Hardhome

Hardhome stood on Storrold's Point, tucked into a sheltered bay with a harbor deep enough to take any ship afloat, however large. Timber and stone were plentiful all around, the sea ran thick with fish, and seals and sea lions crowded the nearby shores. Of every settlement north of the Wall, it was the one place with a real chance of growing into a city.

Four tribal chiefs ruled it. One of them, Gorm the Wolf, sheltered Maester Wyllis of the Citadel for three years while the scholar studied the ways of the free folk by living among them. When Gorm was murdered, Wyllis had to return to Oldtown, where he set down what he'd seen in writing. A year after finishing his account he vanished; the last anyone saw of him, he was in the harbor looking for passage to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

Six hundred years before Mother Mole led the last survivors there, Hardhome was consumed by fire in a single night. No one agrees on what happened: some blame slavers from across the Narrow Sea who carried off the whole population; others say cannibals from Skagos crossed the sea to feed on their neighbours.

The houses and halls burned so fiercely that watchmen on the Wall thought dawn was breaking on the wrong side of the sky. For nearly half a year, ash fell over the Haunted Forest. Merchants who ventured there later found nothing but charred trunks, burnt bones and bloated corpses adrift in the water; screams that curdled the blood came from the caves in the cliff above the ruins. The Night's Watch sent a ship to check the story, and all it could do was confirm it.

Six centuries on, Hardhome still lies well off any beaten path. The free folk have settled there again, but those who venture in speak of vine-choked ruins and of spirits, demons and flaming ghosts driven mad by the taste of blood. The only shelter left is the caves in the cliff, which Night's Watch men call the Caves of the Lamented.

The fastest way there from Castle Black hugs the coast past Eastwatch-by-the-Sea; near the water the forest thins into plains, low hills and bogs.

After the battle at Castle Black, thousands of wildlings who'd escaped with their lives followed Mother Mole to Hardhome. There they waited and prayed for the rescue she'd seen in a vision: a fleet crossing the Narrow Sea to carry the free folk to safety. Mother Mole kept saying that where they'd once found ruin, this time they'd find salvation.

In Braavos, Arya Stark works out why the Sealord seized the Goodheart: the galley's hold was packed with hundreds of chained women and children out of Hardhome. Mother Mole had promised them ships bound for warmer lands, but the only ones that showed up were two Lyseni pirate vessels blown north by a storm, the Goodheart and the Elephant. With no room for so many thousands, their captains agreed to take only women and daughters — and once they'd reached open water, chained them below decks. Word in Lys was that they'd come back for more, since slave prices kept climbing, while thousands still waited at Hardhome.

Eleven ships sailed from Eastwatch to rescue those left behind: three Braavosi, four Lyseni and four of the Night's Watch, carrying twenty crows and Maester Harmune. Cotter Pyke led the fleet from Talon, with Old Tattersalt second-in-command aboard the Blackbird. Storms tore into the fleet — the Blackbird and her crew were lost, two Lyseni ships wrecked on Skane, and Talon herself began taking on water.

On shore, hunger had driven the wildlings to eat their own dead, and something no longer living moved among the trees and in the water. An attempt to seize the Storm Crow left six sailors and many wildlings dead. With the sea impossible to cross, help was asked for by land, and Jon Snow put Tormund Giantsbane in charge of that expedition.