones, loose dirt, and pebbles. The girl child was waiting for them, standing on one end of a natural bridge above a yawning chasm. Down below in the darkness, Bran heard the sound of rushing water. An underground river.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran II.
Throughout the following chapter, Bran’s final of A Dance with Dragons, there are several references to the hill under which Bran and his companions are living, the blessed warmth of the caves, the fires the singers light to ward off the cold and the vastness of the caverns;
The caves were timeless, vast, silent. They were home to more than three score living singers and the bones of thousands dead, and extended far below the hollow hill. “Men should not go wandering in this place,” Leaf warned them. “The river you hear is swift and black, and flows down and down to a sunless sea. And there are passages that go even deeper, bottomless pits and sudden shafts, forgotten ways that lead to the very center of the earth. Even my people have not explored them all, and we have lived here for a thousand thousand of your man-years.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
Leaf’s words are an attempt to warn Bran and his friends of the dangers of wandering off into the singers’ territory without truly knowing where they are going. Quite fittingly, it might remind us of Meera and Jojen’s own comments about their homeland of the Neck;
“There are no knights in the Neck,” said Jojen.
“Above the water,” his sister corrected. “The bogs are full of dead ones, though.”
“That’s true,” said Jojen. “Andals and ironmen, Freys and other fools, all those proud warriors who set out to conquer Greywater. Not one of them could find it. They ride into the Neck, but not back out. And sooner or later they blunder into the bogs and sink beneath the weight of all that steel and drown there in their armor.”
A Storm of Swords, Bran II.
The message seems to be clear; wandering in is perilous to an outsider who doesn’t know where they are going. It invokes Ygritte’s story to Jon about the children of the children of the children of Gendel’s free folk wandering about Gorne’s Way in the dark. The “light” at the end of the tunnel is the promise of that same story – that there is a path under the Wall and it is possible to navigate your way through it and emerge in the North.
Additionally, when Bran questions Leaf as to where the rest of her people are, she remarks that they have done “down into the earth… into the stones, into the trees.” (ADwD, Bran III.) We might take this to mean simply that they have died and their spirits have joined the earth, stones and trees, a concept introduced by Bloodraven and explained by Jojen earlier in the chapter). However, we could take it at face value and presume there are more singers living in the deeper recesses of the caves available to give guidance to people they are willing to assist. Again, this is much like having the support – or at least ambivalence – of Howland Reed and his crannogmen to navigate the Neck.
Meera and Jojen nonetheless defy Leaf’s warnings and decide to investigate the river themselves. It is not a stretch to presume that he insisted they take a look as had she simply wishes to satiate her curiosity, she would have gone alone, as she did with her climb of the Wall, and not take her sickly brother Jojen with her. Unfortunately, when Bran expresses the desire to go as well, Meera provides us with the problems that would need to be overcome if they ever were to take him;
Meera gave him a mournful look. The river was six hundred feet below, down steep slopes and twisty passages, she explained, and the last part required climbing down a rope. “Hodor could never make the climb with you on his back. I’m sorry, Bran.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
The first question is this – how does she know how far down the river is or the existence of the rope? Did Leaf tell her? Did Jojen see the rope in a dream? Has Meera already been down to check? Perhaps it is all three. It makes sense that Meera might have explored the area before allowing Jojen to go down there and if she, or Jojen, voiced this desire to Leaf she may have told them what was required to get down safely.
The second question surrounds Meera’s “mournful look”. While the obvious explanation for it would be regret over excluding Bran from what he views as a mini adventure there might be other reasons, too. If the underground river is being explored as a means of escape or route to travel home, Meera might be sad over two significant things; leaving without ‘her prince’ and the prospect of her brother’s death. Jojen has stated his “part in this is done” and so may believe that Bran is where he needs to be and is safe. Meera might not be so sure. It might be that Jojen has told her about the significance of the underground river to their journey. If he did dream of it at the Nightfort, he would have believed it significant to Bran’s mission. So, for it to have shown up in Bloodraven’s cave is an indicator that the journey is not yet over. It would certainly put Meera’s later exchange with Bran into perspective;
“He wants to go home,” Meera told Bran. “He will not even try and fight his fate. He says the greendreams do not lie […] I’d hoped that when we found your three-eyed crow… now I wonder why we ever came.”
For me, Bran thought. “His greendreams,” he said.
“His greendreams.” Meera’s voice was bitter.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
Incidentally, I have often wondered what Meera was going to say about what she’d “hoped” would happen when they found the three-eyed-crow. That it would be over? That Jojen would be saved? If Jojen wishes to return home to die, it might be she is lamenting over the pointlessness from her perspective of their journey if all they are going to do is turn around and go back again. She certainly seems tired of her life being ruled by her little brother’s greendreams.
Then, if they do intend to escape with Bran, the concern may be over how to get him down that verticle drop safely. Of course, she is unaware that Bran “often tagged along, whether they wanted him or not” by wearing Hodor’ skin. Moreover, his going with them to the underground cave might have provided the answer as to how they will lower Bran’s body down to the river if they are taking him with them;
Jojen made it down the rope easily enough, but after Meera caught a blind white fish with her frog spear and it was time to climb back up, his arms began to tremble and he could not make it to the top, so they had to tie the rope around him and let Hodor haul him up. “Hodor,” he grunted every time he gave a pull. “Hodor, hodor, hodor.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
Bran-Hodor could very easily lower himself – and Jojen, if need be – down to the bottom using the rope before climbing down himself. Overall, a very productive investigation for the Reeds if they were going down there to spec out the place based on a dream from Jojen rather than just ideal curiosity.
If anything, the hardest part will be getting Summer down… or whether they ever will. Most likely Jon and Ghost, they will be forced to endure a separation and Summer be required to make his own way back to the Wall above ground along with his mini-wolfpack.
Bran’s Journey down the River Styx – The Conclusion
Ultimately, I believe Jojen has already dreamed of the significance of the underground river in Bloodraven’s cave. At the time of seeing it, he was looking for a way through the Wall yet by looking at the history of his dreams, he tends to pick up the messages a while before they happen. He dreamed of the winged-wolf while still at Greywater Watch; of the “sea” coming to Winterfell, and of Ramsay-Reek killing and skinning the faces of “Bran” and “Rickon” weeks before Theon even returned to Winterfell.
Given it would have taken them several weeks to reach Bloodraven it is reasonable to presume whatever is sending Jojen his dreams – whether it is Bloodraven himself or something south of the Wall – wished to inform him of the underground river before he entered the “blind spot” beyond the Wall.
Upon reaching Bloodraven’s cave, Jojen appears to recover from the ordeals of the journey there “but he seemed sadder now, sullen, with a weary, haunted look about the eyes.” (ADwD, Bran III.) It is unclear whether he has begun to dream once again though it would make sense if they did. In the safety of the cave, he is close to the weirwood roots that stretch all over Westeros, linking him back up to the south of the Wall once again. Now he below the foundations of the magical Wall, its crushing influence over blocking magic is gone.
Meera’s allowing Jojen and “Hodor” to accompany her down to the underground river may indicate that she was acting on Jojen’s wishes. She “always listens” to Jojen. If he tells her the cave is important then she feels obligated to give her the benefit of the doubt. If he has finally put meaning to the old dream he had back at the Wall of the underground river, it may go a long way to why Meera is more anxious while Jojen has become more miserable.
“He wants to go home,” Meera told Bran. “He will not even try and fight his fate. He says the greendreams do not lie.”
“He’s being brave,” said Bran. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, his father had told him once, long ago, on the day they found the direwolf pups in the summer snows. He still remembered.
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
The wording does seem to suggest that Jojen’s fate, whenever it is, whatever it entails, seems to be related to the return journey to or at Greywater Watch itself. It would be fitting as Jojen’s powers awoke at home from his near death from the Greywater fever. He and his sister cannot stay indefinitely in that cave and will need to find a way back someday, with or without Bran. The underground river provides a means to get home… provided they can navigate it. Personally, I do believe Bran will leave the cave with Jojen and Meera when they go, along with Hodor. We know Bran does not need to be hooked into a weirwood tree to have his visions… and his lack of reliance on the weirwood is Bloodraven’s goal for Bran;
“Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth’s wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves.”
A Dance with Dragons, Bran III.
Despite how sinister Bloodraven seems, his intentions towards Bran truly seem to be to impart his wisdom of the greenseers to him — then get him the hell out of there. Together with mentions of the Green Men in Bran’s chapters and the established connection Howland Reed has with them it might been the God’s Eye is the final destination George R.R. Martin has in mind for Bran. Even if the intention is for Bran to remain in the cave, that would not stop him from actively aiding the Reeds and Hodor home. With Bran’s powers as a greenseer, Jojen’s dreams, Meera’s senses, Hodor’s strength and Summer perhaps making the return journey above ground, they have a better chance than we might think of finding Gorne’s Way.
However, if Bran’s final destination is the God’s Eye and the Green Men, then this might well indicate that Jojen will not be there for the end if he is due to die on his home turf of Greywater Watch, leaving it to Meera to follow in their father Howland’s footsteps and travel to the Isle with her liege in tow.
Jojen’s sadness might well be because death is near yet there is still a massive piece of the journey still to talk. He frequently reassures Meera “This is not the day I die.” So, his apparent knowledge of when he will die seems to have acted like a talisman or good-luck-charm to get him through the tough trials he has faced – it gave him faith that he would make it, no matter what. Now, he ventures into unknown territory. He needs to get his sister home safely, which means facing the final chapter. The last leg is here. He thought his job was to simply get Bran to the Three-Eyed-Crow but may he realise now that is wrong and that his last job is to go home and die with the Underground River is being like his River Styx.
Scarlettpeony Writes 