Chapter 415: All-Out Assault
The icy wind wailed like a crying child. Along the entire length of the Great Gorge, the only sounds were the rush of frigid air, the occasional murmur of night sentries conversing on a nearby defensive platform, and the crackle of firewood before the tents behind them.
It was a long-awaited silence.
The nightly harassment by wights had ceased two days ago—not because it was ineffective, but because as the deforestation progressed (the weirwoods destroyed by wights and other trees burned by defenders using wildfire), the forest's natural cover had worn thin. The weirwood groves on the north slope and near the bottom of the south slope had been cleared entirely. Both banks of the Milkwater were now stark and barren; only a sparse few weirwoods clinging to the mountain paths of the Night's Watch survived.
These final weirwoods offered almost no resistance to the seepage of the Great Other's power, yet they were positioned so close to the defenders—right under their chins—that no depth of night could shield those who moved among them. To clear this last batch by force would require sacrificing hundreds, if not thousands, of wights.
Controlling the dead was simple enough but required magical energy. Furthermore, while the resurrection of the dead was a terror to the living, it possessed an insurmountable flaw: even the most skilled necromancy could not conjure soldiers out of thin air. When the White Walkers led their army of the dead, they could not rely on procreation or reinforcements from elsewhere like the living; unless they won great victories, their numbers only dwindled.
Sending wights to fell those last few trees under the noses of a prepared human garrison was not just inefficient—it was a waste of manpower.
Exhaled breaths turned into clouds of white mist, condensing into frost on eyebrows and beards that clattered to the ground when brushed. Slim wrapped his blanket tighter, taking a moment to flex his limbs and all nineteen fingers and toes.
The stipend for those defending the gorge was half again that of the fortress garrisons, and the food supply included ample meat and ale. When first selected for the Great Gorge, many had been delighted, but time had revealed the sheer brutality of the post.
As the Night's Watch logistics improved, soldiers were generally well-equipped for the cold. However, the weather was simply too fierce, and the front-line defenders in the gorge had no walls to break the wind. When the air moved, the temperature dropped so low that one lost all sensation of their body. Only by moving like this periodically could one avoid the fate of losing toes to frostbite.
Just a bit longer! Slim repeated to himself. In less than an hour, his shift would end. He could return to the windproof tents carved into the rock recesses, shed his armor, and slide into his bedroll for a blissful sleep.
Just as he was envisioning his rest, a soldier a few meters away let out a low gasp. Slim turned to look and saw the western sky brightening. For a split second, he thought the world had turned upside down and the sun was rising from the wrong direction. Two seconds later, reality hit: No, that was the beacon of Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. The harbor fortress at the westernmost end of the line was under attack!
Westwatch sat on the coast southwest of the Milkwater's mouth, and the Bay of Ice was not frozen. Had the army of the dead bypassed the line and swum there to attack? Slim was confused, but more pressingly: now that the beacon of Westwatch was lit, what was he supposed to do?
The defense protocols for the Great Gorge had been drilled into every soldier by their junior officers. After several rehearsals, the instructions were etched into their hearts. Everyone knew that if any point along the gorge was attacked, the night sentries had to confirm it was not a feint and then light their beacon. If the commanders at Westwatch, Gorgeview, or the Shadow Tower deemed it necessary, reserves would be dispatched to support the point of contact.
But the protocols said nothing about how the gorge sentries should react when Westwatch lit its beacon!
A wave of minor unrest rippled from west to east along the entire gorge line, waking many soldiers who had just gone off-duty. Ultimately, the various garrisons stuck strictly to the established plan, remaining at their posts without making any unauthorized moves. The commander at Gorgeview quickly sent messengers running the length of the gorge to reiterate that the protocols remained the supreme guide. The command believed Westwatch had sufficient strength to handle its own troubles. Conversely, if a thousand-man garrison couldn't handle the problem, drawing troops from the gorge wouldn't help—one could not move troops and maintain a strong defensive line at the same time.
The messenger's orders put Slim at ease. He turned back, ignoring the distant beacon to focus again on the dark bottom of the gorge. After a gust of cold wind that felt slightly sharper than before, a wet, icy speck landed on his nose. He looked up at the sky and was not surprised to find it was snowing again.
The good news was that the snow would brighten the environment, making scouting and sentry duty easier. The bad news was that the snow piling up on the defensive mountain paths would have to be cleared at dawn. The Night's Watch had no independent "janitorial" department; every section of the defense had to handle its own maintenance.
Sigh, more work tomorrow.
Slim sighed, his warm breath forming a cloud far larger than the mist from his nose. Then, a horn sounded abruptly.
Aooooooo—
The sound echoed back and forth in the gorge, spreading across the entire line. It grew faint and distant, yet there was no doubt it was real. The Night's Watch had long since abandoned the distinction between one, two, or three blasts, especially along the gorge. These defenders never went down to the floor of the gorge to patrol, which meant if a horn sounded, there was only one possibility.
Enemy attack!
He quickly scanned the areas to his east and west to ensure it wasn't an adjacent section lighting a beacon. The Shadow Tower, as the supreme command for the West, had divided the gorge line into nearly a hundred sections based on length and terrain. Depending on the risk, each section was manned by a squad of twenty to fifty men, with a larger force at the midpoint outpost, Gorgeview. According to the plan, if an adjacent section was attacked, the neighboring squads were obligated to send aid—provided their own zone was secure—to help them hold until the reserves arrived.
Despite his frantic glance, he found the target instantly. Good—the place lighting a beacon was several miles away. It wasn't an adjacent section!
...
Hustling footsteps sounded behind him. Several of the quickest soldiers in the squad had already donned enough clothing to ensure they wouldn't freeze and rushed out of the tents. Led by their sergeant, they surged toward the cliff's edge.
"What's the situation?"
"The beacon is at least three miles to the east! It's not our neighbor!" Slim reported loudly.
"I asked 'what is the situation,' not 'where is the attack'! You tell me it's not our neighbor with a smile on your face—what kind of answer is that?" the squad leader barked. "When you hear a horn, the first thing you do is confirm our own section isn't under attack, then you judge if others need help! Understood?"
"Yes... sir!" Slim felt a sting of injustice; he had been standing his watch faithfully without even a nod of sleep, only to be berated. But military law was absolute. He acknowledged the order and followed his training—he grabbed a flaming torch from a nearby brazier stand and hurled it with all his might into the gorge.
The sergeant's anger was partly due to the youth's failure to follow protocol, but mostly he was irritated by the schadenfreude in the boy's voice. He intended to lecture him further.
However, as the torch cut through the darkness and fell into the deep gorge, its faint light reflected off the snow, illuminating a radius of about a dozen meters. A scene even the sergeant hadn't expected met their eyes: on the frozen surface of the Milkwater at the bottom of the gorge, a black shadow like a flood was surging across the north-south boundary, rushing toward the southern slope where their line was positioned. The shrill echoes of the horn echoing through the gorge had, to some extent, masked the sound of their approach, such that not one of the sentries had noticed them immediately.
The torch fell into the black tide and vanished instantly, as if sinking into deep water. Even the sergeant, a self-proclaimed veteran, nearly lost his composure.
"Lord of Light..." The squad leader choked for a moment, then snapped into action. "Slim, light the beacon immediately! Nahat, get your brothers to unbox the wildfire! Gwen, get those stragglers out of the tents and bring all the dragonglass weapons. Boys, this isn't a drill anymore!"
The entire section of soldiers was roused. Crates of war materiel were stripped of their moisture-proof and blast-proof packaging and hauled to the cliffside. The defensive battle erupted instantly. Blobs of green flame burst at the front of the climbing wight tide; dragonglass arrows were showered down as if they cost nothing. The momentum of the enemy was terrifying, but to look on the bright side—at least the defenders didn't have to worry about wasting supplies on a false alarm this time.
Beacons were lit in rapid succession, but they soon realized that no one could count on help from their neighbors.
One beacon tower after another flared to life. Out of more than ninety defensive sections along the gorge, over eighty were under attack by wights at the exact same time. The worst-case scenario from the strategic plan had manifested: the enemy was not striking at a single point. It was an all-out assault across the entire line!
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