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"Take heed. Leave behind anything heavy or bulky. Carry only food and warm clothing if you can."
At dawn, Jon stood on Hardhome's wooden wall and shouted as loudly as he could to the free folk of the clans below.
Beneath the wall, the densely packed free folk held bundles large and small. Under the shouts of Mance and Jory, who each commanded their own men, they barely managed to form a line for departure.
Seeing that the free folk were not truly listening, Jon sighed heavily.
Then he looked at the sun, now fully risen, and had no choice but to order the free folk beside him, "Open the gate. We leave now."
Hardhome's thick wooden gate creaked open.
Mance led some of his armed free folk soldiers at the front. Behind them came large numbers of older free folk who still seemed strong enough to walk.
Behind the old folk came a great group of strong young women. Some carried supplies on their shoulders, others held them in their hands, and many dragged children along with them.
Behind them were the sick and those who could not move easily, who needed help from soldiers. Last came Jory with part of the Winterfell soldiers, guarding the rear.
When the long, serpentlike column left Hardhome, Jon glanced at the few figures still standing in the town. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and then he turned and followed the column.
Those were the few old people who had resolved to remain beyond the Wall. Mance had respected their choice.
After speaking with Jory at the rear of the column for a while, Jon brought his men of the Night's Watch toward the front.
The arrangement also showed what sort of man Mance was. If anything happened, the front of the line would surely be the most dangerous place.
"Once we move so many people away, perhaps the dead will not find Hardhome. It is remote, and few people will remain there."
Jon came beside Mance, whose eyes were sweeping the path ahead, and suddenly said those words.
Mance turned and looked at him quietly. Then he smiled faintly.
"Jon Snow, you are a gentle man. You are also a very naive one.
"We are desperate to go south not only because of the army of the dead, but because winter is coming.
"Hardhome has nearly exhausted its food, and the game around it has all but vanished.
"Whether the dead find those who stayed or not, they will not survive. They stayed because they had already chosen the place where they wished to die."
"I did not want to know that. Why tell me?"
Jon was silent for a while, then asked with anger in his voice.
"Naivety is a beautiful thing in children. But Jon, you are a warrior.
"Put aside that naivety and bear the responsibility of a warrior."
Mance did not grow angry at Jon's blunt question. His gaze turned distant, and he spoke with grave patience.
Jon did not know what past the man before him carried, but the last words struck something in him.
For a time, both men fell silent and led the vast column forward.
Jon and Mance had planned the return from Hardhome to the Wall as a journey of roughly ten days. The first three days would take them off the frozen peninsula of Storrold's Point. The next seven would carry them through the Haunted Forest.
But plans rarely survive what follows.
The column had marched for less than half a day when Jon and Mance sensed something wrong ahead and waved the march to a halt.
In the northwestern sky over Storrold's Point, a vast mass of gray cloud pressed low against the earth. Faintly, wind howled and dull thunder muttered in the distance.
Then the gray cloud, which had been moving slowly, began to gather speed and come toward the column.
"Run! Run back to Hardhome!"
Seeing the strange cloud, Jon reacted first. He turned and shouted at the free folk behind him.
"Listen to him! Everyone, back to Hardhome!"
Mance understood as well. Seeing the free folk stare at one another after Jon's shout, he roared the order at them.
As Jon and Mance's command passed down the line, the first place to fall into chaos was not the old folk at the front, but the women in the middle carrying supplies and children.
"Run!"
"Back to Hardhome!"
"Hey, what are you doing? That is mine!"
"Mother!"
They scrambled in panic for the children who had been running and playing during the march. As the column began to fall into disorder, supplies fell from their arms and backs for all sorts of reasons.
For a moment, the center of the column filled with shouting, arguing, and crying.
Fortunately, the rear of the column remained under control. When Jory received the order from the front, he calmly commanded his Winterfell soldiers to steady the panicked women in the middle.
At the same time, he turned the rear into the front and sent them running back toward Hardhome.
Seeing the confusion in the middle of the column, Jon rushed there to restore order.
When he saw the women searching everywhere for children and fighting over supplies, he shouted, "Drop them! Drop everything you are carrying!
"Do not care whether the child is yours. Every one of you, take the child nearest you and run back to Hardhome!"
His shouting had little effect. The chaos in the middle did not improve at all.
Jon looked back at the gray cloud. It was clearly closer than before. Mance's words from earlier flashed through him.
He clenched his teeth and shouted to the men of the Night's Watch beside him, "Draw steel! Shout the order I just gave!
"Warn anyone fighting over goods three times. If they still refuse, kill them."
"Yes!"
The thirty men of the Watch nodded at Jon's command and drew the swords at their waists.
Steel hissed from scabbards.
"Drop everything! Take whatever child is nearest and return to Hardhome!"
The armed brothers shouted Jon's order together while moving into the column in battle formation.
Seeing that the crows meant it, some of the free folk women obeyed. They dropped their supplies, bent down, seized the children beside them, and ran toward Hardhome.
There were still a few women stubborn as stones who refused to move. After three warnings failed, the men of the Watch cut them down without hesitation.
Hot red blood splashing across the frozen ground stopped the chaos in the middle of the column. The remaining women froze where they stood.
But when they saw that their own free folk soldiers did not stop the killings, they hurried to obey. They dropped their supplies, grabbed nearby children, and ran, afraid the Watch's swords would turn toward them.
With the center brought under control, the whole column began moving quickly toward Hardhome.
Some time after they left, the heavy gray cloud, wrapped in wind like weeping, covered the place like the end of the world.
Bone feet and rotting feet scraped over the frozen ground.
With the gray cloud came an endless army of wights like a sea. Some were bare skeletons. Others still carried scraps of rotten flesh. They swallowed the supplies abandoned by the column in an instant.
In truth, if one measured only fighting skill, a free folk warrior with a weapon could cut down several wights with ease.
Then why was the army of the dead so terrifying?
First, their numbers were endless as the sea. Cut down a few, and ten more, dozens more, surged up and drowned you.
Second, they were already dead. They knew no pain and no injury. Their attacks were madly relentless. Even if one wight could only leave a small wound, many such wounds together could still take your life.
Third, they never tired. If their numbers could not overwhelm you, and if their blows could not harm you, they would wear you down until you could not move.
Any creature of blood and flesh would tire in the end.
That was the column's situation now.
After a long run, the first to falter were the Winterfell soldiers at the front helping the sick and the lame.
Even with the free folk doing what they could, those soldiers carried nearly half the weight of the people they helped.
They went from running to jogging, and then to a walk. Their strength was visibly fading.
The young free folk women behind them were strong, but with children on their backs, they were not much better.
Strangely, the old folk at the rear, who ran more slowly, were in the best condition. They had experience. They knew how to keep their breathing steady and conserve strength.
"Jon, leave the sick and the lame. Take the others back to Hardhome."
Mance looked at the cliffs of Hardhome, still some distance away, then turned back toward the gray cloud drawing closer. He spoke to Jon.
"No, Mance. We can all make it."
Jon understood Mance's meaning at once and shook his head.
"There is no time. We are growing slower and slower. If no one holds the dead back, no one will get back."
"I will stay with men. You cannot die. Without you, no one can make the tens of thousands beneath the Wall obey."
"No. Your death would be worse than mine. Without you, Lord Commander, these free folk have no hope of going south."
Fate could be strange. Jon and Mance, who should have been enemies to the death, now argued over which of them would stay behind to die.
"Mance, Crow-King, neither of you needs to fight over this. Take the others and go. We will stay and hold them."
As the two men stood at an impasse, several white-haired old men covered in bone ornaments jogged slowly back from the front. One of them spoke.
"Valida, how could I leave you? Say no more. Save your breath and run."
Mance looked at the aged elder and rejected him at once.
"Mance, this is the decision of all the elders. Even if you are the King-Beyond-the-Wall we accept, you cannot overrule it."
"Aye."
"It is so."
As Valida spoke gravely to Mance, the old people beside him nodded one after another.
"You..."
Looking at these elders, who were usually stubborn and always causing trouble for him, Mance found himself unable to speak.
"Go. Protect the children."
"Aye."
Mance was not a sentimental man. Seeing that Valida and the elders had decided, he nodded and led his soldiers forward again.
Jon nodded to Valida and the others with respect plain on his face, then followed Mance.
Along with Valida and the elders, several thousand old free folk at the rear remained behind.
Valida looked at the white-haired free folk around him and shouted as loudly as he could, "Brothers! Sisters! Let the dead taste what we are made of!
"Light them!"
With Valida's order, the thousands of old men and women wrapped cloth around their weapons, poured oil and fat over them, and struck sparks with flint.
Flames rose.
Thousands of burning torches warmed the frozen ground. In the firelight, Valida stared hard at the approaching gray cloud.
Not long after Mance, Jon, and the others left, the gray cloud swallowed Valida and the old folk with a screaming wind. Wights rushed into the waiting crowd like things driven beyond madness.
Valida's burning staff struck a skeleton that had leapt before him. The greased weapon set the skeleton alight at once.
Then two or three wights with longswords surged in from the front and pierced Valida through.
It did not take long for the flames in the gray cloud, once numerous as stars, to vanish one by one. Several thousand old free folk died to the last.
A mounted Other rode forward on a dead horse, ice spear in hand.
He raised the spear toward the sky. On the ground, Valida's blood-covered corpse opened its eyes, revealing a pair of icy blue pupils.
"Quickly. Go in one by one. Do not crowd!"
Jory and the Winterfell soldiers were the first to return to Hardhome. After opening the gate, they formed ranks and kept order among the fleeing free folk.
Before that, Jon and Mance had caught up with Jory in the rear and taken over the sick and lame, leaving Jory this task.
As large numbers of free folk entered Hardhome, the long line outside the wooden wall gradually shortened.
But the gray cloud, delayed by Valida and the old free folk with their lives, had already reached the cliffs near Hardhome.
"They are here!"
"Close it! Close the gate!"
"Yes, shut the gate!"
When they saw the gray cloud bearing down on Hardhome, the free folk already inside shouted for Jory to close the gate.
Jory acted as if he heard nothing. He only watched Jon and the others struggling forward not far away.
Just as Jon's group was about to reach the gate, a great wind swept past them, and the gray cloud covered them.
Wights charged at Jon and the others. The free folk soldiers and sick at the very rear were instantly dragged down. Some were torn by teeth, others hacked apart by weapons, their screams ending in blood.
"Shoot! Cover them!"
Seeing it, Jory immediately gave the order. All the Winterfell soldiers and some of the free folk began drawing and loosing at the wights behind Jon.
Hundreds of arrows flew into the army of the dead. A wight whose skull was pierced by an arrow merely slowed for a moment, then kept running as if nothing had happened.
Other than the force of impact slowing the wights, ordinary arrows could do little harm.
Longclaw, the Valyrian steel sword in Jon's hand, cut through a skeleton wight holding a sword. Its bones collapsed as if the strength holding them together had vanished.
"Use dragonglass!"
At Jon's shout, the men of the Watch and some of the free folk soldiers drew black crystal daggers from inside their clothes.
These were the obsidian weapons Sam and the others had once found at the Fist of the First Men. Before Jon left, Sam had pressed them into his hands.
The effect of obsidian against wights was entirely different. As soon as a wight was cut or stabbed, it collapsed into dry bones or became a rotting corpse with no force left to move it.
With an effective means of attack, Jon and Mance temporarily held the line at the gate with their men.
But as time passed, free folk soldiers and men of the Watch made mistakes and were killed by wights.
"Jon, the ones left outside cannot get in. We have to retreat!"
After cutting down a wight, Mance swept his eyes across the field and shouted to Jon.
"Aye. Fall back."
Jon had grown. He knew Mance's judgment was right. He clenched his teeth, nodded, and withdrew toward the gate with Mance and the surviving soldiers.
Once they retreated, the remaining sick and lame became the wights' targets. They were torn apart amid screams.
Yet because those people drew the dead, Jon and Mance led the surviving soldiers safely into Hardhome.
As soon as Jon and the others entered, Jory ordered the Winterfell soldiers to close the gate and drop the thick bar.
The gate boomed as wights struck the wooden wall and doors from outside.
"The wall is shaking!"
"The gate bar is loosening!"
"It cannot hold the dead! What do we do?"
"We only ran back here to wait for death!"
Seeing the wooden wall and gate bar tremble under the constant impacts, the free folk inside Hardhome cried out in despair.
Jon and Mance stared at the shaking wall, both pale. If the wall truly could not hold the army of wights, neither of them could think of any answer except to fight to the death.
"Look! Ships! Great ships!"
"It is true! So many of them!"
"We are saved!"
"Help us! Save us!"
Suddenly, delighted shouts rose from the free folk near the bay of the Shivering Sea.
Hearing the cries, Jon and Mance looked toward the bay with everyone else.
At the deepwater harbor, great oared warships flying the blue field and purple grapes of House Redwyne were moving swiftly toward Hardhome.
At their head came a great three-masted oared warship, magnificent and imposing, with three wine-red sails and oars painted gold and white.
"That is the Redwyne fleet. Robb must have sent them!
"Good! Everyone is saved!"
Jon, who had studied sigils with Robb and his brothers since childhood, recognized the banners at once. His face filled with excitement as he shouted.
"Not everyone can be saved.
"Those ships are too large. They can only anchor in the deep water ahead and rely on small oared boats to ferry the free folk aboard.
"With this many people, even in ordinary times it would take half a day at least.
"And time is exactly what we lack."
Mance shook his head beside Jon, looking at the wooden wall swaying more and more behind them.
"How can that be? The ships are right there, yet they cannot save everyone?"
Mance's words struck Jon hard. He murmured as if his strength had been drained.
Suddenly, two barrel-thick streams of white ice mist shot from the largest warship and spread rapidly across Hardhome's bay.
Ice crackled.
Thick crystal ice began forming wherever the white mist passed. In the blink of an eye, the relatively calm water of Hardhome's bay froze over completely.
A heavy shape landed on the ice, followed by the sound of great feet stepping across it. A massive figure emerged from the lingering mist.
"The sea is frozen. That is a giant wolf!"
"Gods, a god has come to save us!"
"Thank the gods!"
Seeing Robb riding Bloodwind out of the sea mist, the free folk by the bay knelt in waves, murmuring prayers in worship.
The free folk truly would not kneel to any man, but they had many beliefs and customs, and they would prostrate themselves before a god.
Robb did not speak with the wildlings. After sweeping his eyes around Hardhome and taking in the terrain, he had Bloodwind go straight to Jon.
In a warm voice, he smiled and said, "Jon, you have done well. Take them over the frozen sea and board the ships.
"I will take over the fighting from here."
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