Chapter 138: Winter Has Come
Winter had come.
The sky was dim, the climate cold and bleak. The chill in the air seeped silently into the gaps of clothing and armor, making teeth chatter. Although the Lands Beyond the Wall never truly knew summer, the temperature was now markedly colder than it had been only a few months prior.
The snow fell without pause, light white solids drifting down to carpet the earth, erasing once-clear footprints until the entire horizon was a vast, featureless white.
"In this gods-forsaken weather, why aren't we tucked away in Castle Black by a warm fire?" Chett kicked angrily at the hound huddling by his feet. The bitch let out a whimper but immediately pressed back against his leg, desperate to cling to the meager warmth radiating through the man's layers. "To hell with the wights. Can you even boil the damn things for soup once you catch 'em?"
"The Lord Commander said we need to send a wight to King's Landing for King Robert to see, so we can beg for reinforcements!" Lark replied. "This was that fellow Egger's idea. Weren't you listening at the mobilization meeting, or were you too busy dreaming about some whore?"
"Egger again! Using nothing but his mouth and licking that Lannister dwarf's arse to run off south and live in luxury, while writing letters back telling Mormont to send us out here to die! Did I piss on his ancestors' graves or something?" Chett's mouth twisted, the boils on his face flushing red with fury. "Next time he shows his face at the Wall, I'll pin him down and shove a frozen turd right up his backside!"
"Pin him down? The man is big even by rangers' standards. With a frame like yours that can't even keep a hound in line... might be a bit difficult," Dolorous Edd chimed in. "Besides, it seems a bit poor form to plot against a man while wearing the fur coat and padded trousers he sent us. I'd suggest you strip naked before considering it; at least then you'd look like you had some principles."
"Seven hells! He sent a few coats and pairs of breeches—does he expect me to go to my knees and pray to the gods for his soul?"
"You've eaten his meat rations a few times too, remember? No need to kneel and pray, though; you'll only get your trousers wet and get colder," Edd said, hunching his shoulders. "And personally, I wouldn't go looking for trouble with him. When he, Will, and Gared left Waymar Royce to the Others and fled back to the Wall, everyone at Castle Black thought he was a dead man. Yet here he is, alive and well, and he even managed to get that little fool Waymar's lordly father, Yohn Royce, sent to the Wall. That's a hard man... of everyone in the Watch, he's the only one I truly respect now. If he ever comes back, I'll be sure to call him 'Lord Chief Logistics Officer' and do exactly as he says. Maybe if he's happy enough, he'll get me a new set of clothes, let me eat meat every day, or even drag me into the Logistics Department and take me south... gods, that would be the life."
"To the crows with the Chief Logistics Officer, to the crows with Jon Snow, and to the crows with Samwell Tarly!" Chett roared, kicking the dog away again.
Then the horn blew.
One blast. Two. Three. And finally... three long and one short. A fourth blast, never before sounded by the Night's Watch, signaled that the operation had begun.
The Night's Watch had been sending rangers to attempt to capture a wight alive for over two months. They had succeeded at least twice, but both times the Others had prevented them from bringing the prize back to the Wall. The first time, the brothers managed to kill the pursuing White Walker with an obsidian-tipped arrow after a fierce battle, but the captured wight instantly turned back into a mundane corpse. The second time, the Watch was shocked to find that the Others had begun wearing ice armor nearly impenetrable to dragonglass and were keeping their distance, using only wight fodder to engage... the rangers took heavy losses and were forced to abandon the captured wight and flee on horseback before the army of the dead could encircle them.
...
One hundred thousand wildlings had set out from the Frostfangs—men, women, and children in a massive, slow, yet relentless tide moving along the Milkwater, crossing the Haunted Forest to the south. In ten days or a fortnight, their vanguard would reach the Wall. Once that happened, capturing a wight would be nearly impossible.
Having failed twice, the Watch's intent to capture a live specimen had luckily remained undetected by the Others, but the third time had to be the charm. Blind attempts would only lead to more casualties, and if these intelligent magical creatures discovered the plan and took precautions, the dream of proving their existence to King's Landing would be finished.
Time was running out. The Men in Black had to act effectively and immediately.
Through scouts and the testimony of wildling captives, the command had learned a vital piece of intelligence: as winter deepened, the evil magic north of the Wall was waking. The transformation of corpses into wights was becoming universal—man or beast, regardless of the cause of death or depth of burial. As long as a body was north of the Wall and not fully decayed, it would eventually rise. Because these dead rose everywhere, the relatively few Others could not be everywhere at once to gather them into their ranks.
This window of time—between a wight rising and being collected by an Other—provided the opportunity. Thus, Jeor Mormont issued a new order: hunt for stray wights in the Haunted Forest that were not yet accompanied by White Walkers.
Three blasts meant an Other had been sighted—a signal for everyone to retreat south immediately to avoid slaughter. But a fourth blast meant wights had been found, and no Others were nearby!
Tension gripped everyone. Due to the high number of ranger casualties, even some builders and stewards—men who had never set foot beyond the Wall—had been conscripted for this task. Though they had heard tales of these eerie enemies, most had never seen an Other or a wight. When the horn sounded, a chill ran down their spines and bladders tightened.
The hounds seemed to sense the dread in the horn's call, growing restless. Chett, who had been kicking his dogs away just moments ago, now struggled with all his might to hold their leashes.
Dolorous Edd gripped his sword hilt and shouted up into a tree, "Will! Do you see anything?"
"They're coming," the poacher's voice drifted down from above. "Wait... there's more of them than we thought!"
"Look for Others among them! Those cunning bastards might be on foot to fool our scouts!" Edd urged. "Don't miss a single one. Look closely—you've had more contact with them than anyone!"
"About twenty to the north, a dozen to the northeast... gods, there are more behind them! I don't see any Others, I'm coming down! Any longer and I'll be trapped."
A rider thundered through the snow to the waiting brothers. It was Ser Jaremy Rykker, who had succeeded the missing Benjen Stark as First Ranger. "Steady! The brothers leading them in brought back a few too many. Switch to the second plan. Everyone, mount up!"
"Look there, in the woods!"
The wights emerged from the shifting shadows of the Haunted Forest, charging through the heavy snow and over the slick floor of the woods. Lacking body heat, they were often encrusted with snow and ice, camouflaging them perfectly against the landscape. Unless they were moving, they were nearly impossible to spot; in the blur of the storm, it was hard to tell just how many there were.
"Mount up!"
"Wait, don't leave me!"
"Will, stay in the tree! You've survived twice with that trick; don't break the streak now!" the First Ranger commanded. "Don't hesitate! If we're surrounded, we're done. Save your dragonglass arrows—use them only when it's vital!"
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