They would choose to come at night. The indigo sky gradually deepened into a dark black, and stars began to appear.
The horn of the Night's Watch blew, two long blasts. One blast signaled the return of the brothers, two blasts meant wildlings were approaching, and three blasts announced the White Walkers.
Cole got up from his bed with difficulty. He had been having a nightmare. Just a day ago, he had personally cremated Ygritte, remembering it was her last wish.
He looked at the Wall from the King's Tower. Mance Rayder had finally arrived, and the ravens they had sent south still brought no response.
The lords in the south seemed consumed by their power struggles, completely forgetting the Night's Watch. Even his father. Every time he thought of this, Cole felt a pang of sadness.
He turned his eyes towards the King's Road to the south. Although he couldn't see it from here, he knew Winterfell lay in that direction. He would come, he would definitely come.
Though his legs still pained him, they were somewhat numb, allowing him to walk.
The Night's Watch brothers poured out of the towers, grabbing their weapons, and gathered in the iron cage at the corner of the Wall.
By pulling the iron cage with a winch, they could ascend the 700-foot ice wall. Cole looked for his friends among the Night's Watch: Pyp, Grenn, and Vicky. He didn't find them until he reached the iron cage, leaning on a cane.
An iron cage could only hold ten people at a time. When the cage was raised, they had no choice but to wait. The wind was unusually cold.
He remembered how, when he first arrived at the Wall, he hadn't understood why Cole had said the most deadly thing on the Wall was the wind.
Later, when he climbed the Wall for a night patrol, he finally knew. The wind, like the roar of a giant beast, was as cutting as a sword.
He stood in the iron cage and slowly ascended with ten Night's Watch brothers. The higher they went, the louder the wind roared.
"It's so cold today!" a brother cursed. He was a new Night's Watch recruit, a prisoner sent from Storm's End.
Cole had grown accustomed to this kind of weather. Compared to the biting wind, he found something in the darkness more chilling. The wildling king had once told him: When the dead emerge, the ring wall, the stakes, and the sword become meaningless. People cannot fight the dead, Cole, no one knows better than I do.
When he reached the top of the Great Wall, he saw flames flickering in steel basins, along with piles of arrows, crossbows, spears, rocks, and tar barrels.
Rodrik, the Winterfell master-at-arms, had taught them that these wooden barrels filled with tar and lamp oil could burn the enemy to tears when defending a castle.
He looked at the flames in the steel basins swaying in the cold wind, wondering if the flames from the tar barrels could truly stop the wildlings.
To make their numbers appear larger, the Night's Watch had filled the Great Wall with scarecrows wearing black cloaks.
The endless night stretched north of the Great Wall, as if countless black hands were covering their eyes. Beyond the darkness, Cole also saw the twinkling lights of fires. By their glow, he discerned enormous shadows. Monsters with long, curved tusks, several times larger than a horse.
Boom!
He heard the sound of a giant catapult launching a pitch-filled barrel, and the burning tar illuminated the night. Cole used this light to clearly see the mammoths: many of them, ten, fifty, a hundred!
He saw the wildling army begin to surge like a tide, their horns answering the crows on the Great Wall. Their attack was imminent.
"The gate! Their goal is the gate!" These wildlings had no intention of climbing the 700-foot-high wall. Only a fool would attempt to assault the highest wall in the Seven Kingdoms, and Mance Rayder was clearly no fool.
They lit the oil cans and hurled them down the wall, while also pushing down boulders. The wildlings kept approaching the city wall like ants. The city gate was a curved tunnel dug into the ice wall, narrow enough to barely allow a horse to pass through. The dark night prevented them from seeing where the enemy was; only the occasional flash of fire cast shadows, reminding them of the countless foes.
"Cole, the Wall is yours until I return," Master Noye had told him.
He handed over command of the Wall to me?
"Yes," Cole reluctantly agreed.
The blacksmith selected a few men to follow him down to the city gate. Vicky silently followed, but was loudly scolded by the weapon master, "Why are you following me, you idiot!"
Vicky's mouth opened slightly, but he heard Master Noye say again, "You're too short, don't get in the way." The blacksmith took two archers and two spearmen with him.
The guards on the Wall poured arrows into the endless night.
It remained dark until dawn, when a sliver of light finally allowed them to see the wildling army's full might. Horsemen and giants, wolves and skinchangers, all gathered here.
"I didn't know there were so many of them," said Satin.
Hundreds of mammoths, with giants riding on their backs wielding clubs, mauls, or stone axes. More giants ran alongside, pushing large tree trunks mounted on wooden wheels, their front ends sharpened to a point.
"What should we do? How can we deal with them?" someone asked desperately.
"The Wall will stop them," Cole heard himself say. He turned to the group and raised his voice, "The Wall will stop them, the Wall will protect itself." He heard his companions echoing his words, though their voices were extremely weak and pale. But he had to say it. Any discouraging words now could cause their morale to collapse.
The wildlings' bows and arrows were useless. Their crude skills prevented them from making proper bows. The arrows they shot into the air simply fell back down, powerless.
They looked down and hurled all kinds of weapons at the wildlings. When Cole had come down from the Wall due to his leg injury, the maester had told him that the blacksmith master and his men had died. He saw Vicky crying, and Cole's heart sank.
The battles continued unabated, the flames of war echoing day and night in every corner beneath Castle Black.
"Did they send more wildlings?" Satin shouted desperately. He was a new recruit of the Night's Watch, his name coming from the brothel where he grew up. The recruit was as beautiful as a woman, not very old, and had only just begun to grow a beard.
Who will guard the city gate? Cole looked at his feet, biting his lip.
Toot toot toot!!!
A loud horn sounded through the world. This strange horn was neither from the Night's Watch nor from the wildlings. Cole thought, this is a familiar sound.
"Look there!" Satin's voice came again, pointing to the south of the Wall.
Cole turned his head and saw a group of flying silver-gray ice wolves.