Dany was a demigod of both wind and fire, capable of multitasking.
While absorbing the spiritual essence released from the burning corpses throughout Winterfell, she meditated to rest and simultaneously controlled the fireball above her head, ensuring that any White Walkers or wights approaching the city gate would never return.
But the Unsullied were only ordinary men. While holding their shields to guard the Dragon Queen, even if they did not engage in much direct combat, they had to remain in a constant state of intense mental focus.
Around nine in the morning, the battle had already lasted more than eight hours.
"Woo—woo—woo—" Suddenly, an urgent horn sounded from the western section of the wall.
Dany turned to look, but with the castle blocking her view, she could only see the sky in the direction of the godswood dyed an eerie green.
She then entered the dragon-spirit state and, from Drogon's perspective high in the air, saw a rolling cloud of green flames surging above the wall.
It rose two or three stories high, and in the howling gale stretched southward into a green cloud forty to fifty meters long.
A high-yield wildfire bomb had detonated directly atop the wall.
Beneath the green cloud, the defenders bent low to avoid the flying sparks while desperately resisting the surging tide of corpses.
That section of the wall had already fallen.
Nearly thirty White Walkers broke through the line, wielding giant ice swords and slaughtering wildly across the battlements, clearing out over a hundred defenders within a thirty-meter radius.
Then the defenders activated the "glory bomb" of the wooden-ladder tactic.
Green flames roared, instantly blowing seven or eight of them apart. The remaining twenty White Walkers scattered, enduring the scorching green fire as they held that stretch of wall.
Even though the wooden ladders were ignited, countless wights continued to pour in. Just as a small blaze cannot halt a raging flood, each White Walker and wight was a source of frigid mist. Soon the flames died out, and beneath the wall they piled up into a living ramp of corpses.
Next, more than a thousand non-humanoid wights—cattle, wolves, lions, mammoths—charged out of the darkness, trampling over the corpse-ramp and swiftly climbing onto the wall.
The beast-wights cleared the way at the front, followed by the undead packed together like sardines.
Like ink dropped into a pool of clear water.
Centered on the ramp, the tide of corpses rapidly spread outward in all directions across Winterfell. Even the eerie green flames from the burning glory bombs began to weaken under the cold aura carried by the massive influx of wights.
In the end, the wight army attempting to push eastward into Winterfell was blocked by the second line of defense atop the inner wall.
Though they met resistance in the dried moat behind the outer wall, they did not stop spreading.
"Woo—woo—woo—" The horn blasts grew increasingly urgent.
The fear and anxiety of the horn-blower were fully conveyed through the sound to everyone.
"That section of the wall was under Melisandre and the second Baratheon's defense. What's going on with them?"
Dany felt puzzled, yet she still communicated with Viserion through the dragon spirit. "Go eliminate the source."
Rhaegal was crouched behind the city gate serving as a super battery. Drogon patrolled the skies, while Viserion, as the reserve, had been dozing atop the bell tower.
"Screee—" Viserion let out a thunderous roar toward the source of the horn and lifted a giant wildfire bomb with a yield of 300 kilograms before launching into the air.
His figure climbed higher and higher, reaching five hundred meters, then plunged straight down.
Aiming at the mountain-like ramp of corpses, he folded his wings and dropped vertically. At three hundred meters, he released the bomb, snapped his fleshy wings open, and his speed abruptly slowed as he carved a graceful arc through the air.
"BOOOOM!"
It was like a fresh pile of cow dung landing squarely on a landmine.
The violent shockwave blasted thousands upon thousands of corpses into the air. Even before they fell, they were stained with eerie green sparks and began to burn fiercely.
From afar, a green mushroom cloud a hundred meters tall rose over western Winterfell, and the entire castle seemed to tremble lightly several times.
The sky, the castle, the courtyards, the earth were all dyed a ghastly green, much like the fate of the people of the North at that moment.
"Screee—boom!" The wildfire bomb was only the beginning. Viserion and Drogon intertwined like twin stars, circling as they flew and leaving streaks of brilliant red dragonfire along the wall.
In their dual dragon-spirit state, Drogon and Viserion shared vision.
Their only enemies were the White Walkers below.
Only the White Walkers' flying ice swords could harm them.
"Whizz—" From a blind spot in Viserion's field of vision, an ice-blue "bolt" shot toward the joint of his left wing as if teleporting.
Viserion rolled sideways, lifting his wing at just the right moment to let Drogon close in and block the attack with his belly.
"Bang!" Like an ordinary ice spike striking the front of a tank, the ice sword left a table-sized patch of frost-blue rime on the Valyrian steel belly armor before shattering into glittering shards.
Drogon's flight did not even falter. The frost on his armor evaporated into vapor at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Even if an ice sword unfortunately struck a wing, it would not be a major issue. A hole torn in the leathery membrane did not affect a dragon's ability to fly.
"Long live the dragons! Long live the Dragon Queen!"
After the dragons' flames had plowed back and forth seven or eight times across the outer wall and the moat behind it, the commander of Winterfell shouted slogans and, stepping onto ground heated by dragonfire, began clearing out the half-crippled White Walkers that had survived by hiding in corners.
Even those wights hiding in the arrow slits had been ignited by the residual waves of dragonfire. Only the White Walkers could withstand the heat and survive the dragonflame.
The western wall was recaptured, and Drogon and Viserion departed.
Winterfell had more than five thousand troops in reserve. Soon, Jon redeployed another batch of soldiers, carrying dragonglass weapons, wildfire bombs, and wooden ladders, to the western wall to reestablish the defenses.
"What's happening on the western wall? Have Melisandre and Stannis fallen?"
Dany withdrew to the King's Gate and asked Jon, who had come to inspect the battle situation.
Winterfell's main gate faced east. Beyond it lay the Kingsroad, Winter Town, and the White Knife.
The inner wall's gate was the East Gate, while the outer wall's gate facing the Kingsroad was called the "King's Gate."
At this time, a small barbican had been built between the East Gate and the King's Gate. White curled up inside the barbican, while the Dragon Queen stood guard before the King's Gate, responsible for defending the eastern wall.
According to the previous plan, hexagonal Winterfell had six sections of wall, each commanded by a leader.
Dany guarded the gate and defended the eastern section. The Red Woman and Stannis defended the western section.
Jon, Barristan, the wildling Tormund, and Ygritte served as commanders, leading men to hold the other four sections.
Now, a major disaster had occurred on the wall overseen by Stannis and Melisandre.
"They went back to the castle to sleep two hours ago."
Jon looked exhausted. His voice was hoarse, his gray eyes bloodshot. His old plate armor and his worn direwolf cloak were stained with foul, rotting blood and scorched by smoke and fire.
"Sleep?" Dany pondered. "Are they preparing for the battle with the Night King at noon?"
Jon nodded and frowned. "From last night until now, we've been fighting for nearly nine hours.
The soldiers can rotate and rest, but even commanders who don't personally fight grow mentally exhausted. And Stannis killed nearly two hundred wights himself.
When I inspected the western wall, I saw he was almost completely spent. Even the way he swung his sword had grown distorted, so I told him to go back and rest. I didn't expect…"
"The one who took over command of the defense from Stannis was Ser Dickon Tarly. I don't even know how to explain this to Sam and Lord Randyll." Jon's voice was filled with helplessness and pain.
"He was a devout follower of the Seven and carried indulgences on him. By now, he must be enjoying Arbor gold and the bright summer beaches of Greenstone in heaven."
Thinking of the brave young man who had once competed with her for the title of "martial champion," Dany also felt a pang of regret.
"Princess Arianne's cousin Obena, along with seven or eight knights, also died in battle last night," Jon sighed quietly.
"How can there be war without death? Especially in the Long Night, with a million wights besieging the city. Who can guarantee they won't die?"
Your people don't seem to have lost a single one.
Jon glanced at her but did not voice the thought in his heart.
The Dragon Queen alone guarded Winterfell's main gate. The number of wights she had burned and Others she had slain exceeded the total of all the noble knights combined.
"If the Night King keeps his word, he should appear in about three hours. Why not close the gate and get some rest?" he said with concern.
Dany turned to look behind her and shook her head. "I can't leave. The gate is made of wood. If the wights crowd together and press forward, should the soldiers atop the gatehouse throw wildfire bombs or not?
If they don't, the wights will pile up layer upon layer, just like on the western side, stacking into a sloped ramp of corpses and breaking into the castle. If they do throw the fire-oil bombs to burn the bodies, even if the King's Gate doesn't explode, the wooden doors will ignite and collapse."
"Perhaps we should seal the gate entirely with masonry, just like the Hunter's Gate in the west," Jon said, frowning.
"Let's talk about blocking the gate later. I can hold out for three more hours," she replied casually.
Jon glanced at the red date and white fungus soup simmering over the stove. His brow twitched a few times, and he did not try to persuade her further.
As they spoke, the Others beneath the dark curtain of night ahead did not stop. At that moment, a nearly two-meter-tall black-furred wild bull charged forward with glowing blue eyes, like a small locomotive at full throttle.
Dany's expression did not change. She merely focused her gaze on it.
A line of fire shot out from the dragonflame fireball above her head. Wherever her sight reached, the flame followed.
Like the red thread of a needle in Dongfang Bubai's hand, the fire streaked into the bull's goblet-sized eye socket with a whoosh.
Boom! In an instant, flames burst from the bull's seven orifices. It was as if a lightbulb had been lit inside its skull. Its stiff, powerful limbs immediately went limp. It slid seven or eight meters across the ground, crashing into the Valyrian steel great shield ahead before coming to a stop.
Smelling the charred aroma of beef from the burning bull, Dany's heart stirred. She extended her left hand and made a grasping motion in the air. The flames on the bull's corpse seemed to be drawn like smoke into a kitchen hood, transforming into a fire serpent that curved and flew toward the approaching undead behind it.
"Do you smell that?" she asked.
"Your white fungus soup smells sweet," Jon swallowed.
Dany rolled her eyes and pointed at the charred bull lying before the shield wall. "That was a wild bull killed alive by the Others. It's very fresh, and you can still smell the tenderness of roasted beef.
And wild bulls live in herds. There's definitely more than just this one.
You should send people to wait here at the gate. You might pick up an entire herd."
"You mean… carry this bull back and eat it?" Jon asked with an awkward expression.
"In my view, aside from human corpses, there's no need to burn the carcasses of undead beasts. They are both your enemies and rations delivered to you by the enemy," Dany said seriously.
Jon frowned. "Actually, Winterfell isn't as short on food as you think."
"With the smallfolk included, Winterfell has over twenty thousand people. How long can your supplies last?"
"I mortgaged the entire North's tax revenue and took out a loan from the Iron Bank. The several million golden dragons were all converted into grain. More than three hundred thousand tons, enough to feed the people of Winterfell for decades," Jon said with a proud smile.
"More than three hundred thousand tons? All transported to Winterfell?" Dany asked.
"No. Two hundred and fifty thousand tons are stored in White Harbor, and another hundred thousand tons are in Braavos."
(End of Chapter)
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