Chapter 439: Hunting the Dead (Part I)
Strength worship and double standards permeate every facet of the human world.
When an opponent is roughly equal to oneself, being suppressed and forced into submission often leaves one feeling resentful and bitter. However, if one is utterly crushed and steamrolled, the conquered party instead becomes fully convinced, even taking pride in their submission, unable to muster a shred of resistance.
When the Night's Watch outmaneuvered and forced the surrender of the freefolk years ago, those Free Folk wailed in protest, believing the Crows only held the upper hand because of the geographical advantage of the Wall and weren't truly superior. Even during surrender negotiations, they couldn't hide their arrogance, loudly insisting they would never kneel. To soothe the tempers of these stubborn men and maintain stability in the Gift so they would work and fight honestly, Lord Commander Mormont—at Egger's suggestion—had added a redundant regulation: despite kneeling already being uncommon in Westeros, it was officially abolished within the Gift.
Yet today, the first person to publicly break this agreement was the very man who had originally proposed it.
...
When Egger semi-coerced himself into kneeling to Daenerys, he was prepared to handle the backlash and ridicule from the New Gift residents who despised kneelers. However, the situation was better than he had imagined—it seemed everyone agreed that submitting to a Queen riding a dragon was not shameful. The New Gift folk were heartened that the dragons' presence meant less danger for them; the radicals within the Watch clenched their fists in secret satisfaction at finally abandoning neutrality to join a side; and as for the nobles who were theoretically the Queen's enemies—they had come to the Wall because of their faith in R'hllor and their willingness to contribute to the Great War. Their reaction to the Lord Commander's pragmatic move was largely one of understanding rather than resistance.
No one jumped out to accuse Egger of being a kneeler, nor did anyone publicly question his breach of the Watch's neutrality. Instead, the Queen's excessive enthusiasm became the first real problem. Perhaps pleased by the unhesitating sincerity he showed when asked to swear fealty, and eager to reciprocate the goodwill to her new follower, Daenerys immediately inquired about the location of the remaining wights once the oaths were finished. She seemed intent on taking her three dragons to hunt them down directly, using dragonfire to eliminate the Watch's lingering concerns so she could pull Egger into helping her conquer the realm as soon as possible.
Egger felt the Queen's urgency and kindness, but he could only appreciate it in spirit, not in practice.
He had paid a price far exceeding his initial estimates to weaken the enemy to the point where they could be destroyed in a head-on battle; if the Queen, in a fit of excitement, lost a dragon at this final hurdle, the war would have to start all over again. After some persuasion, Egger managed to convince Daenerys that the enemy has the ability to attack and convert even her children into undead dragons, making her abandon the impulse for a solo sortie and agree to coordinate with the main army.
For this campaign, to prevent a sneak attack or a sudden reversal from the enemy, Egger brought along most of the skinchangers in Queenscrown who could control animals. He even went so far as to load the mobility-impaired Bran Stark into a carriage.
Regarding this greenseer—whom one wouldn't know whether to call a little fellow or an old man—Egger believed he wasn't allied with the Great Other, but he remained suspicious of whether Bran was exerting his full effort in the war. Bringing him on this southern march served the obvious purpose of using his crow-controlling abilities for scouting and messaging, but it was also a form of invisible physical collateral. If the southern army fell into a bitter struggle or a crisis of defeat, the greenseer would not be spared; if he had any hidden tricks, he would be forced to use them all.
The combination of skinchangers, a greenseer, and patrolling rangers reduced the possibility of an ambush to nearly zero. The addition of the dragons pushed the balance of hard power entirely in favor of the humans. The foolproof situation Egger had dreamed of had finally taken shape: a force that was arguably the most effective counter to the Others in human history was now assembled, advancing south steadily and surely.
Feeding three dragons added significant logistical pressure to the transport lines, but it was a small price to pay compared to the advantage and certainty of victory they provided. To save the stamina of both humans and dragons, Daenerys spent most of her time in a carriage like Bran, rather than riding through the air. With three massive flying flamethrowers circling overhead all day, the army felt as if its marching speed had increased.
The fortresses along the Wall followed Egger's orders, dispatching elite light units immediately upon receiving his messages. These units caught up with the main force within dozens of hours of the pursuit's start. On the day after departure—the fourth day since the Others crossed the Gorge—the coalition saw the northernmost trees of the Wolfswood. By the afternoon, they approached the Last River and reached the fork leading toward Last Hearth and Winterfell... and then they caught up with the enemy.
At least, that was the sensation for most of the men—but Egger felt more like the enemy was waiting for them to arrive.
"The skinchangers report that their birds found the wight army less than ten miles to the south. Based on the tracks, they judge the dead left Last Hearth not long ago."
Although Last Hearth did not sit directly on the Kingsroad, it wasn't far from the main path. Since the wight host had passed through the castle and resumed its southward march, House Umber was clearly doomed. It wasn't worth diverting the army for several hours to reclaim a ghost town with no survivors. After confirming through Bran that the one strong and eight weak total of nine White Walkers were still within the swarm and hadn't separated, Egger didn't waste time mourning the Northmen. Instead, he ordered the army to slow down but continue the pursuit, while Bran and the skinchangers kept a tight watch on the swarm and the Others. Simultaneously, he dispatched a small patrol to Last Hearth to investigate.
Dusk was falling, and the rangers' subsequent report confirmed Egger's suspicions, though... the bizarre situation at Last Hearth, where a massive number of fresh corpses remained without disappearing, exceeded his expectations and spiked his sense of danger.
...
"Are you certain those are corpses and not wights feigning stillness? How many?"
Stopping beside the advancing army, Egger questioned the scout strictly about the specific situation at Last Hearth.
Years ago, after he had followed Tyrion south to King's Landing, the rangers who went with Benjen to find Waymar Royce had returned as feigned corpses to Castle Black to assassinate Mormont, just like in the original story. Egger had not forgotten the enemy's trick of playing dead.
"Excluding the wights clearly killed during the siege, there are roughly one or two thousand. But they are all women and children; there are almost no adult men or soldiers. We tested some with dragonglass weapons; they look exactly like real corpses, no anomalies found." The scout leader chose his words carefully. "But to be safe, and to prevent the enemy from using them to flank us, I suggest assigning a hundred men to return to Last Hearth with me to cremate the bodies."
"No need for such trouble." Daenerys, who had stepped out of her carriage to stand nearby, shook her head. "I'll summon the dragons now and fly ahead to intercept the swarm. We can eliminate those... uh, Others before dark, and then deal with Last Hearth at our leisure. Whatever scheme the enemy has, they won't have time to execute it."
"No. Although ten miles looks like we've caught up on a map, the enemy isn't a static target. In a real engagement, even if the army charges, it would take half an hour to reach them... That time might not seem long, but if the enemy uses some means to wound or ground your dragons, we would never reach you in time to break the siege or rescue you. I insist on following our original agreement—Your Majesty's dragons must not enter combat until the ground forces have engaged!"
He sounded like a loyal minister concerned for his Queen, but in truth—Egger didn't give a damn about the dragons' lives.
Correction: it wasn't that he didn't care; he actually wished the three dragons would perish alongside the Others in the battle, so long as Daenerys survived. He hadn't sworn fealty because she had dragons, but because he wanted to use her brand as the Last Targaryen as a ladder and stepping stone to the stage of power. A Daenerys Targaryen without dragons would still be a Queen and the monarch he had sworn to follow, but she would lose her primary leverage. She would have to rely on his gunpowder to conquer the Seven Kingdoms—and once her dependence on the Night's Watch grew, his status as Lord Commander within a new Dragon dynasty would skyrocket. Even controlling the Queen to command the lords wouldn't be a dream.
However, while it would be ideal for the dragons and Others to destroy each other, Egger wouldn't do anything as stupid as deliberately getting them killed before victory was assured. The real reason he insisted on keeping the dragons with the army was simple: only by acting in sync could he ensure that even if the Others grounded a dragon, the Watch would be close enough to pepper the body with dragonsteel arrows and prevent it from rising as an undead dragon!
Of course, Egger would never voice those thoughts.
He ordered his guards to halt the troops and set up a fortified camp with sentries. Then, he crouched by the road, opened a map on a small table brought from the carriage, drew a few lines, and began explaining his reasoning: "Things are unusual. I suspect the Others are calculating some plot, which is why they happen to be appearing in our sights just as the sun is setting."
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