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When Jimmy heard the news, he said nothing.
If the Starks were determined to throw themselves into danger one by one, there was no point trying to talk them out of it anymore.
Besides, sending Rickon back now would do nothing but damage the army's morale.
Bran had been meant to leave as well, but Bran refused.
He said he was the Three-Eyed Raven now, marked by the Night King for death. That mark, he claimed, would draw the Night King in.
Then they could use a handpicked elite force to set a trap and cut him down in one decisive strike.
And when Jimmy saw Beric Dondarrion once again looking as though the Lord of Light himself had settled into his bones, he knew the Night King's attack could not be far off.
…
That same day, Winterfell received an unusual knight.
Jaime Lannister.
No army.
No supplies.
Just one man on one horse, riding alone into Winterfell.
He was the entirety of the Crownlands' promised reinforcements.
Cersei had broken her word.
No one was surprised.
In fact, Jimmy had expected it all along, including Jaime arriving alone.
Daenerys did not greet him warmly, but because Jimmy had won their wager, she had no choice but to let go of her grudge against Jaime.
Jaime had expected humiliation.
Instead, he was given a Valyrian steel sword and welcomed into the war council.
If he had wanted it, his seat would have been among the first ranks.
Jaime ran a hand over the lion worked into the sword's pommel and watched the yard below, where Jimmy was sparring with Robb and the others.
Or rather, Jimmy was "surrounding" all of them by himself.
"You're not going down there to try that blade out?" Tyrion asked. "I doubt Jimmy would object to one more opponent."
"Oh, spare me, Tyrion," Jaime said. "Do you know what I find most irritating about you? You always know when someone is trying to preserve a little dignity, and you insist on tearing it open anyway."
"Jimmy's swordsmanship has gone beyond anything a man should possess. One more fighter or one less makes no difference to him."
"I'm past the age of proving myself. I've no desire to go looking for embarrassment."
He glanced again at the blade in his hand.
"That said, this sword is excellent. How did you manage it?"
Tyrion smiled faintly.
"My dear brother, what kind of question is that? I was once Hand to the King in the North. Acquiring a Valyrian steel blade is hardly impossible."
"I'm thinking of naming it Lightroar. What do you think?"
"You should try it while there's still time. If anything feels off, Gendry can still make adjustments."
"It already feels good enough," Jaime said.
Then, after a pause, he asked, "What do you think Daenerys will do with King's Landing once this is over?"
Tyrion did not answer.
But his expression answered for him.
…
Meanwhile, Victarion, after being forced by Jimmy to complete the transport of troops, withdrew back into Blackwater Bay to await Cersei's orders.
He did not dare return to the Iron Islands.
Asha held them now, and Jimmy had recognized her claim.
Until Victarion found some way to deal with Jimmy and that cursed eagle, he would not risk making a move.
Cersei gathered her forces and scattered her ships along the coast, using them to bring her troops together before pulling them toward King's Landing.
And amid all that movement, two-thirds of Victarion's fleet quietly vanished.
Victarion himself vanished with them.
Still, none of those small movements mattered to the North.
If they defeated the Night King, then even if only Jimmy and Horus survived, they would still be more than enough to deal with Cersei.
And if they lost, the Night King would deal with her himself.
Before long, the hour of battle arrived.
Beyond the Wall, the land was black with wights.
Men.
Giants.
Animals.
An endless sea of the dead.
The dead moved like a swarm of flesh-eating ants, hauling anything they could lift and piling it against the base of the Wall.
"Kill them. This is the last time we'll ever get a clean chance to cut them down like this."
A storm of dragonglass arrows rained from above. There was no need to aim. The wights were packed too tightly to miss.
The catapults launched casks of oil, and flames roared across the dead for a time. But the White Walkers' unnatural cold soon smothered the fire and froze it out.
Then the dragons and Horus joined the battle.
Jimmy stood ready with a massive obsidian hammer in hand, tense and alert, prepared to knock aside the Night King's spears the moment one came flying.
…
The dead did not tire.
Their numbers were so vast that they eventually drained the Wall's stores of arrows dry. And then, when a sloping causeway stretched up from miles away and finally reached the top of the Wall itself, the first section of the Wall was lost.
The moment the first White Walker stepped across, another of its kind raised a great horn and blew.
The sound rolled out across the frozen world.
Then the outer face of the Wall began to break apart.
Ice sheared away in massive slabs, crashing down like an avalanche.
The Horn of Winter.
The White Walker who had sounded it disintegrated a heartbeat later, scattering like dust on the wind until nothing remained.
"Fall back. Everyone fall back."
Jimmy did not need to give the order.
Everyone already knew.
The ice was collapsing from the outside inward, and anyone who failed to retreat in time would be buried beneath it along with the dead.
"Jump. Jump down."
Jimmy shouted the order from Horus's back.
The old lift lines and descent cables from the Wall had already snapped. A group of men hesitated in panic. From that height, a fall should have meant certain death.
But Jimmy told them to jump, and with no better option left, they obeyed.
Horus dove after them. With one violent beat of his wings, he sent a crushing blast of air downward. It hit the ground first, slammed against the foot of the Wall, and rebounded upward in a surge that broke their fall, throwing them back into the air just enough to save their lives.
A few came away battered and bloodied. Some suffered broken arms or shattered legs.
But they were alive.
The Wall had been breached.
White Walkers poured through in endless numbers, flooding past the break like a frozen tide.
Even Jimmy felt a flicker of dizziness at the sight.
There were simply too many.
At that scale, it no longer felt like an army.
It felt like a force of nature.
Thankfully, the Wall had not yet fully collapsed.
And just after the Horn of Winter sounded, the Dothraki came.
They had no idea what the horn truly was, but they knew one thing for certain.
The instant it sounded, the whole earth had begun to shake.
That meant it was no minor thing.
The Dothraki rose in their saddles and loosed arrows with deadly precision, each shaft striking cleanly through the skull of a wight. For a brief moment, the unstoppable flood of the dead actually faltered.
Then the riders were among them.
Curved dragonglass blades flashed in both hands as the Dothraki cavalry hit at full speed.
They rode as though the horses were extensions of their own bodies.
A sharp turn.
A circling surge.
They carved through the dead like a great spinning wheel of blades, never losing the momentum cavalry prized above all else.
At the front, one khal leaned low from the saddle, snatched up the Horn of Winter, jammed it against the side of his horse beneath one leg, and kept riding straight into the dead.
"Fall back."
Jimmy came in fast just then.
Horus raked the battlefield with flame, cutting through the oncoming dead and opening lanes for the Dothraki to withdraw.
Their charge had been devastating, but that kind of assault only worked while the horses still had strength. Once the mounts began to tire, the advantage would vanish.
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