Mutiny at Craster's Keep

After the defeat at the Fist of the First Men, the battered survivors of the Night's Watch reached Craster's Keep in the middle of a storm: of the sixty-four men who had escaped, only forty-four made it to shelter, and several would die soon after from their wounds.

Morale, already worn thin by years of forced recruitment from the worst prisons of the Seven Kingdoms, collapsed during the forced halt at the keep. Even before the Great Ranging, a group led by Chett had plotted to kill Mormont and his officers so they could desert without being hunted down, and only the attack of the Others at the Fist had stopped that first attempt; the resentment did not vanish with the defeat, it just changed scenery.

Craster held a farewell feast with the meat of slaughtered horses and barely two loaves of bread for dozens of starving men. When Ulmer asked for more and Karl the Cripple accused him of hoarding food, the wildling shot back that he had his own wives to feed, and stood up axe in hand to threaten the loudest troublemakers.

Someone called him a bloody bastard; Craster overturned the table, and in the chaos Dirk cut his throat. Lord Commander Mormont, horrified at the breaking of the laws of hospitality, tried to restore order, but Ollo Lophand stabbed him from behind while another man blocked his way. The night ended with two men dead and the Watch's authority in pieces.

While the loyal men, led by Dolorous Edd and Grenn, headed back to Castle Black to report the disaster, Samwell Tarly stayed behind with the dying Lord Commander. There were more deaths among the mutineers: Garth of Greenaway killed another brother also named Garth, and Rolley of Southshield died falling from the loft after climbing up to force himself on one of Craster's wives.

Before dying, Mormont asked Sam to carry word to the Wall of everything that had happened — the Fist, the wildlings, all of it. He also asked him to tell his son Jorah to take the black, and that he forgave him. Three of Craster's wives, among them Gilly with her baby, then gave Sam the Lord Commander's cloak and sword along with two horses, and sent him off toward the Wall, while the mutineers stayed behind gorging on the keep's stores.