Gared did not rise to the bait.He was an old man,past fifty,and he had seen the lordings come and go.:Dead is dead: he said "we have no business with the dead""Are they dead?"Royce asked softly"what proof have we?""will saw then, if he says they are dead, that's proof enough for me"

Wukk gad known they would drag him into the quarrel sooner or later .He wished it had been later rather than sooner"My mother told me that dead men sing no songs"he put in."My wet nursse said the same thing,Will"Royce replied"Never believe anything you hear at a woman's tit,There are things to be learned even from the dead"His voice echoed,too loud in the twilit forest"We have a long ride before us"Gared pointed out :Eight days maybe nine, and night is falling:Ser Waymar Royce glanced at the sky with disinterest."It does that every day about this time,Are you unmanned by the dark ?"

Will could see the tightness around Gared's mouth , the barely syppressed anger in his eyes under the thick bkacj hood of this cloak.Gared had spent 40years in the Night;s Watch,man and boy, and he was not accoustomed to being made light of,Yet it was more than that,under the wounded prode, will could sense something else in the older man, you could taste it, a nervous tension that came perilously close to fear

Will shared his unease .He had been 4 years on the Wall.The first time he had been sent beyond , all the old stories had come rushing back, and his bowels had turned to water , he had laughed about it afterward.He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and the endless dark wilderness that the southron called the haunted forest had no mre tettors for him.Unytil tonight,Something was different tonight,There was an edge to this darkness that made his hackles rise,nine days they had been riding north and northweat and hthen north again,farther and farther from the wall , hard on the rteack of a band of wilding raiders,each day had been worse than the day that had come before it , Today was the worst of all,a could wind was blowing out of the north , abd it nade the trees rustlelike living things, alll daym Wukk gad felt as though somehing were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not,Gared had felt it too, will wanted nothing so much as to rede hellbent for the safety of the Wall , but that was not a feeling to share with your commander

Especially not a commander like this one 

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs, hewas a handsome youth of 18,grey-eyed and grace ful nad selender as a knife .Mounted on this huge black destrier,the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons,He wore black leather boots,black wooden pants,black moleskin gloves,and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and biled leather,Ser Waymar had been aSworn Brother of the Night's Watch for less than half a year,but no one could say he had not prepared for this vovation,At least insofar as his wardrebe was concerned. His clock was his crowning glorymsable, think and black and soft as sin,"bet he killed them all himself Gared told the barracks over wine , twisterd theri little heads off, our mighty warrior"They had all shared the laugh

it is hard to take orders  from a man you laughed at in your cups,Wukk refkected as he sat shivering atop his garron,Gared must have felt the same.

:Mormont said as we should track them , and we did,:They;re dead , They shan't reuble us no more.there;s hard riding before us,I don;t kike this weather,If it snoows,we could be a fortnight getting back, and snow;s the best we can hope fir , ever seen an ice storm.my lord?