Chapter 334: The Great Canyon
Being a ruler was no easy task, especially when controlling a place like the Gift, where the population was complex and problems were manifold. Aside from the Night's Watch industry employees recruited from the south, who were fiercely loyal to him, almost all the current residents of the Gift had their grievances.
Among the Night's Watch and the original inhabitants of the Gift, many remained steadfastly opposed to the resettlement plan led by Egger. They viewed the acceptance of wildlings into the Gift as an incomprehensible act: not only did it introduce instability to the Gift and the North, but it also diluted the benefits and living standards that the insiders could have enjoyed—ignoring the fact that these benefits were created by the Night's Watch industries, not the Gift itself. His move to shift the Night's Watch headquarters from Castle Black to Queenscrown earned him uncomplimentary nicknames like 'the Lord Commander who won't guard the Wall' and 'the Lord Commander who's afraid to go back to Castle Black'.
The mountain clans, who had been invited to bolster the Wall's defenses, were generally cooperative and followed Egger's orders, but they were full of private grumbles. Despite receiving the guaranteed support and stone fortress Egger had promised, they found it galling that the wildlings—their former enemies—received almost the same treatment and management the moment they entered the Gift. This fairness, which leveled legal status and wages and diminished their sense of superiority, felt like a profound injustice to them.
As for the New Gift residents—the largest group, hailing from dozens of tribes—the issues were even more numerous. The clever ones among them had begun to realize that Egger's willingness to accept them was driven entirely by a desire for cheap labor. While life in a fixed location under the protection and support of the Watch was stable and safe, working as a laborer in exchange for resources was far more tedious and exhausting than nomadism, gathering, and hunting beyond the Wall. They resented being forced to become kneelers, were infuriated by the constant interference in their tribal internal affairs, and some even looked back with nostalgia on the elderly and infirm whom Mance Rayder had sacrificed to pass the Wall, beginning to blame the former King-Beyond-the-Wall who had successfully led them away from the Others.
In short, Asha Greyjoy was far from the only person who, once fed, found things to complain about. Human nature is never satisfied; in this regard, there was no difference between those inside the Wall and those outside, nor between the north and the south.
Although the overall happiness of the Gift's residents remained at a low point, the logistics department's steady supplies and the deterrent of the Night's Watch military kept the small society away from the red line of rebellion. Egger realized deeply that without a cheat code or massive wealth as a backstop, the idea of winning universal acclaim through a few reforms and a display of kingly aura—as seen in many stories—was utterly unrealistic.
His strategy was to stay clear-headed: the reality of the Gift meant he couldn't satisfy everyone or win their love. He didn't crave what he couldn't have—he was now a chess player, and everyone in the Gift was a piece. He had to win the game against the Others first; only then would he have the right to consider anything else.
Surveyors from the construction department had already conducted explorations and mapping along the coast where the Great Canyon flowed into the Bay of Ice, selecting a site for the port. Egger hadn't originally planned to inspect it before work began, but with the first prototype of the Dragonglass Bomb ready for field testing, he made a last-minute decision to change his itinerary. While the Northern craftsmen were still gathering at Winterfell, he would make a quick trip to personally walk the newly established patrol route along the edge of the Great Canyon. If possible, he also wanted to secure a testing ground for his thermal weapons.
This was his first trip north to the Wall since being elected Lord Commander and completing his inauguration. After passing through Castle Black and traveling west along the base of the ice wall, he stayed a night at the Shadow Tower. There, he held a cordial discussion with Denys Mallister regarding the current state of the Watch and exchanged views on the future direction of the order. The next morning, accompanied by the Shadow Tower's second-in-command, Qhorin Halfhand, he set out westward. After passing the small fort at Westwatch-by-the-Bridge, he stepped into the land west of the Wall—the only region between the Frostfangs and the sea not separated by an ice barrier.
Egger had to admit that the Great Canyon was different from what he had imagined. Before seeing it in person, the image in his mind was closer to aerial shots of the Great Rift Valley: an endless plain split by a massive crack from geological movement, deep and steep like a trench carved by a god's axe.
In reality, the Great Canyon was not formed by plate tectonics. It was originally a fissure or depression between two southern peaks of the Frostfangs. Erosion from the Milkwater had gradually deepened the riverbed, and as the support for the valley walls crumbled away, it formed near-vertical cliffs. Below was a river, and both banks were treacherous slopes.
The key difference between this canyon and a rift valley was that its sides were not flat ground. The northern edge was the southern slope of a chain of mountain peaks, and the southern edge was the northern slope of another. The patrol route Egger had ordered followed a narrow path on the mountainside hugging the cliff. It was uneven, rugged, and dangerous; a single slip could send one tumbling down.
Even what Egger saw today was a route that had been cleared and packed down by dozens of patrol rotations.
The terrain was unsuitable for horses, so the group traveled on foot. Egger leaned out occasionally to look down the cliff. Fortunately, the rock of the Frostfangs was not as hard as that of Mount Wu; the slopes were not a perfect ninety degrees. They were pitted, uneven, and even covered in vegetation. Even if one fell, they wouldn't necessarily plummet straight to the bottom and turn into a pulp.
Nevertheless, it was still not a place where a human could easily climb. Egger recalled his first encounter with the Others three years ago. After abandoning Waymar Royce to flee, he and another soldier had discussed their future at the foot of the Wall. Gared had suggested bypassing the Wall by crossing the Great Canyon from the west to return south. If the Others hadn't been chasing them, Egger might have agreed.
Seeing the canyon with his own eyes, Egger felt lucky he hadn't run with Gared back then. The Milkwater's flow was much smaller than the Yangtze, making the river easy to cross, but climbing out? God knows how they would have managed that.
No wonder Mance Rayder preferred attacking the Wall over trying to bypass it. For the living, this was a natural barrier as reliable as the Wall itself.
"Is there no better road than this?"
"If you mean a road to the naval port at the mouth of the canyon, if we cross this peak and head several miles south, there's a main road used by the clansmen of the Bay of Ice that leads to the Gift," Qhorin Halfhand replied with a shrug. "But the order you gave was to 'patrol the southern side of the Great Canyon.' If we took the main road, we wouldn't be able to see the situation inside the canyon... That would be like patrolling the foot of the Wall; you wouldn't be able to see if someone was climbing."
Egger nodded. Having a main road made things easier; if they had to build a mountain road from scratch for a large force to reach the coast, it would have taken over half a year.
"I can see the canyon's effectiveness against wildlings." Having cleared one worry, another emerged. "But the Others and the dead aren't afraid of falling. If they force a passage regardless of the steepness, it will be difficult to mobilize reinforcements to defend, even if the patrols discover them in time."
The Wall was a massive ice wall encasing giant weirwoods. Due to its sheer scale, the top formed a straight road ten meters wide—the road conditions were better than most actual roads in the Seven Kingdoms, and it could even accommodate cavalry. If the patrols spotted enemies climbing, whether by horn or signal fire, the garrison of the nearest fort could rush to support, using the advantage of height for a devastating defense.
But the Great Canyon... to pass through here, one had to go from the opposite cliff to the bottom, cross the river, and climb again. The difficulty of crossing was comparable to scaling the Wall. However, the path was so narrow and difficult that even if patrols signaled an enemy, the garrisons at the Shadow Tower, Westwatch, or the future naval base would find it hard to reach the location before the enemy finished their ascent.
Was the patrol only useful for early warning?
"Your concern is valid, my Lord, but the situation is not quite that dire. Westwatch is about twenty leagues from the Bay of Ice, but only about ten leagues of that is as treacherous as what we are walking now. Near the western outlet to the sea, the Milkwater widens rapidly, and the road on the southern side of the canyon becomes easier to traverse."
"No matter how easy, it's still a mountain path," Egger sighed with a furrowed brow. "It seems that in addition to the naval base on the coast, we need to establish a transit station in the middle of the canyon to stockpile wildfire, dragonglass arrows, and other supplies to deal with emergencies."
"That would indeed be the safest course." Qhorin Halfhand was actually a conservative who had opposed accepting the wildlings, but he didn't doubt the seriousness of Egger's words. For thousands of years, the strength of the Watch had declined, and its outposts had dwindled. But after this man appeared, not only were the nineteen original forts being gradually reactivated, but since being elected Lord Commander, he had been even more aggressive: one moment deciding to add an outpost here, the next adding one there... and he acted without hesitation. This wealth and decisiveness commanded respect. "But the situation may not be as bad as you imagine, my Lord. In our dozens of patrols, our soldiers have discovered something interesting."
"Interesting? I'm in no mood for anecdotes right now."
"It's not an anecdote," Qhorin shook his head. "Last year, after the Nightfort was reactivated, didn't they find a glowing weirwood beneath the Wall, leading to the theory that the Wall's magic comes from weirwood? Well, by chance, we discovered that the bottom and both slopes of the Great Canyon host the most staggering forest of weirwoods in all of Westeros."
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