What is the significance of defending Winterfell?
Is it the ancestral castle of House Stark, carrying special meaning for the people of the Seven Kingdoms, for the Dragon Queen, and for the Second Stag?
Is it the only route blocking the Others from marching south?
None of that.
Not to mention Dany and the Second Stag; even Sansa did not particularly care if Winterfell was temporarily occupied by the Others.
As long as the surviving strength of House Stark was preserved, there would be a chance to reclaim their homeland.
Without question, Sansa's thinking was rational and correct.
Therefore, Winterfell itself held no special significance.
Winterfell did indeed stand directly on the Kingsroad. Behind it lay major lordships such as Seagard, Torrhen's Square, and White Harbor, as well as the Neck, the only overland route to the south.
But the Others could bypass Winterfell.
So Winterfell did not possess an indispensable strategic position either.
Then why were Dany and the Second Stag willing to defend it?
Most likely because the Night King would appear beneath Winterfell's walls.
Winterfell was the first great city the Others would encounter as they marched south, the first defensive stronghold heavily garrisoned by humans.
The Others were not Aegon the Conqueror from three hundred years ago. Conquering Westeros held no meaning for them; slaughtering the living was their true objective.
And Dany, the Second Stag, Jaime, the Hound, and Dickon came to Winterfell for a simple purpose: to kill the Others, and to kill the Night King.
In other words, the purpose of defending Winterfell was not "defense," but to eliminate as many Others and wights as possible.
If they could slay the Night King, so much the better.
That was why Dany opened the gates, allowing the Others to come and die. That was why the defenders on the walls deliberately lowered wooden ladders, letting the wights climb up so they could be cut down and stabbed one by one.
In fact, the tactic of lowering ladders was Dany's idea.
Winterfell had both inner and outer walls. The outer wall stood twenty-four meters high, with a dried moat between it and the inner wall, which rose thirty meters.
The walls had been built so tall because winter snows in the North were extremely deep. On the open plains, snow could reach seven or eight meters; at the foot of the walls, where wind piled it up, it could accumulate to fifteen meters.
But knowing the Others were coming, the garrison would not fail to clear the snow outside the castle.
When the Dragon Queen arrived, she even dispatched three dragons to melt all the snow within a hundred meters of Winterfell, turning it into water that flowed into the nearby White Knife River.
Without the wooden ladders, two possibilities would arise. First, the wights would be unable to scale the walls and would simply stand outside the city without attacking.
Humanity wanted to end the Long Night quickly and to wipe out the Others and wights who had crossed the Wall.
If the army of the Others simply stood outside in a standoff with the defenders on the walls, it would actually disadvantage the living. Human soldiers needed rest and bore psychological strain, while wights never tired and did not need food.
Even more likely, part of the wight army would surround Winterfell without attacking while another part continued southward.
That would be the worst scenario.
Of course, the Others were not mindless zombies. They were a semi-human race with considerable intelligence, especially with the Night King present.
Seeing the walls were too high, they might choose to build earthen ramps.
Given the number and mobility of the wights, filling in the walls to create a slope would not be difficult.
After all, including the outer wall, Winterfell was only three hundred meters wide and five hundred meters long, with a perimeter of less than two kilometers.
How much labor would it take to dig two thousand meters of trench?
Rather than passively waiting for the Others to make a move, it was better to proactively provide the wight army with siege ladders, with a pathway to death.
Fourteen-year-old Obella, facing a tide of corpses for the first time, had managed to spear to death fifteen knight-class wights and over forty ordinary wights with limbs intact. She had even been confident she could achieve a hundred kills.
If all eighteen thousand soldiers in Winterfell accomplished a hundred kills each, then no matter how numerous the wights were, they would not withstand many rounds of such attrition.
If the Others were foolish enough to keep besieging Winterfell in a drawn-out standoff, it might even be possible to wipe out both Others and wights without ever challenging the Night King.
That was the most ideal hope. The towering walls could only reduce the casualty ratio between the living and the dead. Many wights would die, but the defenders on the walls would suffer losses as well.
For example, the fourteen-year-old baby-faced Sand Snake, emboldened by the advantage of the ladder tactic after killing fifteen knight-level wights, grew contemptuous of the wight army and was immediately taught a brutal lesson by the Others.
Overheated from intense exertion, she lifted her visor to catch her breath and even leaned her head beyond the battlements to look down. Earlier, a fully armored knight wight she had stabbed had tumbled off the ladder, dragging several wights below down with it.
As a result, an ice sword shot upward from the mass of wights below, piercing her left eye like lightning, passing straight through her skull and bursting out the back of her head.
She was killed instantly.
The tremendous force even sent her body flying backward like a cannonball for four or five meters, knocking over her elder Sand Snake sister, who was serving as her attendant.
"No, Obella!" Obara collapsed in the corner of the wall, her sister's corpse pinning her down as she wailed in anguish.
But since the Others had already made their move, they would not throw only a single ice sword.
With sharp whistling sounds, three gray-red figures sprinted up the wooden ladders as if walking on level ground and swiftly leapt onto the wall.
And this was only the beginning. Like floodwaters finding a breach in a dam, more Others surged toward this section of the wall that had just fallen.
Fortunately, the ladder tactic had already taken this situation into account.
Aside from the crenellations at the top, the city wall had observation holes built into its middle section, openings about the size of a bowl.
Every wooden ladder was set against a section of wall with an observation hole.
The wooden ladder tactic allowed, and even encouraged, a small number of wights to break through onto the wall, but the number could not be too great. Otherwise, the wall truly risked falling.
So when the defenders on the wall felt overwhelmed, the soldiers stationed by the observation holes would toss down a small vial of wildfire.
It was truly very small, only about half a jin.
"Boom!" When Ygritte shouted for the wildfire, a violent explosion erupted beneath the wooden ladder guarded by the baby-faced girl. Green flames shot four or five meters into the air, casting that stretch of wall in a vivid green glow.
"Ahhh~~~" The wooden ladder burned within the green blaze. The more than sixty wight corpses piled beneath it ignited as if drenched in gasoline. Amid the red and green flames, a White Walker was engulfed in fire, wailing in agony.
Wights could not scream, but the White Walkers were "living beings." They could speak and feel pain.
Large swathes of white mist billowed from its body, gradually weakening the ordinary flames consuming the corpses and the ladder. Yet the green wildfire clinging to the White Walker continued to blaze fiercely.
At the base of the wall, the red flames faded as the green flames surged.
The small unit of White Walkers preparing to climb the ladder was halted, and one was even killed outright. The three that had already leapt onto the wall fared no better.
They had caught the baby-faced girl and the eldest Sand Snake off guard. One White Walker even stepped forward to Obena's corpse, grasped the hilt of the ice sword, and was about to drive it downward to pierce the elder sister, Obaya, below.
But more than twenty soldiers carrying thick oak shields had already surrounded them.
The oak shields were thicker than old chopping boards in a rural kitchen, reinforced at the back with several crossbars to block heavy blows.
More than twenty great-shield bearers forcefully knocked the three White Walkers to the ground, then hacked and stabbed at them. Pale blue icy water flowed across the stone path of the wall.
"Don't hurt her. She's my sister!"
Just as the shield bearers turned back to restrain Obena, who was crazily biting at Obaya's gorget, Arianne stepped forward and blocked Ygritte, who had raised her dragonglass blade to strike at her neck.
"She was your sister once. Now it is a wight. This is the Long Night. This is the calamity of the dead!" Ygritte's heavy breathing seeped through the slit of her visor.
Crunch, crunch.
Arianne lowered her head and saw Obena, whom she was shielding behind her, open her mouth wide and gnaw at her iron boots.
Her delicate baby face had lost its rosy glow, turning pale and dull. Her left eye was a bloody hollow, while her beautiful brown right eye flickered with blue light.
Even with her hands, feet, and back pinned down by the shield bearers, she twisted her neck awkwardly, baring her teeth at the living.
She had truly become one of the undead, no different from the endless wights beyond the wall.
At that thought, pain stabbed through the Princess of Dorne's heart, and tears slipped from her eyes.
The eldest sister, Obaya, who had climbed up from the ground, knelt before her youngest sister and choked out, "I'm sorry, Obena. Big sister failed to protect you."
The other two Sand Snakes also wept in silence.
Ygritte curled her lips and said lightly, as if it were nothing, "Stop crying. She believed in the Seven and carried an indulgence. By now she's gone to the Seven Heavens. You should be happy."
"Gah—" The three Sand Snakes and Arianne all caught their breath at once and stopped crying.
"Has Obena truly gone to heaven?" Arianne murmured, gazing up at the sky as if hoping to see the celestial realm welcoming her sister's soul.
"Kill the White Walkers. Ascend to heaven!" Ygritte shouted, raising her dragonglass blade high.
Arianne felt much better. She turned, crouched down, and with a swift motion drove her dragonglass dagger into the hollow of the right eye. The struggling corpse instantly stiffened, then went limp.
"Obena has gone to heaven. Sooner or later, we will be reunited with her," she said to her sisters.
The shield bearers dispersed. Ygritte glanced beyond the wall, saw the green flames gradually weakening, and asked, "The fire's about to go out. Should we set up another ladder? Or will you return to the castle to rest?"
"No. We want to kill White Walkers!" the three Sand Snakes and Arianne answered in unison.
The battle continued. Wights kept climbing up the wooden ladders, with the occasional White Walker mixed among them, launching sudden ambushes in an attempt to seize the wall.
Soon, three hours passed.
During that time, mutilated wight corpses piled up like mountains, and many of the wall's defenders had also fallen.
Most of them, like Obena, had begun the fight with reverence in their hearts when facing the dead. Gradually, as they killed more and more wights, that reverence faded. Growing careless, they were violently slain by White Walkers who surged up.
The section of wall where Obena had fallen was relatively fortunate. Knowing the identities of the Sand Snakes and Arianne, the shield bearers guarding them were all true knights, strong and skilled.
On other stretches of the wall, the shield bearers were wildling warriors. They had courage to spare but lacked skill and experience. As a result, the shield walls were not tight enough, allowing White Walkers to break through the encirclement, causing heavy casualties.
Six hours after the battle began, as dawn approached, the eastern sky remained shrouded in darkness.
The soldiers guarding the wooden ladders had rotated through shifts again and again. At the city gate, the Dragon Queen still had not left her post.
However, the shield wall before her had shrunk by ninety percent. Only four Unsullied remained, half-kneeling with shields raised in front of the queen.
The remaining thirty-six Unsullied had not gone far. They were just behind the gate in the barbican, leaning against Little White and sleeping.
Yes, that's right. They were sleeping soundly right beside the battlefield.
Little White lay on the ground with his head stretched into the gate tunnel. Whenever the fireball above the Dragon Queen's head shrank to the brink of extinction, he immediately supported her with a burst of dragonflame.
Winterfell was indeed bitterly cold, but Little White was a dragon, radiating scorching heat. Sleeping against his body was even more comfortable than turning on a heater.
(P.S. I think I mentioned earlier that Winterfell's walls were fifteen meters high. Sorry, I remembered incorrectly. After checking again, I realized that in winter, the snow outside the city can pile up to fifteen meters thick, while the outer wall stands twenty-four meters high and the inner wall thirty meters. It sounds a bit frightening, but the world of A Song of Ice and Fire is fantastical to begin with. The Wall itself is two hundred meters tall.)
(End of Chapter)
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