'I'm taking a look down from my gates and who should ride up out of the past?' Bethod called to him. 'The Bloody-Nine! Would you believe it? I'd organise a feast, but we've no food to spare in here!' He stood there, at the parapet, high up above the doors, fists on the stone. He didn't sneer. He didn't smile. He didn't do much of anything.

'If it ain't the King o' the Northmen!' Logen shouted up. 'Still got your golden hat, then?'

Bethod touched the ring round his head, the big jewel on his brow glittering with the setting sun. 'Why wouldn't I have?'

'Let me see…' Logen looked left and right, up and down the bare walls. 'Just that you've got shit all left to be King of, far as I can tell.'

'Huh. I reckon we're both feeling lonely. Where are your friends, Bloody-Nine? Those killers you liked around you. Where's the Thunderhead, and Grim, and the Dogman, and that bastard Black Dow?'

'All done with, Bethod. Dead, up in the mountains. Dead as Skarling. Them and Littlebone, and Goring, and Whitesides, and plenty more besides.'

Bethod looked grim at that. 'Not much to cheer about, if you're asking me. That's some useful men gone back to the mud, one way or another. Some friends of mine, and some of yours. There never is a happy outcome with we two, is there? Bad as friends, and worse as enemies. What did you come here for, Ninefingers?'

Logen sat there, for a moment, thinking of all the other times he'd done what he had to do now. The challenges he'd made, and their outcomes, and there were no happy memories among that lot. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he's reluctant. But there was no other way. 'I'm here to make a challenge!' he bellowed, and the sound of it echoed back from the damp, dark walls and died a slow death in the misty air.

Bethod tipped back his head and laughed. A laugh without much joy in it, Logen reckoned. 'By the dead, Ninefingers, but you never change. You're like some old dog no one can stop from barking. Challenge? What have we got left to fight over?'

'I win, you open the gates and belong to me. My prisoner. I lose, the Union pack up and sail for home, and you're free.'

Bethod's smile slowly faded and his eyes narrowed, suspicious. Logen knew that look from way back. Turning over the chances, sorting through the reasons why. 'That sounds like a golden offer, considering the fix I'm in. Hard to believe it. What's in it for your Southern friends up there?'

Logen snorted. 'They'll wait, if they have to, but they don't much care about you, Bethod. You're nothing to them, for all your bluster. They kicked your arse across the North already and they reckon you'll not be bothering them again either way. If I win, they get your head. If I lose, they can go home early.'