So long as the Wall still stood, this Southward Expedition remained a campaign that, while seemingly unexpected, had always been a desperate gamble.
Hundreds of yards away, hidden in the shadows, the new Chief Cold God Priest looked upon the castle that had been so easily taken and the wight army still flooding in. At first glance, it was a spectacular sight. The wailing of the living, their cries for help, filled the air. Yet his heart was heavy.
He had inherited nearly half the Night King's magic, along with the crucial role of being the "magic conduit" for all Cold God Priests. But he had not inherited the means to communicate with the Cold God.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't even clear if the former Night King had ever possessed the ability to "actively commune" with the Cold God. After completing his transformation, the new Chief Cold God Priest had briefly sensed the presence of a powerful higher being. That existence had issued one final command: abandon the original strategic targets of the Gift and the Wall, and march South.
He had tried to question the order, but received no response. Since then, he had been unable even to sense the Cold God's presence.
Was it simply that the magic connection was weakened by distance from the Great Gorge, resulting in a poor signal? Or had the Cold God truly abandoned them, issuing the last command to march South and leaving them to fend for themselves, only hoping they would create one final disturbance in the human world and burn through their remaining value?
The Chief Cold God Priest didn't know, and had no way to ask.
Directly marching South while bypassing the difficult-to-conquer forces of the Night's Watch seemed like a good idea, but it presented a fatal problem: every action taken by the Cold God Priests consumed magic.
From maintaining a low enough body temperature to move, to condensing Black Ice weapons and projectiles, to casting spells that killed enemies and converted corpses into wights, all of it demanded energy. Cold God Priests were not perpetual motion machines. The wights were not a mindless plague, nor a zombie apocalypse that snowballed with each casualty.
After retreating from Crown Town for a day and a night, the remaining Cold God Priests and their dead marched along the King's Road toward the closest northern stronghold: the heartland of House Umber, Last Hearth.
What offered them some small relief was the pitiful state of the castle's preparations. The winter town outside the walls had not been fully evacuated. The defenses were crude and sparse, making the Cold God Priests initially suspect a trap. Other than oil and pitch, which burned far less effectively than wildfire, the only threats were a handful of frozen arrow volleys. Once the wights scaled the walls and entered the castle, most of the soldiers—whose chests bore roaring giant emblems—were found to be wielding ordinary steel weapons.
In the end, this battle marked the wight army's first victory where "enemies slain outnumbered wight losses" since crossing the Great Gorge into the North. Over four thousand civilians, Umber family members, and soldiers wintering at Last Hearth were annihilated, while wight casualties remained under a thousand.
Even better, the corpses at Last Hearth were finally free of that strange fire-aspected magic from unknown origins.
One piece of good news after another, but was it truly a victory? The Chief Cold God Priest was deeply doubtful. He now faced an unprecedented dilemma: he did not have enough magic to convert the slain enemies into wights.
The Cold God Priests had come from the Land of Always Winter. It had taken them over five years to cross the Great Gorge and launch their Southward Expedition. They hadn't, as the humans joked, been "walking for seven seasons," but had spent that time quietly preparing for war.
Back in the North, their main difficulty had always been the lack of "suitable corpses." Many creatures had lived and died Beyond the Wall over the centuries, but only a small portion could be turned into wights. Raising the dead through necromancy was not as simple as people believed.
To summarize, when the Cold God Priests performed resurrection magic to create wights, they had to consider two key factors.
First, whether the corpse was worth resurrecting. Second, whether it could be resurrected.
Smaller creatures required less magic to convert, but each still needed to be linked and controlled. Since there was a cap on the number of units a Cold God Priest could command—ranging from thousands to tens of thousands depending on mental strength—each converted wight had to be worth the effort. That meant corpses had to meet certain standards: large enough in size, structurally suited for combat, and capable of wielding weapons or tools. Only those would be chosen.
Under such conditions, tiny animals and birds that couldn't fly once resurrected were immediately excluded. Most herbivores were also ruled out due to their clumsy bodies and lack of sharp teeth or claws. The final shortlist typically included giants, humans, and mid-to-large predators.
Even within this candidate pool, not every corpse could be resurrected. Cold magic might replace the nervous system to enable basic movement, but the wight still relied on its muscles. That meant only intact, unburned, and reasonably fresh corpses could be revived. Ashes from cremation were useless, and bones left after scavengers picked a body clean were also unworkable. Only recently killed or well-preserved bodies could be reanimated.
These two constraints explained why the Night King and more than a dozen Cold God Priests had fought and scavenged for years, yet had only managed to gather just over one hundred thousand wights in total.
Beyond the Wall, the Cold God Priests had been forced to lower their standards. As long as a corpse barely met the requirements, it would be used. Even incomplete or unsightly bodies were reanimated, becoming part of the magic link network. Better targets were often personally hunted. But now, in the South, they stood among pristine corpses—fully armed, fresh, still radiating body heat—and yet could not convert them due to a lack of magic. The irony was bitter.
The further south they traveled from the Wall, the weaker the local ambient cold magic became. Likewise, the further they were from the rich magic of the North. If the rate of magic regeneration Beyond the Wall was 100, then it dropped to 1 on the southern side of the Great Gorge, 0.5 in Crown Town, and here, at this castle far from the Land of Always Winter and sealed off by the Wall, it was a mere 0.1. Worse, this pitiful figure would continue to decline as they moved further south or as time passed, especially now that the Cold God's power had passed its peak.
The new Chief Cold God Priest could estimate roughly: if they continued south for another two or three days, the ambient cold magic would drop by another half. That would push them below the critical threshold needed just to maintain body temperature. When energy absorption couldn't keep pace with energy consumption, the Cold God Priests would become like divers holding their breath underwater. Once their internal stores of magic ran dry, they would start "burning their bodies to survive." At that point, their famed black ice armor, their nearly indestructible ice weapons, and their resistance to wildfire would all vanish. A single torch or a bucket of warm water might "scald them to death."
Once that red line was crossed, they would slowly die, without anyone needing to lift a sword.
Could they just stop and recover magic? In theory, yes. But the human world's superior strength and home-field advantage meant that standing still was akin to drinking poison to slake thirst. And besides, the Night's Watch was already in pursuit.
That was the truly absurd part. With the failed surprise attack on the Wall and the sudden appearance of some great, overwhelming human weapon that they had no way to counter, the wights had been reduced to fleeing in panic. Over ten thousand of them, chased down by a force of living humans fewer in number.
Now, the new Chief Cold God Priest faced a more difficult decision than the Night King's earlier dilemma of whether to attack Nightfort or Crown Town: should they continue fleeing south, cross into the lands of magical depletion, and await slow death? Or should they turn and fight the Night's Watch, hoping to seize a last chance at victory for the Cold God?
In essence: wait for death, or seek it.
Any intelligent being would choose the latter. But now, with the Three Dragons returned and having joined forces with the Night's Watch, even that option was a dead end.
Wait for death or seek death. That was all that remained.
If the Night King were still alive, what would he have chosen?
As the Chief Cold God Priest pondered, another Cold God Priest approached and, speaking in the ancient tongue, asked what to do with the nearly five thousand fresh corpses.
The question was not without reason. As the one who had inherited most of the Night King's legacy, the new Chief was also the only Cold God Priest who still had sufficient magic. He could, in theory, convert tens of thousands of ordinary wights.
But the ability to perform resurrection spells also meant he was the only one capable of threatening the dragons.
Before a decision could be made between fleeing or fighting, another life-or-death question had arisen: should he spend his precious remaining magic to create new wights, or conserve it entirely for battling the dragons and the Night's Watch?
Mimicking the thought process of the fallen Night King, he considered the situation in silence for several long minutes. Eventually, he arrived at the only possible strategy for survival. The Night's Watch and the dragons were invincible together, but if he could somehow split them apart, defeat them separately, and relieve the immediate pressure, he could then slowly retreat north of the magic depletion zone. Once he recovered enough magic, whether he resumed the march south to slaughter the unprepared inhabitants of the North or returned to test the Wall once more, his chances would improve.
"We'll rest here to recover magic, and move out again when the men in black catch up," the Chief Cold God Priest said, his voice like cracking ice. "Each Cold God Priest may select from the corpses to convert the strongest and best-equipped into puppets to bring along. Abandon the rest. As for me, I must reserve all my strength for the next battle."
(To be continued.)
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