First Draft/Introduction

I realise this is a long way from being complete. I had no trouble starting the story, and I can visualise the climax, I'm just not sure how to get there yet.  I need to focus on structuring the plot and maybe planning the events that will fill out the story. 

What I did to begin with was take the character of Styr, and attempt to portray his situation and emotions. In the original Game of Thrones Styr is a wildling, meaning that he is portryaed as savage and his ambitions are overlooked in favour of the lords of the Seven Kingdoms. 

The snow continued to fall, swirling about them as they trudged through the ankle deep sludge. Clogging their hair and beards with a thick white coating, soaking through their furs and chilling them to the bone. How long they had walked Styr didn’t know, but he was determined to hide his discomfort from his men.

                “Come on lads, another mile and we’ll be over that ridge. We’ll rest then”, he barked over his shoulder. His order was met with little more than a few grunts, and the continued shuffling of weary feet.

Despite the cold and exhaustion, Styr felt a certain sense of eager anticipation. A few days more and they would reach the Wall. Miles long and hundreds of feet high, the huge mass of ice that was both beautiful and menacing to any who looked upon it. Just like his men, he’d grown up hearing about it, the barrier that prevented their freedom. On the other side of the Wall lay the Seven Kingdoms; a land of royalty, riches and knights. He imagined himself in fine clothing, relishing in the company of lords. He fantasised of feasting in a grand hall, glowing with candlelight and ringing with merry laughter. It was as foreign to Styr as any alien land, yet it longed to behold it. The frozen wasteland surrounding him now provided no pleasure, only freezing death and hopelessness.  

Already, a number of his men had collapsed into the snow, unable to carry on. The biting cold and the malnutrition weakening them with each passing moment. Styr felt for them. He knew they longed for their cosy huts with their roaring fires. And the kind of warmth that only a wife can provide. But the horrifying truth was that wilderness was no longer safe.

                A tinkling laugh somewhere behind made Styr turn, distracted from his thoughts. Ygritte. He could distinguish her even through her furs, that confident gait and flame-red hair swirling about in the breeze. There could only be one person making her smile that way. Styr felt a surge of distaste as he glimpsed Jon Snow, a few paces behind her. Although his men may had learned to trust the turncloak deserter, Styr was struggling to trust him. In his opinion Jon was a coward and a fool. Leaving the Night’s Watch was punishable by death. The black-clad warriors who defended the Wall were unyielding when it came to loyalty and honour. And if this green bastard boy was to be believed, he had turned on his brothers without a backward glance.