BAM! BAM! BAM!

"What's the problem?"

Men were packed tooth to jowl in the tight tunnel, waiting to go around one last bend from around which the far far too loud hammering sound echoed out of.

"Door's jammed."

"Probably hasn't been used in decades."

"If only more Hands had been interested in whores."

"Should've brought the Greatjon, he'd smash it in right quick."

"He's too big to squeeze down this hole."

"Hey, that's what the wife says about me."

Sean shared in the laughter that followed the unseen man's jape. The narrow space was uncomfortably close and the air fetid, stifling; not to mention very, very dark. Nerves were fraying from the tension. The actor felt his own belly tightening, like opening night on stage. But part of him took refuge in that tonight's experience could never be as horrible as his first battle.

"Stop. Stop." Sean muttered with alarm, instantly losing all thought of his Henry V, Act III, Scene I speech. Ahead, his meager reserve of hard, foul Northmen were moving downhill without him. He pressed the already winded garron faster across the uneven, flinty soil of the hill's slope, curving to catch up with them. But they were angling way from the actor turned warlord, tired feet slowly picking up momentum as they desperately charged towards the Lannisters starting to break through a widening seam as best Sean could discern between the longaxes of Barrowton and the metal fists of the Deepwood. He wouldn't make it time. 'Would it have even mattered? What can one man do?' he thought futilely, envisioning the end; even his untrained eye could see the Northern forces were stretched too far.

Anger and shame began to swell within him. He should have ordered them all to retreat to the Twins in the first place and used not Rich's certain victories to leverage some sort of peace. Better that than disaster and ruin. Sean realized he'd been fooling himself these last two weeks that an actor, not a seasoned general, not a god damned real life hero, could single handedly rewrite history. And what a history at that; a dark, twisted, brutal, stupid, pointless thing written by George's bloody hand. "What hubris! What utter pride!" he spat in a fury of disgust. "Only vaulting ambition, which o'er leaps itself; And falls on th' other!" he roared.

'Th'Others, how fucking ironic. If Shakespeare'd ever known about these he'd have shit himself when he wrote that. And I thought I could bloody stop'em. Stop them all. Ha!' he bemoaned. And now the doughty, ribald, exhausted, loyal men of the Last Hearth finally began to stumble head long into the narrow front of warhorses pressing against the thinnest spot in the tattered Northern line. A horse squealed in terror. A knight fell. Then another. The Westerlanders advance seemed to stall. Hope … no. A trumpet blew, da-DA da-DA da-DAAAAAAAAA! From within the confused mass some unseen standard bearer shook an enormous golden lion crouched on a field of blood high in the sky until in answer to the summons a veritable mountain, the only thing larger than an unchained giant, plummeted to earth wreaking havoc.

Through the swirls of red and gold figures a titan glad only in drab grey hard used steel plated bulled his even bigger horse to the tip of the attacking wedge. One handed Gregor Clegane swung a greatsword like it was no heavier than a twig. A head flew through the air. An entire torso dropped to the ground while a pair of legs remained upright. The line shifted, bulged, and the enemy started to grind forward again. More and more Northermen tumbled down lifeless or maimed. The makeshift barricade of flesh and blood collapsed. A magnificent figure in deep crimson armor and a gold cloth cape rode through the growing hole practically untouched.

Instinctively Sean turned the little mountain horse straight towards where Tywin Lannister led huge destriers in trampling over his men and slaying those still left standing with remorseless steel. His Men! His Dying Men! He owed it to them to be there with them at the end. He clenched the sword tighter and mercilessly drove spurs into the garron's already bleeding flanks. Closer and closer he rode. And through a rage mottled face Sean began to speak words he'd memorized long before he e'er became an actor. Words honoring the pointless chivalry of home, of England. "Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred. 'Forward, the Light Brigade!' 'Charge for the guns!' he said: into the valley of Death rode the six hundred," he began to recite.

He came upon the first. A thick axe head thundered out to split him in twain. The little garron somehow found within its sturdy self enough pluck left to dodge a step further away from the side of the foeman's bulkier mount. The actor ducked low, just avoiding the decapitating strike, and jabbed out his own sharp steel, feeling the slight hesitation as the ringmail barding on the horse's side resisted and then yielded. Blood splashed out as Sean yanked back his blade. "'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew someone had blunder'd: theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die," he chanted, though the tumult drowned out the noble sentiments from even his own ears.

CLANG!

Sword met sword and just like that the two armor clad warriors swept past each other. "… storm'd at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell rode the six hundred."

A dismounted red cloak stood up groggily from over a northerner he'd just dispatched, gory swathed dagger clutched in gauntleted hand. Sean brought his sword back around, striking a glancing blow off the unsuspected bastard's helm. BONK! At least the bastard got knocked back to his knees. "Flash'd all their sabres bare, flash'd as they turn'd in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wonder'd," he screamed, tears streaking down his face as he rode to his doom.

CRACK!

An ungodly weight pitched into no longer quite Sean's chest, catapulting him out of the saddle of his wee beast of burden. He crashed to earth in an aching jumble. Before he knew anything a horse hoof clipped his shoulder, flipping him over again. Then something drilled him in the back, pinning him down. Yet on and on he continued to mutter in a pained, dazed whisper, "cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them volley'd and thunder'd; storm'd at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell …" He swallowed blood and mucus and dust. "… they that had fought so well came thro' the jaws of Death back from the mouth of Hell, all that was left of them, …" His eyelids flickered. His eyelids closed.

CRASH!

"Hurry!" voices cried eagerly.

Sean didn't think it possible, but the pressure on him from behind increased even more at the promised relief with the exit being breached. It took nearly five minutes for the one hundred and fifty or so men in front of him to push their way out of confinement. Not Ned upon squeezing out the disguised door in tandem with another found himself in a storage room; the floor wet with wine from the broken, over turned barrel that had been blocking the secret entrance. A man-at-arms holding a torch stood by the door out of the store room impatiently grumbling, "come on, come on," over and over again. The actor went where he was directed.

He followed a corridor past door after door, the stomping of those ahead of him and the occasional flicker of torch or lantern light showing where he needed to go. He turned a corner and found another torch sporting man left stationed to guide the haphazard procession. This one pointed and shoved people through an archway which led into a stairwell. Three entire upward revolutions Sean made until he broke out above ground into the circular hall forming the first floor of the tower they were apparently in.

"Step ahead, step through," a third man at arms said, blocking the stairs that went up higher into the tower. "The rest of you are to follow the King," he announced.

When Ser Olyvar came out of the lower stairs, not Ned grabbed his aide's arm and pulled him over to that obstructed set of stairs. "This one goes up too," he ordered.

"Milord?" the man-at-arms questioned.

"He goes," Sean insisted, drawing forth his most commanding Ned look.

"Come on then," the man muttered unhappily, stepping aside enough to let Olyvar through.

The ringing in his ears wouldn't stop. His eyes opened. Blackness everywhere. Something numbing and persistent drove against his face. Icy discomfort seeped up into him from what he lay on. The discomfort began to focus his mind. He realized he should be in more pain, much more pain, than this. After a while, he noted the ringing was actually two separate yet strangely complimentary parts. A constant wind and …

"When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered."

A pair of voices recited the verse; opposites, but in harmony.

"Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred."

Tennyson ended. The frigid wind remained. He knew not what any of it meant.

"Get up mate," a vaguely familiar voice called out at last. "You're not dead yet."

"Yeah, don't prove those Internet trolls right," came a second voice, an American accented one.

He pushed down with his hands, pressing them into rock hard ice covered by a thin layer of gravel. The darkness didn't seem quite so dark now. He stood. "Whoooa!" he yelled. Vertigo gripped him. He wobbled at the edge of a great fucking height. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back, and turned him around.

"Good to see you again Sean," said one a ways off standing close by a torch.

He knew that face!

"How's that armor working out for you?" chuckled the closer one, hand still on him, but whose face was blocked from the torch light by the actor's presence.

"Clint? Harry?" he asked in amazement.

They shrugged their shoulders.

Sean stared around. They stood on a frozen ice path wide enough to drive a lorry down. Empty space floated on either side. Something darker, lower, and very massive could be seen far away in the distance. It might have been the ground. "Is this the Wall?"

"If you like," Harry answered.

"Or is this happening all in my head?"

"Who the hell cares?" responded Clint.

"Why are you talking to me?"

Clint laughed. "Were you expecting a three eyed raven instead?"

"Oh give the man a break, he's been through a rough patch," chastised Harry in a light tone.

Clint snorted, "Which is why I asked, 'how's that armor working out for you?'"

"Not so well as I'd hoped," he answered with sarcastic understatement.

"Fuck that, nothing wrong with it." And Clint tapped him hard on the chest, causing the steel plate to sing.

"Which is why we are wondering why you are here," Harry commented. "Don't you want to live?"

"Of course I do!" Sean snapped, anger starting to warm his insides. "I'm in fucking Westeros! Do you think it's easy!?"

"Then choose," Harry commanded.

"Choose bloody what!?" the actor yelled.

"Fight or die," Clint whispered. And then the American's strong hand gave the actor a mighty shove.

Off into the darkness he plunged, full of icy fear and fiery anger.

Sean surged out of the tower into the raw, brisk night following the mass of warriors accompanying the King. The soaring outer walls of the Red Keep, almost shadows in the darkness, rose up behind him in a V-shape while in front lay a few sparsely lit outbuildings squatting abut to a massive structure, the Great Hall; home to the Iron Throne. The Blackfish and pale Roose kept pace beside the actor, all their breaths now visible as they jogged through the chill air; while the unmistakable shape of Grey Wind, most likely accompanied by Robb, could be spotted ahead, close to the leading wave of Baratheon men-at-arms. Slowing down, the actor craned his neck to look up where he spotted an oddly shaped black mass rushing along the top of the wall in the direction, he supposed, of the main gate. Shifting his gaze he squinted the opposite way, but could discern no movement towards the towers rising out of the massive walls in the other direction, one of which had to be the Rookery. 'Godspeed Olyvar,' he prayed.

"Lord Stark, with me!" cried the King's voice through the darkness, oblivious to the carrying sound as he closed in on his bitter heart's desire.

Sean jerked his attention back closer to the earth. "Yes, your Grace. Coming," not Ned replied much more softly, dutifully quickening his pace to try and catch up to the driven, obsessed man. 'Why does he want me close?' he wondered suspiciously.

A half dozen men at arms dropped out of the rush to secure the servants in the kitchens and work shacks adjoining the outside of the Great Hall; the smallfolk were already awake in the pre-dawn hours preparing the garrisons morning meal. Then nearly fifty figures, a lad from Sheffield among them, started to slip into the monstrous sized edifice through an unguarded side door.

Inside, Sean found himself not far from the foot of the steps that separated the last forty feet of the Throne Room, the royal platform, from the rest of the length of the Great Hall. A few torches burned in brackets on the walls, sending weak flickers of light to pass through or bounce off the sweeping pillars which supported the vaulted roof high above. The actor suddenly found himself strangely curious as to what that 'thing' the Show had been named after actually looked liked.

He walked between two nearest pillars into the main room and let out a long whistle. 'Now that's a fucking Throne Of Swords!' he thought. The 'thing' was massive, a giant hunk of twisted iron and blood thirsty blades surrounding uneven steps and a dangerous perch; not an almost cute prop built on a limited budget for the sound stage. "You'd be proud, George," he whispered. Sean spied the King already up the steps and striding across the platform; approaching his destination, his Sean Bean arranged destiny. As if by secret agreement no one followed after the tall man as he took off his helm revealing the bald pate within; they all simply stood and watched him, eyes glued to see how the spectacle would unfold.

Stannis reached the base of the monument to Aegon's conquest of Westeros. Purposefully, slowly, he took each step of the Iron Throne, coming at last to stand before its seat. The Baratheon Stag turned, revealing a look of almost religious fervor on his thin, normally pinched face. With satisfaction and care he lowered himself on to Aegon's legacy. "I am the King," he pronounced grandly.

He was face down in the dirt and something pressed into his back. He felt wind on his face. The helmet must have torn off his head in the fall. Blood trickled from some gash into an eye. He couldn't spy his sword, it certainly wasn't in his hands.

"Raise the banner again," commanded a cold, authoritative voice.

The weight left Sean. "Fight," he whispered.

"Hear me roar!" men started to shout around him.

'My dirk. I still have my dirk!' Sean scrambled to his knees, his armor barely burdening him. He looked wildly around trying to catch his bearings as his hands padded along his belt.

"Ware!" someone cried.

Sean pulled out near a foot of steel. Above him a man mounted on a destrier held a loft Tywin Lannister's personal banner. The actor plunged the dirk into the standard bearer's thigh. He yanked it out and stabbed again. Missed. The steel sank into the horse.

Immediately the war trained beast turned into the source of the blow. Shifting. Hooves stomping. Massive neck arching to bring its angry face to confront its attacker.

Something clanked off Sean's back. He had much more danger to worry about than just a ton of upset equine. Still, as he danced about to keep from being trampled he lashed out at the man-at-arms mounted above him.

TING!

The metal shod base of the banner clashed against his forearm, sending the dirk flying out of his grasp. He clutched at the thick pole.

CLANG!

A blade of sorts ricocheted off his shoulder. He felt another mounted presence looming up behind him. He shoved with all his strength and the wounded standard bearer gave way, letting go his grip on the banner so he wouldn't fall out of the saddle.

Sean whipped around, dragging the crouched golden lion through the air.

WACK!

He knocked some mounted knight or man-at-arms upside the head, startling him; while the trailing flag flapped across the horse's face, spooking the beast.

He dodged backward to avoid the rearing creature.

"You! Stark!" a voice bellowed in surprise and anger.

Sean snapped his head around. Not twenty feet away the Old Lion in crimson and gold bestrode a horse.

"WINTERFELLLLLLLLLLL!" He screamed. And as if someone else took hold of his body, Sean lowered the banner and charged with it point first straight at Tywin Lannister.

KA-TANG!

The Lord of Casterly Rock thick thighs tightened on his destrier's flanks. He dropped his sword and fluttered his arms like a bird trying to take flight, desperate to regain his balance.

Without a thought Sean let go the banner and ran straight to his foe's side. He grabbed at spur and boot, lifting, lifting, lifting. The Old Lion toppled.

Sean bent over to pick up the fallen gold hued sword and came back up roaring "WINTERFELLLLLLLL!" again.

Suddenly a mad scramble developed as Westerland knights and men-at-arms scrambled off their mounts to try and retrieve their fallen lord. Sean lashed out with his stolen blade again and again and again at the gathering foemen. Still, discretion was the better part of valor, so he fell back as quickly as he could from the developing red and gold scrum toward friendlier colors.

Haroooooooooooooooooooo!

Haroooooooooooooooooooo!

Haroooooooooooooooooooo!

More and more warhorns blew.

Along the entire length of the inter-joined lines a visceral moan arose. Metal creaked and clanged and both halves of the serpentine beast on either side of the cut took a halting step northward, down the slope, down toward the foot of the hill, down toward the Lannister camp.

From seemingly nowhere grey and brown and green clad men of the North rushed past Sean and flung themselves at the knot of Westerlanders withdrawing on foot with their liege back through the gap. Off their mounts, the heavily armored lordlings, knights, and chosen men-at-arms suddenly found themselves at the disadvantage from their equally tired, but more limber opponents.

The Mountain tried to lead a countercharge until his hamstrung horse collapsed under him and the titan in the three black dogs surcoat was swarmed under by unchained giants, mailed fists, and long axes until it barked no more.

DA-da Da-da Da-daaaaaaaaaa!

The line shifted and moved northward again. And again.

The actor found a riderless horse. He grabbed the reins and pulled himself, barely, into the saddle. With a bit of height he could see figures in leather baring short swords and hand axes and simple knives pouring out of the woods to take the Westerlanders in the flanks.

DA-da Da-da Da-daaaaaaaaaa!

Haroooooooooooooooooooo!

The Northmen's primeval screams started to take on a unified shout. "Lord Ned! Lord Ned! Lord Ned!"

The pushed northward again.

And then the Westerlanders cracked. In ones and twos, then by the dozen, they turned and ran.

Sean whopped and twirled his Lannister forged sword and screamed as the foe fled. The route was on and he had a front row seat to watch his triumph.

"Just cause your bony arse sits on the throne, doesn't make you King!" a sarcastic voice suddenly shouted out from the far end of the Great Hall. Heads spun in shock to spy the source of the blasphemy. Jaime Lannister stood cockily amongst a score and a half of red cloaked and gold cloaked men. "I ought to know, I sat there once, didn't I Stark!"

"Charge!" bellowed the Blackfish, breaking the spell of arrogance and superiority cast by the Kingslayer.

"Die, Kingslayer!" screamed Rickard Karstark, being the first to charge.

Grey Wind hollowed his own challenge.

The opposing forces, swords, axes, and polearms drawn, swept towards each other and in seconds the sound of steel beating on steel filled the room.

Sean hung back, holding a long sword in sweaty hands, not eager to rush into the deadly melee no matter how well protected his body was. Soon the first body fell, arm near chopped off in a flash by not Ned's former prisoner. 'How the fuck did he happen to be here?!' he wondered in amazement; quickly followed by, 'I wish I'd have brought a shield!' as he heard the twang of bowstring and the "woosh" of bolts.

"Lord Stark, with me!" shouted the King for the second time in less than five minutes as he trotted past not Ned toward the fighting.

"Your Grace, let your loyal banners win this," the actor pleaded.

"Robert won the crown with his hammer, I would have none think I did any less," Stannis proclaimed proudly, not stopping. And soon the Stag was busy chopping away at a gold cloak who did carry a shield.

"Shit," Sean grumbled, knowing what he had to do in spite of his fears. In a moment not Ned was beside the King, hacking away for his life and that of Westeros.

The pair kept the guardsman occupied until Sean forced him to turn his shield so far aside that Stannis could skewer through the chainlinks in his armpit, rupturing arteries, muscles. and a lung.

Something rushed towards the King. Sean instinctively threw his hip into the exposed Stannis, knocking the Stag aside, while not Ned interposed his blade in the way of the Kingslayer's stroke.

K-TANG-tang-tang!

The actor's clammy hand nearly lost hold of his sword, spark's flying off it where Jaime Lannister's long dark blade screeched across it.

With ridiculous speed the Kingslayer brought the grey, smoky colored greatsword he swung back around in a two handed grip at not Ned' head.

Sean desperately whipped his arm around in a circle to drive his sword down atop his foe's, disrupting the Lion's aim just enough. Metal sang as chains popped off the base of the aventail resting on his neck and shoulders as the blade swept past him. 'Get inside, get inside!' he screamed to himself. Not Ned charged the Kingslayer, praying to get inside the man's reach and drive the point of his sword into the sister fucker's ball bag.

But Jaime Lannister was far too seasoned for such an obvious ploy and shifted his hips to avoid the thrust. He dropped his nearer hand off the thick greatsword to slam a forearm into not Ned's shoulder, sending him backward. "Taste cold Ice, Stark; Winter is coming!" the Lion shouted with insane glee. One handed the blood thirsty and ridiculously strong golden one flicked Valyrian steel right at the Lord of Winterfell's face.

Sean jerked his head back from the incoming blow and felt a prick in the soft flesh below his left eye. He stumbled back further still, off balance.

The Kingslayer, driven by vengeance for his father and brother, now ignored the King and relentlessly came after the Lord of Winterfell. Conveniently for the master swordsman, despite the ebb and flow of melee in the Great hall, no other fighters got in between the Lion and the Direwolf.

The actor desperately back pedaled; trying to keep his balance centered and sword raised in the semblance of a defense posture he'd first learned a decade earlier in New Zealand.

Tank. Tank. Tank.

The Lion used his blazing speed and the tip of oversized Ice to play with not Ned's sword. "Is that fear in your eyes Stark? From the man who cannot die?" he scoffed while driving his hated enemy back, back, back … almost to the foot of the stairs.

"Go fuck your slut Cersei!" he shot back. Then before the actor could blink, the Kingslayer beat his blade to the side and Ice's razor sharp Valyrian point punched into his breast plate. Sean gasped, anticipating tremendous pain and death.

Boink!

The Westeros magical steel bounced off Sean's Earthly armor. Jaime Lannister's eyes opened wide, startled by the unanticipated outcome.

'Yes!" not Ned thought exultantly. 'I'm bloody invulnerable!' Sean's blade slashed back at the surprised Lion. But not fast enough for the Kingslayer to back his blade up and take part of the attack. Still, the actor felt the edge of his sword take some sort of bite from the crazed bastard's left arm.

The Lion grunted in acknowledgement of the blow, but it barely slowed his response, a straight thrust back at the Wolf's midsection.

Now it was Sean's turn to shift his hips. The blade lightly glanced off his impenetrable side as again he stepped forward. But with his sword arm back he was too close to try and swing, so he aimed a kick at Kingslayer's happy sack. 'Missed!'

The blow nevertheless caught Jaime in the thigh and he staggered backward.

Sean feeling indestructible recklessly followed.

Something caught the corner of the Kingslayer's eye and for a second his head turned. Off balance and with Ice already behind his head, he stabbed out backward with impossible precision at some greybeard wearing the Karstark white sunburst, smoky grey steel running through the charging man's eye.

'Now!' Sean's already partially raised sword took a chop at the Lannister's now exposed neck. A dark metallic blur whirred impossibly fast towards him. Instinctively the actor screamed, "Nooooooo!"

Thunk.

A hand fell to the Throne Room's floor. Through the crimson spurting in gushes from his wrist, Sean Bean morbidly noticed his fingers jerking and wiggling on the sword pommel. 'Niko is supposed to lose a hand, not me! Not me!' part of himself thought in stunned wonderment. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHGGGGGGGGG!" The actor realized the screaming he heard was his own, though he had yet to feel any pain from his maiming.

"Die Stark!" the Kingslayer swore.

The Lion launched another lightning strike at the now defenseless actor cum Lord of Winterfell. Sean flinched and stumbled backward, turning his body away from the mortal strike as he fell over.

CLANG!

The Valyrian steel edge of Ice struck hard against the side of not Ned's movie studio inspired breast plate. Sparks flew. He grunted hitting the ground, feeling hard jolts from both the fall and the Kingslayer's immensely strong blow reverberating through the metal, across his thick doublet, and deep in his bones where it rattled.

A wolf howled.

Jaime Lannister stepped smartly back into an en garde position as something huge and furry leapt over the prostrate actor. Sean looked down at his torso and giggled; Harry and Clint's magical gift was a bit dented and scarred, but still whole after Ice's ferocious assault. 'Bastards should've given me magic vambraces and gauntlets too,' he thought with a whimper.

The stone pillars rising through the flickering torch light into the dark recesses of the Throne Room's ceiling started to pitch and swirl about Sean. Nausea swept through him. The flag stone floor tilted and spun. In the distance he heard Stannis' deep, bitter voice pierce loudly, harshly through the din of sword strokes and screams to demand their surrender to the true King. He lifted up his shattered right forearm and clutched at it weakly with his left hand, trying to stem the flow of his precious life's blood. "Not supposed to end this away," he moaned.

"Lord Stark. Lord Stark," a voice whispered impossibly loud.

He could hardly see a thing through the eddy of shadows dancing before his eyes. Then he focused and spied moon white Roose peering down at him through a small gap in the dark clouds above. 'Treacherous fuck head. I kept trying to kill you, you bastard, and now it's me,' he thought wretchedly. Sean watched as the Leech Lord, holding a small flaying knife in his hand, reached down towards him.

The vampire pale beast touched not Ned and where before there had been no pain, only shock and merciful numbness; now fire scorched up his arm and then flowing up to fill his chest with blistering agony. Snot flew from his nostrils as he writhed in torment, body flailing about on fiery tendrils mercilessly tugged by this ashen, bloodless demon from the pits of Hell. The tears and blood flowing off his face failed to quench the inferno raging within him. His limited vision shrank even further until only the happy, evil little smile of Roose Bolton filled the eyes of Sean Bean, husband, father, Yorshireman, actor, failed savior, and Internet cliché. 'God damn you George, you sick fu …'

BOOK 1: Sean Lends a Hand - FINIS!