Winter is here.
The sky was dark, and the air carried a biting chill that crept through the gaps in clothing and armor, making men shiver uncontrollably. Beyond the Wall, summer never truly arrived, but even so, the cold had worsened in recent months.
Snow continued to fall, blanketing the ground in an endless sheet of white. Footprints that had been clear moments ago vanished under the fresh layer, leaving nothing but an expanse of unbroken snow in every direction.
"In this gods-forsaken weather, why aren't we huddled by the fire in Castle Black?" Chett muttered angrily, kicking the female hound curled up at his feet. The dog whimpered but quickly scurried back, pressing against his legs, desperately seeking warmth. "Fuck that wight. If we bring it back, are we supposed to make soup out of it?"
"The Old Bear said we're to send the wights to King Robert—to ask for support!" Lark reminded him. "It was Aegor's idea. Didn't you pay attention during the briefing? Or were you too busy gawking at some whore?"
"Aegor again!" Chett spat. "That bastard talked his way into the south, licking that Lannister dwarf's ass to live the good life, and now he writes back to send us to die? What, did I piss on his family's graves?" His pockmarked face twisted in rage, boils reddening with the cold. "Next time he sets foot on the Wall, I swear I'll pin him down and shove a frozen stick of shit up his ass."
"Pin him down?" Edd quipped dryly. "That man's tall and built like an ox, even among the Rangers. And you? You can't even hold down a bitch." He gestured toward the hound clinging to Chett's boots. "Might be a bit difficult."
"Besides," Edd continued, "it's a little ungrateful to be plotting against a man while wearing the leather jerkin and cotton-lined boots he provided. If you're going to curse him, at least strip down first—show some backbone."
"Seven hells! He sent me clothes and boots, and now you expect me to kneel and thank the gods for him?"
"How many times have you eaten his meat?" Edd shrugged. "No need to kneel, you'll get your pants wet, and that'll just make you colder." He sighed, then added, "And if you're smart, you won't make an enemy of him. When he and Will abandoned that fool Waymar Royce to feed the White Walkers and fled back to the Wall, who at Castle Black didn't think he was dead? But not only is he still breathing, he managed to have that idiot's noble father, Yohn Royce, sent to the Wall. Now that is a dangerous man.
"In the entire Night's Watch, there's no one I respect more than him. If he ever comes back, I'll call him 'Chief Logistics Officer' and follow his orders without complaint. Maybe if he's in a good mood, he'll give me new clothes, let me eat meat every day, or even pull me into the logistics department and take me south… Now that would be a fine turn of fortune."
"Bastard chief logistics officer! Bastard Jon Snow! Bastard Sam Tarly!" Chett roared, kicking the dog away in frustration.
Then the horn blew.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
And then—
A fourth blast.
Three long, one short.
The sound that had never been heard before in all the history of the Night's Watch.
The time for action had come.
---
For more than two months, the Night's Watch had been sending Rangers to capture wights alive. Twice, they had succeeded. Twice, they had failed to bring them back to the Wall, because of the White Walkers.
The first time, the Rangers had fought fiercely, managing to slay a pursuing Walker with dragonglass-tipped arrows. But their captured wight had perished as well, reduced once more to a lifeless corpse.
The second time, they had made a chilling discovery. The White Walkers had begun to adapt. No longer did they blindly charge into battle; now, they wore ice armor, thick enough to blunt the effectiveness of dragonglass arrows. They had also grown more cautious, keeping their distance and using wights as expendable shock troops.
That battle had cost the Watch dearly. The Rangers had suffered heavy casualties. In the end, they had been forced to abandon their captured wights and flee on horseback, escaping just before the dead could encircle them completely.
…
One hundred thousand Free Folk had already left Frostfangs, dragging their families along as they pressed southward. They moved slowly but relentlessly, following the River through the Haunted Forest.
In ten days, perhaps fifteen their vanguard would reach the Wall.
By then, capturing wights would be near impossible.
---
Fortunately, the White Walkers had not yet caught on to the Night's Watch's plan to capture wights alive but three times was pushing their luck. If they continued with blind attempts, not only would the casualties mount, but if these intelligent creatures uncovered their intentions and began taking precautions, then the entire plan to bring a wight to King's Landing as proof of their existence would be doomed.
Time was running out for the Night's Watch. If they were going to succeed, they needed to act now.
Through scouting reports and the confessions of captured wildlings, the Watch had uncovered a crucial piece of information: Winter was awakening the dark magic north of the Wall. The process of corpse reanimation was becoming more frequent—whether human or animal, no matter the cause of death, no matter how deep it was buried. As long as a body lay north of the Wall and had not completely decayed, it would eventually rise as a wight, some quickly, others more slowly.
With the dead rising everywhere, the White Walkers—few in number—could not always appear immediately to gather them under their command.
This time gap between reanimation and control presented an opportunity.
So Jeor Mormont issued a new order:
Find the scattered wights in the Haunted Forest, before the White Walkers came for them.
The signal was simple.
Three blasts of the horn meant White Walkers had been spotted. At that sound, all brothers were to retreat south immediately to avoid casualties.
But if a fourth blast followed?
It meant wights had been found with no White Walkers in sight.
---
Tension ran high.
With so many Rangers lost in the past missions, craftsmen and officers—men who had never stepped beyond the Wall before, had been drafted into the wight-capturing operation. They had heard the stories, of course. Every Ranger who returned from patrol spoke of the horrors beyond the Wall.
But hearing and seeing were two different things.
For most of them, this was their first time encountering the creatures.
And when the horn blew, a cold dread settled into their bones. Some felt an involuntary urge to piss themselves.
The hounds reacted too. Their instincts recognized the unnatural chill carried by the horn's call. They whined and shifted uneasily, their restlessness growing.
Chett, who had just been shoving the dogs away in irritation, now had to wrestle with their reins, struggling to keep them under control.
Edd tightened his grip on his sword hilt and shouted up into the trees, "Will! What do you see?"
"They're coming," the poacher's voice drifted down. "Something's wrong, there's more of them this time!"
"Any White Walkers?" Edd pressed. "Check carefully! They're cunning—some might not be on horseback!"
Will hesitated before calling back, "About twenty to the north, a dozen more northeast—Seven Hells, more are coming from behind! I don't see any Walkers yet, but I need to get down! If I wait too long, I won't make it!"
A lone rider galloped through the snow toward them, Ser Jaremy Rykker, the man who had taken over as First Ranger after Benjen Stark's disappearance.
"Too many wights! Switch to the second plan—mount up!"
"Look there, in the trees!"
From the shadowed depths of the Haunted Forest, the dead emerged.
They burst from between the black trunks, rushing forward through the deep snow, their stiff limbs barely slowed by the slippery ground. Their bodies had long lost any warmth, leaving them coated in ice and debris. Camouflaged by frost and snow, they blended into the frozen landscape.
Had they remained motionless, they would have been nearly impossible to spot.
Now, moving as they were, there was no telling how many there truly were.
"Mount up!"
"Wait! Don't leave me!"
"Will, stay in the tree! It's saved you twice before, let it save you again!" Ser Jaremy bellowed. "Don't hesitate, if they surround you, you're done! Save the dragonglass arrows, only use them when it counts!"
(To be continued.)
***
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