Time Skip - 4 Moons
The winter had deepened with a slow, grinding cruelty. The grey skies had bled into long, dark nights, and the snow had piled high against the trunks of the ancient sentinel pines. The vast, sprawling camp of the wildlings, pressed tightly between the tree line of the Haunted Forest and the towering blue cliff of Castle Black, had become a grim place of survival. A hundred thousand men, women, and children huddled around their hearth fires, waiting for the cold to finally reveal its teeth.
Near the eastern edge of the camp, sitting cross-legged in the freezing snow beneath a heavy canvas tent, a wildling named Borroq sat completely motionless.
He was a warg, a man whose mind could slip its human tether and ride in the skin of beasts. Borroq's thick, scarred face was pale, his eyes rolled completely back into his skull, showing only the whites. He did not feel the biting wind tearing at his heavy bear-fur cloak. He felt only the crisp, thin air of the high altitudes, the rushing of the wind through thick, feathered wings, and the sharp, piercing vision of a snow owl gliding silently over the canopy of the Haunted Forest.
For weeks, the deep woods had been empty, a vast expanse of sleeping timber and undisturbed drifts.
But today, the quiet was broken.
Through the eyes of the owl, Borroq looked down at a wide, snow-choked valley nearly a league north of the wildling camps. The valley was moving. It was not a herd of migrating elk or a pack of starving wolves.
It was a tide of rotting flesh.
Thousands upon thousands of figures marched through the deep snow. They moved with a jerky, relentless rhythm, making no sound, their weight somehow carrying them lightly over the powder. They were the corpses of wildlings, Night's Watch rangers, and long-dead beasts. Skinless bears and rotting stags marched alongside skeletal men wielding rusted iron and broken bone. And moving slowly behind the vanguard of the dead, riding atop the pale, rotting corpses of dead horses, were the masters of the cold.
The White Walkers sat tall in their saddles, their armor of shattered ice catching the dull grey light of the morning. In the center of the pale riders rode a figure crowned in jagged horns of ice, his piercing blue eyes fixed entirely on the southern horizon.
High above, the snow owl let out a sharp, frightened screech. The sheer, unnatural cold radiating from the marching host struck the bird like a physical blow.
In the wildling camp, Borroq gasped sharply. His eyes rolled forward, the pupils snapping back into focus. He pitched forward into the snow, coughing violently as his human lungs fought to remember how to breathe. He tasted raw blood in the back of his throat, and coughed up a tiny, frozen pellet of mouse bones—a grim, disorienting toll of riding the bird too deeply. His hands trembled, his blood running colder than the frost around him.
He pushed himself up from the dirt, ignoring the heavy ache in his bones, and broke into a heavy, desperate run through the crowded tents.
Borroq tore past the hearth fires, shoving his way through crowds of spearwives and heavily bearded raiders. He did not stop to answer their angry curses. He ran until his chest burned, bursting through the heavy hide flaps of the largest tent in the center of the camp.
Mance Rayder stood over a rough stone table, tracing lines on a worn piece of sheepskin parchment with Tormund Giantsbane.
The King Beyond the Wall looked up as the warg stumbled into the tent, gasping for air, his face as white as milk.
"Borroq," Mance said, his voice dropping to a low, heavy pitch. He did not need to ask. He saw the stark terror in the man's eyes.
"They are here," Borroq rasped, leaning heavily against the wooden tent pole to keep his legs from collapsing. "A tide of them, Mance. Filling the valleys. Walking through the trees. They are less than five leagues away."
Mance's jaw set into a hard, grim line.
"How many?" Tormund grunted, his hand dropping to the heavy, dragonglass-tipped axe at his belt.
"Too many to count," Borroq swallowed hard. "The dead. The pale riders. And the king with the horns of ice. They are marching straight for the Wall."
Mance did not waste a single second on fear. He turned to Tormund, his eyes sharp and commanding.
"Sound the horns," Mance ordered, his voice ringing with the heavy authority of his crown. "Three long blasts. Tell the clans to abandon the tents. Leave the furs, leave the heavy meat, leave the wagons. Take only the weapons in your hands and the clothes on your backs. Get the women, the children, and the elders moving for the tunnel immediately."
Tormund gave a single, firm nod. He turned and rushed from the tent, shouting for the horn-blowers.
Mance grabbed his heavy sword and his red-slashed cloak. He strode out into the freezing morning air, walking briskly toward the massive, weeping face of the Wall.
A moment later, the deep, mournful wail of a massive warhorn echoed across the sprawling camp. It blew once, a long, low note that rattled the snow from the pine branches. A heartbeat later, it blew again and again.
Three blasts.
The camp erupted. The low murmur of morning chores turned into a sudden, chaotic roar of panic. Men and women shouted, grabbing their children by the arms and pulling them from the tents. Thousands of people, realizing the long dark had finally caught them, abandoned their meager belongings and surged toward the southern edge of the clearing, pressing tightly against the base of the great ice.
Mance and Tormund pushed through the surging crowd, making their way to the heavy iron grate that blocked the entrance to the deep tunnel of Castle Black.
Standing on the other side of the rusted iron bars, flanked by heavily armed brothers of the Night's Watch, was Lord Commander Jeor Mormont.
"The dead are on our heels, Mormont!" Mance shouted through the bars, his voice cutting through the noise of the panicked horde behind him. "They have broken the tree line! Open the gates!"
Mormont looked at the wildling king. For decades, the Night's Watch had fought the Free Folk, bleeding them in the snow and hunting them through the deep woods. But Jeor Mormont was a man of the North, and he had sworn a heavy oath to Eddard Stark. The Warden of the North had struck a bargain, and the Old Bear would not break it.
Mormont turned to the men manning the heavy wooden winches set deep into the tunnel walls.
"Draw the portcullis!" Mormont roared, his voice echoing loudly in the frozen throat of the Wall. "Open the gates!"
The black brothers threw their weight against the heavy wooden levers. The thick iron chains groaned in protest, grinding harshly against the ice. Slowly, the massive, rusted iron grate began to lift, tearing free from the frozen mud at its base. The thick, inner wooden doors were pushed wide open, revealing the long, dark passage that led to the safety of the southern courtyards.
As the gate opened, Mormont stepped forward, meeting Mance at the threshold.
"The trenches are primed, Rayder," Mormont warned, his voice low and deadly serious. Over the last seven years, the wildlings and the black brothers had dug a deep, massive semi-circular trench in the snow, ringing the entire camp. They had buried hundreds of heavy clay jars within the dirt, packing them carefully with damp sand.
"I know," Mance replied, gripping his sword.
"Do not light them early," Mormont cautioned, his eyes hard. "If the wind catches the flames before the dead are upon the dirt, it will blow the fire back into your own retreating people. Wait until the wights are stepping on the trench line. Then, you loose the fire."
"I will hold the line until the women are through," Mance promised.
Mance turned back to the chaotic, surging mass of wildlings. The funneling of a hundred thousand people into a tunnel wide enough for only three wagons was a desperate, crushing nightmare. Children wept, crushed against the legs of their parents.
Near the heavy iron grate, a towering giant roared in the Old Tongue, desperately trying to force a panicked, bellowing mammoth into the dark passage. The massive beast refused to move, its hooves churning the mud. The giant physically braced his massive, fur-covered shoulders against the mammoth's rear, using every ounce of his tremendous strength to slowly, stubbornly shove the terrified beast forward into the tunnel.
"Warriors to the front!" Tormund roared, his massive voice booming over the panic. "Spearwives, raiders, form the line! Let the weak pass!"
Three thousand hardened Free Folk fighters broke away from the fleeing mob. They did not run for the tunnel. They turned their backs to the Wall, marching forward to stand directly behind the hidden, snow-covered trench line. They drew their heavy bows, nocked arrows tipped with dark dragonglass, and leveled their spears of bone and iron. They formed a ragged, desperate rearguard, placing their own bodies between the slow-moving retreat and the dark woods.
Mance Rayder stood in the center of the line, his sword drawn, watching the deep shadows of the Haunted Forest.
For a long, agonizing quarter of an hour, the only sounds were the frantic shouts of the camp and the heavy, grinding gears of the tunnel winch behind them.
Then, the tree line shattered.
It did not break with the loud, roaring battle cry of a charging army. It broke with a heavy, unnatural silence.
The wights poured out of the dark pines like a tidal wave of rotting meat and pale bone. Thousands of dead men, their clothes hanging in rags, their flesh torn and blue, sprinted across the snow with a jerky, relentless speed that defied stiff muscles and frozen joints. Their eyes burned with a piercing, uniform blue light, lacking any trace of thought or fear.
Behind the sprinting horde of wights, the true masters emerged from the gloom.
A dozen White Walkers rode slowly into the clearing atop their dead, rotting horses. They watched the wildling camp with cold, detached malice, their crystal spears gleaming in the dim light. They did not rush. They simply directed the tide of the dead toward the narrow funnel of the Wall.
The air in the clearing plummeted. The biting winter wind suddenly turned into a heavy, suffocating freeze. The wildlings standing in the rearguard felt the moisture in their breaths instantly turn to sharp ice on their beards.
"Steady!" Mance shouted, walking up and down the line, his breath pluming in thick white clouds. "Hold your fire! Let them close!"
The wights charged across the abandoned wildling camp. They trampled over the fallen tents, kicked through the dying hearth fires, and crushed the discarded supplies under their rotting feet. They moved in a blind, rushing sprint, their skeletal hands reaching out, their jaws snapping silently in the freezing air.
Fifty yards. Forty yards.
Thirty yards. Twenty yards.
The front line of the dead hit the edge of the buried trench.
"Light them!" Mance roared, his voice tearing from his throat.
Along the wildling line, a hundred archers quickly dipped the cloth-wrapped tips of their arrows into small, burning pitch braziers they had carried from the camp. They drew their bowstrings tight, aiming not at the charging dead, but directly into the snow-filled trench at their feet.
"Loose!"
A hundred flaming arrows hissed through the cold air in a short, steep arc, plunging directly into the buried clay jars.
The ground ruptured. A deafening roar shook the deep ice of the Wall, loud enough to crack the frozen stone. A towering, blinding wall of emerald-green flame erupted from the snow in a massive, perfect semicircle, completely ringing the Freefolk Camp.
The force of the blast blew the front ranks of the charging wights to pieces. Dozens of rotting corpses were lifted entirely off their feet and thrown backward through the air, their brittle bones shattered by the sheer power of the Pyromancers' fire.
A few of the dead, their bodies engulfed entirely in green flames, were blown completely over the blazing trench and crashed heavily into the dirt directly behind the wildling perimeter. The burning wights thrashed wildly in the mud, forcing the spearwives in the rear to quickly drive their dragonglass spears through the flaming corpses, pinning them to the earth and ending them before the defensive line could re-form.
The heat radiating from the green fire was sudden and searing. The deep snow surrounding the trench melted in an instant, turning the frozen earth into a thick, boiling stew of hot mud.
The wildfire did not behave like burning wood. It did not flicker or seek normal fuel; it burned with a hungry, unnatural ferocity, roaring high into the air, casting an eerie, sickly green glow over the terrified faces of the retreating host. It emitted a foul, biting stench of stale urine, sulfur, and burning pork fat as it consumed the rotting dead. The unnatural, noxious smell forced the wildlings to gag, raising their thick furs to cover their mouths as they backed away from the heat.
The horde of the dead crashed to a halt.
The wights, driven by the cold magic of their masters, possessed no true fear, but the searing heat of the emerald flames created a physical barrier they could not sprint through. The rotting corpses milled at the edge of the trench, their blue eyes staring blankly at the roaring green fire, unable to cross the roaring threshold.
A loud, ragged cheer erupted from the wildling rearguard. The fire held. The line was unbroken.
From the back of the dead host, the White Walkers watched the emerald flames with cold, unblinking eyes. The leader of the pale riders, the king crowned in jagged ice, raised a single, pale hand.
He gave a silent command to the horde.
The wights stopped milling. Without a single sound of hesitation or protest, the front ranks of the dead threw themselves headfirst into the roaring green trench.
Mance Rayder's cheer died in his throat. He watched in grim horror as hundreds of wights willingly leaped into the fire. The Night King was using his own vast army as fodder, intending to smother the flames with a thick, heavy bridge of rotting bodies so the rest of the host could cross safely over the ashes.
But the masters of the cold did not understand the nature of the weapon Ned Stark had brought from the South. This was not a fire built of pine branches and dry moss.
As the wights fell into the trench, the wildfire did not smother. It fed.
The green flames latched onto the dry bone, the rotting fat, and the old, tattered clothing of the dead. The thick liquid burned impossibly hot, consuming the corpses in a matter of seconds. Instead of building a bridge of bodies, the trench became a roaring, emerald furnace. The fire burned brighter and hotter with every wight that threw itself into the pit, the sickly green flames leaping higher into the air, fueled entirely by the flesh of the enemy.
The trench did not close. It became an impassable moat of boiling fire.
Seeing the tactic fail, the remaining wights stopped their suicidal march, standing motionless at the edge of the blazing trench, trapped on the northern side.
"It holds!" Tormund yelled, slapping Mance heavily on the shoulder. "The green fire eats them whole!"
Mance did not smile. He looked back at the tunnel. The massive crush of bodies had finally cleared. The last of the wildling women, the slow-moving elders, and the lumbering mammoths had disappeared into the dark safety of the passage. Only the rearguard remained on the northern side of the Wall.
"Fall back!" Mance commanded, raising his sword high. "Into the tunnel! We do not wait for the fire to die!"
The wildling warriors did not need to be told twice. They turned their backs on the roaring green flames and broke into a heavy, desperate sprint for the heavy iron gates of Castle Black.
The heat of the wildfire protected their backs, creating a solid wall between the living and the dead. Mance and Tormund ran at the rear of the pack, ensuring no man was left behind in the snow.
Through the roaring, shifting veil of the green flames, a single figure stepped forward from the ranks of the dead.
The Night King dismounted from his rotting horse. He walked slowly toward the edge of the blazing trench. The searing, unnatural heat of the wildfire did not seem to touch him. The frost did not melt from his pale, glass-like armor, and his piercing blue eyes did not blink against the smoke.
He stopped at the edge of the fire, his gaze locking directly onto the retreating form of the King Beyond the Wall.
The Night King reached down, his long, pale fingers wrapping around the thick haft of a massive, jagged spear forged entirely of clear, dark ice. He lifted the heavy weapon, balancing it smoothly in his grip. He stepped back, his body coiling with cold, unnatural tension, and hurled the spear directly through the roaring green flames.
The ice spear flew with terrifying, impossible force. It shrieked through the air, carrying the heavy, driving weight of a falling boulder, aimed flawlessly at the center of Mance Rayder's back as the wildling king sprinted for the open gates.
Tormund Giantsbane, running a half-step behind Mance, heard the sharp, splitting whistle of the ice cutting through the air.
The massive, red-bearded raider did not have time to shout a warning. He did not have time to draw his axe or raise a shield. Driven by pure, desperate instinct, Tormund threw his massive bulk sideways.
He did not simply push the King; he slammed into Mance with the heavy, brutal force of a falling oak tree. The violent tackle knocked the wind completely out of Mance, heavily bruising the King's ribs against the frozen mud just as the massive ice spear shrieked through the space where Mance's chest had been a fraction of a second before.
The spear missed the wildlings entirely and struck the heavy, solid stone archway of the tunnel entrance.
The impact sounded like a thunderclap. The thick ice spear shattered into a thousand jagged, razor-sharp shards, exploding outward in a deadly spray of frost. The flying pieces of ice cut deeply into the cheeks and arms of the retreating wildlings.
The shards were not just sharp; they were magically, impossibly cold. The wounds did not bleed immediately. The flesh around the deep cuts was flash-frozen solid, turning a dead, sickly black from the mere touch of the Walker's weapon.
Mance scrambled up from the mud, pulling Tormund roughly to his feet.
"Move!" Mance roared, shoving the large man forward, ignoring the throbbing pain in his ribs.
They sprinted the final few yards, throwing themselves headlong into the dark, echoing tunnel. They crossed the threshold of the Wall, their boots hitting the hard-packed ice of the passage.
"Drop the gate!" Jeor Mormont bellowed from the shadows, watching the last of the rearguard clear the entrance.
The black brothers manning the winches released the heavy wooden brakes.
The massive, rusted iron portcullis slammed down with a bone-jarring crash, its heavy iron spikes biting deeply into the frozen mud and ice at the base of the tunnel, sealing the passage. Behind the iron grate, a dozen men shoved the thick, heavy inner wooden doors shut, dropping massive, iron-bound oak beams into the brackets to bar them tight.
Safe inside the deep throat of the Wall, a heavy, exhausted silence returned, broken only by the ragged, desperate breathing of the wildling survivors and the muffled, distant roar of the green fire burning outside.
Mance leaned heavily against the cold ice wall of the tunnel, his chest heaving. He wiped a streak of mud from his face, looking across the dim passage at the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
"They are here, Crow," Mance rasped, the heavy reality of the long dark finally settling over them.
"I know," Mormont replied grimly, his face set in hard lines.
Mormont did not linger in the tunnel to trade tales of the fire. The duty of the Watch was clear. He turned away from the heavy wooden doors and walked swiftly up the long, winding wooden stairs of the King's Tower, his heavy boots echoing in the quiet keep.
He climbed until he reached the rookery, high above the courtyards of Castle Black.
The air in the rookery was thick with the smell of bird droppings and dry straw. A hundred black ravens shifted nervously in their cages. The birds' black feathers were puffed out to the absolute maximum against the unnatural cold creeping steadily up the Wall.
Mormont walked to the small wooden writing desk. He did not ask his maester to pen the letters. The Lord Commander pulled two small, crisp pieces of parchment from a drawer. He dipped a quill in black ink and wrote a single, blunt sentence on both scrolls.
He tied the scrolls tightly with black thread. He walked to the cages, pulling two of the largest, strongest ravens from their roosts. He bound the small scrolls carefully to the birds' legs, securing the leather straps.
Mormont carried the ravens to the high, open window of the tower. The grey sky above the southern lands was clear, offering a fast, open flight path.
"To Winterfell," Mormont muttered quietly to the first bird, casting it out into the wind. "To King's Landing," he said to the second, releasing it into the cold air.
The ravens did not soar gracefully. The air was too heavy with dread. They dropped heavily for a terrifying second before desperately flapping their wings to catch the updraft, fighting to flee the encroaching death. Mormont watched the two black birds beat their wings hard as they flew south, carrying the heavy, inescapable truth to the Lord of Winterfell and the Hand of the King.
The dead have made their move.