The law was clear, deserting the Night's Watch was a capital crime.
Every lord of the Seven Kingdoms was duty-bound to capture and execute deserters.
In the North especially, where the Stark family and their bannermen held deep ties to the Watch, there was no room for mercy.
Unless a man fled north to join the wildlings, his fate as a runaway was sealed.
But Rynar wanted to rid himself of the black cloak to escape humanity's true enemies, there was no way he'd run further north.
Heading south, however… if he was truly determined to flee, then he had to be prepared.
First, a good horse. Then, travel rations, a change of clothes to ditch the black, and, most crucially, the right timing.
He would have to move fast, evade all villages and settlements, and vanish before anyone noticed. If he could just make it through the Neck and out of the North, he'd be halfway free.
From there, it was a straight ride to the safer, warmer South. The further he got, the less the southern lords would care about the Night's Watch.
Once in fertile lands like the Riverlands or the Reach, all he needed was a place that would accept him without questioning his past, and he could begin a new life in this world.
The plan was simple, clear.
The problem was, in an age where travel was perilous and rare, where he stood out with his foreign face and had no legal identity, pulling it off without a hitch was,
Too hard.
Rynar shook his head, brushing the thoughts away. This wasn't the time to dwell on such things.
The soft thuds of hooves pressing into snow filled the silence around them.
The branches above thickened, blotting out the sun. They were now deep within the vast boreal forest that stretched far north of the North.
"Damn wildlings," muttered Gared. "The colder it gets, the busier they become."
"They wouldn't be wildlings if they knew how to keep still," Rynar replied, flicking a few stray snowflakes off his sleeve.
Due to a shortage of both men and supplies, and to keep the wildlings from detecting any patterns, the Night's Watch had long abandoned regular patrols in favor of a more flexible, unpredictable schedule.
Just the other night, a ranger on the Wall had reported firelight a few leagues north of the Wall.
That was all it took for the Lord Commander and First Ranger to send out this patrol.
Otherwise, they would've been done with morning drills by now and comfortably warming themselves by the fire.
"No more chatter," Ser Waymar Royce said coolly, without turning his head. "Fan out, left and right. Keep your eyes sharp. Miss nothing."
Will and Gared shrugged in unison, exchanging silent grimaces behind the young officer's back.
Among the four of them, the oldest was Gared, then Will, followed by Rynar. The youngest was Waymar, and yet he was the one giving orders.
Naturally, none of the others were thrilled about that.
Ser Waymar Royce, a young noble from the Vale, was the third son of the Lord of Runestone.
With little chance of inheritance, he had chosen to take the black, escorted all the way to Castle Black by his father himself, with an entire cart of luggage in tow.
The sight had become a favorite subject of drunken jokes among the Watch.
Ser Waymar Royce, gallant knight of the realm, looked more like a pampered tourist than a man coming to serve.
The Watch liked to say that every brother stood equal, bound by the same oath and duty.
But how equal could it be, when a boy barely off his mother's teat was suddenly leading veterans on patrol?
This was Waymar's first time leading a team, and truth be told, how could the others possibly respect that?
Still, complaints aside, discipline held. The three veterans split and moved forward in a line, sweeping the woods for any signs of trouble.
They didn't have to search long. Near the spot where the sentries had spotted the firelight, they found clear signs of human presence.
The snow hadn't fallen the previous day, and the wildlings' footprints and the ash from their fires were still fresh.
"They're gone," Gared said, glancing at Waymar, hesitation in his eyes.
The Night's Watch was born after the Long Night, a brutal winter that lasted an entire generation.
The White Walkers had descended from the far north, sweeping through the realms of the First Men, nearly wiping humanity from existence.
When the darkness finally broke, the Wall and the black-cloaked brotherhood were founded to stand against the return of such terrors.
Back then, joining the Watch had been one of the highest honors on the continent. The requirements were strict, but volunteers were many.
But after the White Walkers retreated to the icy wastes of the far north, and the last of the Long Night generation died out, the Watch's glory began to fade.
The threat they were formed to fight had seemingly vanished, and with it, so too did their prestige.
Still, for a long time, the Wall remained the last line of defense against the wildlings, keeping the Watch relevant.
But a single event finally dealt a fatal blow to their status, the coming of Rynaron the Conqueror and the rise of the Targaryen dynasty.
The dragons changed everything.
Though the Targaryens never moved against the Watch, their dragons made the Wall almost obsolete.
During one particularly large wildling incursion, the king had simply flown north and incinerated them. The threat ended overnight.
After that, people began to wonder, why bother with the Watch at all? If the wildlings ever returned, just send a dragon.
Nobles and knights no longer wished to waste their lives in service to a fading cause. Recruitment dwindled.
Standards were lowered. And over the centuries, the Night's Watch slowly decayed into the state it was in now.
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."
Stirring words, powerful, noble. But how many knew that this vow hadn't always sounded like this? That it had been revised time and again? And behind each revision, how much quiet sorrow and resignation?
The Targaryen dragons were long gone now. So were the dragonlords.
But the Watch never recovered. These days, they were less a military order and more a glorified maintenance crew keeping the Wall from crumbling.
With fewer than a thousand men left, the members of the Night's Watch generally fell into three categories.
The first group, Rynar's group, were criminals: thieves, poachers, rapists, and worse.
Men once considered beneath even speaking the Watch's name now made up its backbone.
For them, the Watch was a life sentence. Their only way out was desertion, and death.
The second group were men who had nowhere else to go. Disgraced nobles, exiled officials, bankrupt merchants, destitute farmers, and fatherless bastards.
Technically, these men could leave before taking their vows, but in truth, they had no place to return to. The Watch's stewards, craftsmen, and scribes largely came from this group.
The third, smallest group included men like Ser Waymar Royce. Volunteers.
Men who came out of a sense of honor or to avoid internal family strife, young nobles who gave up claims for the good of their kin.
Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, First Ranger Benjen Stark, and even Maester Aemon Targaryen, who'd turned his back on the throne, were all such men.
They were often promoted straight into leadership roles, which some saw as unfair.
But really, what choice was there? Would anyone seriously place command in the hands of murderers and thieves?
In this remote, kingless corner of the realm, if the officers weren't men of noble blood, what would the Watch become?
The Night's Watch of legend and reality were worlds apart, and once the cold truly sank in, youthful passion turned to bitter regret.
Ser Waymar Royce was no exception. At this moment, he was practically drowning in remorse. No one had forced him to come.
He'd been inspired by the oath, and wanted to prove to his beloved older brother that he had no interest in inheritance. He'd come willingly.
But now the words had been spoken, the vows taken. Even if he had the shamelessness to crawl back home, his family would never welcome him publicly.
All he could do now was earn distinction, earn the right to request a visit home. If he could prove himself, maybe he wouldn't be seen as a coward who ran from hardship.
The young ranger captain circled the abandoned wildling camp on horseback, thinking for only a moment before making his call.
"There weren't many of them. Follow the tracks. We pursue."