Chapter 242: The First Clash of Ice and Fire
The wights toppled large sections of the wooden stockade and began surging into the camp from all directions. The living were forced back step by step, soon trapped in a desperate position where they could only use the piles of clutter within the fence, the bonfires, and the flesh and blood of their teammates as cover.
The situation was hopeless, yet the continuous sound of explosions and bursts of light from above bolstered their will to fight. A single barrel of oil caused more carnage among the wights than a dozen Kingslayers could, but more important than the power of the blasts was the psychological reassurance the support from the top of the Wall provided: the men above had not abandoned them!
Atop the seven-hundred-foot Wall, the Night's Watch sentries struggled to hurl oil barrels and maintain covering fire with fire arrows. A wall of flames would be the ideal cover for the survivors on the ground, but the immense height made precision nearly impossible. It was incredibly difficult to ensure the oil barrels didn't fall too far away without exploding directly in the crowd. Hampered by the fear of hitting their own, many barrels landed outside the stockade, creating isolated fires that the wights simply walked around, failing to form a cohesive barrier.
While the Watchmen stared down at the battle in tense frustration, a soft, somewhat languid female voice drifted from behind them.
"My friends of the Night's Watch, I hear... you've run into some trouble?"
Unnoticed by the others, Melisandre had ascended via the winch cage.
"Below us, thousands of lives are about to be reaped by the wights." Seeing the enchantress, Egger felt a flicker of hope return. He explained his plan: "We hoped to use the oil barrels to form a ring of fire around the stockade, but we can't throw them accurately enough, and... the fire isn't intense enough."
"I see." The Red Woman spoke as if thousands of lives were a trivial matter. Wearing a faint smile, she walked gracefully and unhurriedly to the edge of the Wall and looked down.
The hastily built stockade had already lost nearly half its structure under the wight assault. The courageously organized defense had not caused the living dead or the wight-animals to falter or retreat in the slightest. The black-clad brothers and Wildlings huddled within had been compressed by the enemy's offensive into a semicircle against the Wall. Warriors on the outermost edge were constantly wounded and falling; the crowd was like a ball of mud under a crashing tide, being continuously peeled away and shrunken.
The situation was clear. Melisandre quickly looked up. "It seems those below require assistance."
Mormont muttered in displeasure, "Priestess, if you or your so-called Red God have any tricks up your sleeves, use them now. Spare us the sarcasm!"
"I have been well-hosted here; since the Lord Commander asks for aid, I shall naturally assist." Melisandre nodded. She raised her hands, which had been tucked before her, displaying them to the crowd. "I shall seek help from R'hllor, but I cannot guarantee whether He will choose to save them."
The so-called "seeking help from R'hllor" was, naturally, a mere cover. How could a true god respond to every trifle, let alone intervene personally?
Melisandre had been at the Wall for some time, searching for an opportunity to display her power and gain influence. However, the Night's Watchmen were different from the commoners and nobles of the south—they were accustomed to the strange and the supernatural. Ordinary sleight of hand and parlor tricks would hardly capture their attention or fool them.
If she continued to stay here day after day doing nothing, she might as well be a mere tourist at the Wall. Perhaps it was time to expend some precious mana to instill some reverence for the Lord of Light in these men in black.
Even if it didn't make the Watch obey her every word, it would at least make it easier to spread the faith of the Red God among the Gift-dwellers. Besides, for reasons unknown, her mana recovered much faster here at the Wall than in the south.
Having reasoned through the benefits, the Red Woman bowed her head, looking down at the struggling Wildlings and black brothers below. She began to stir the mana within her body.
There were already fires and combustibles on the ground below. Melisandre sifted through her memory and selected a combustion-enhancement spell. It was a simple flame spell that any person with magical talent could learn through practice. However, casting it across a distance of two hundred meters while requiring the fire to burn with enough intensity to halt a tide of wights... when these two conditions were added, even the simplest spell became incredibly difficult.
Nevertheless, as one of the finest Red Priests in the world, Melisandre was confident she could execute it.
She concentrated her mind, softly chanting an incantation for focus. Because she hadn't cast a spell of this magnitude in so long, the magic flowing through her body brought a long-forgotten sting. Manipulating and shaping it, colorless and odorless fire-aspected energy surged from her body, extending like tentacles toward the battlefield beneath the Wall.
The Watch officers watching her like spectators were baffled; some even began to feel anger at Melisandre's ill-timed theatrics. But the soldiers lined up at the edge of the Wall loosed a collective cry of shock.
On the ground below, the flames burning where the oil barrels had landed near the stockade suddenly shot up several meters. Not only did the brightness increase manifold, but the fire ignited the fallen timber walls and gates. The flames spread rapidly like a slithering serpent, instantly engulfing the entire stockade line. It formed a ring of fire over two meters wide, separating the hundreds of wights on the outside from the vanguards already locked in a melee within the fence.
This was absolutely not natural combustion. Wildfire might spread that quickly, but it could never instantly create such an intense blaze.
Everyone looked at the Red Woman with astonished eyes. This witch truly had some skill!
The roaring flames instantly swallowed dozens of wights standing on the timber planks, splitting the army of the dead into inner and outer groups. The fewer than one hundred wights inside the circle were quickly reduced to piles of rotten meat, dry bone, or balls of fire under the fierce counterattack of the emboldened living. This last batch of Wildlings appeared to be saved!
"Keep throwing the oil barrels," Melisandre said. She was exerting all her strength to maintain the spell, yet she strove to maintain an expression of effortless ease; this helped instill awe in the onlookers. "R'hllor cannot create such a fire from nothing. There must be something to burn for it to continue."
With the evidence before his eyes, Mormont had no choice but to believe her. The Lord Commander turned to the surrounding soldiers and barked, "What are you staring at? Keep throwing!"
Feeling the sudden, immense surge of heat radiating from Melisandre, Egger leaned over the edge to continue watching the situation below. The fire continued to burn fiercely, quickly consuming the entire wooden wall. The sound of the stockade cracking and collapsing in the heat was clearly audible. In terms of sheer intensity, even dozens of jars of wildfire would struggle to match this power.
The wights had no intelligence, but the entities controlling them from behind the scenes were not fools. Seeing that no puppet could cross this roaring inferno alive, the wights on the perimeter halted their steps in unison. They even proactively stepped back, spreading their formation to reduce the lethality of the fire arrows from above.
"My Lord, raise the portcullis now! There is still a chance for those below!"
"But so many people... more than our own men and the mountain clans in Castle Black combined. If..."
"Pass my order: maximum alert within Castle Black. Raise the portcullis one man's height," Mormont ordered with a grim face. "Tell the brothers managing the winch today: the moment they hear the horn, drop the gate immediately!"
The portcullis rose just over a meter. The cheers from the foot of the Wall were audible even at the top. Though the Wildlings who had endured the bloody battle suffered heavy casualties, they were no longer as mindlessly panicked as they were when they first fled the Haunted Forest. Whether guided by Jaime and the other Watchmen or acting spontaneously, the male warriors and spearwives consciously maintained a perimeter guard, allowing the children and wounded to pass through first.
The crisis seemed poised to pass safely thanks to Melisandre's intervention. However, the witch maintaining the wall of fire suddenly changed expression and looked toward the edge of the Haunted Forest. "They are coming."
Mormont followed the Red Woman's gaze but saw no one. "Who? What?"
A familiar chill suddenly prickled the surface of the skin. Egger, who had experienced this sensation before, was the first to understand the witch's words. He looked toward the Haunted Forest; he didn't catch sight of the Others, but his peripheral vision caught a flash of icy light. The familiar terror rushed back into his heart. Amidst an exploding sense of danger, he didn't hesitate—he put his strength into his arms and gave the Red Woman a violent shove.
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