Chapter 412: The Freezing of Seal Bay
Daylight at the northernmost tip of the Seven Kingdoms is always exceptionally short; by roughly three or four in the afternoon, the sky begins to dim. At the easternmost stretch of the Wall, along the edge of the Haunted Forest separated from the Night's Watch port of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea by only a wall of ice, the light is further sapped by dense trunks and branches. By the time it reaches the ground, the illumination is dismal, its faint remains casting shadows on the twisted, claw-like boughs of the trees. They looked like grotesque specters, swaying and shrieking in the biting wind like snarling living things, making the atmosphere far more terrifying than the darkest midnight.
Amidst these ghost-like shadows, a snowdrift on the ground suddenly burst apart. A desiccated figure broke through the icy crust and crawled out—he, or rather it, was not alone. Within a single heartbeat, a second... a third... a tenth... appeared in rapid succession.
An army of thousands of wights had remained motionless beneath the snow for months, conserving magical energy while evading human scouts. But now, as that faint magical pulse swept past, they revived instantly from their standby state. Like sprouts or fungi surging after a warm rain, they emerged patch by patch from their snowy burrows, shaking off frost and icicles, and began to shuffle unsteadily toward the eastern coast.
Wights, shadowcats, bears... every living thing that could be found beyond the Wall had been converted into a controlled puppet. The dead formed ranks, ranks merged into groups, and groups swelled into a tide. Finally, a vast mountain of flesh and bone formed a dark cloud of death, flowing sluggishly toward the sea, barely a league from the Wall and just beyond the visual range of the sentries atop the ice.
On the coast they faced, two White Walkers—the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Front and his second-in-command—had arrived moments earlier. They stood motionless atop a massive seaside crag, waiting for the final moment.
The concentration of winter magic in the world had not yet reached its zenith, the temperature had not dropped to its lowest point, and even Seal Bay was not yet completely frozen. Under normal circumstances, the optimal time for an attack was at least a fortnight away. But... since that high and mysterious entity had issued the signal to attack, there had to be a reason.
As the most loyal servants of that being, the White Walkers did not question; they only executed orders.
Now, the wights emerging from the snow across the landscape gradually converged at the water's edge, waiting for the mysterious entity to manifest a miracle and construct a path across the surface of Seal Bay that could bypass the Wall.
The ocean was vast and deep, containing an incalculable volume of liquid, and the specific heat capacity of water was notoriously high. Generally speaking, using unnatural forces to freeze it was an impossible task—even lowering the water temperature in Seal Bay by a single degree required energy that exceeded the capacity of even that mysterious entity.
However... at this moment, the seawater's temperature was actually already below the freezing point in a supercooled state. Due to convection, waves, tides, and the relentless de-icing efforts of the human defenders, it was only one final step away from solidifying. Under these conditions, providing that last external push—though not as efficient as waiting for a natural freeze—was an acceptable price to pay to seize the optimal tactical window and force the start of this war.
Damp, cold mist condensed continuously on the freezing surfaces of the two White Walkers' bodies. They had to move occasionally to shake off the ice skin lest they turn into statues. But this idle waiting would not last indefinitely. Dusk turned to night, and the sky turned pitch black. When the last wight shuffled into the waiting sea of death, the two leading White Walkers finally stopped staring at the surging waves and turned their heads toward the northern sky.
From the direction of the sacred Land of Always Winter, a series of low rumbles echoed. A massive surge of energy completed its convergence and began to rush toward the Wall—specifically, toward the waters of Seal Bay—at a staggering speed.
On the waters of Seal Bay, five Night's Watch vessels, oblivious to the coming magical pulse, were still busy working under the artificial glow of lanterns.
Although the White Walkers had not yet attacked, the de-icing team of Eastwatch had already become the first group in the Night's Watch—and indeed the entire human world—to enter the battle against the Great Other.
The weather was growing colder, and the shallow waters near the shore were freezing faster. Often, a foot of ice would form overnight. If left unattended for even a day, the ice would extend rapidly toward the open sea, eventually completely freezing Seal Bay where the Wall met the water.
Though it was late, they were forced to work overtime. If they succumbed to laziness for even one day, thinking they could rest early and continue tomorrow, the vicious cycle would cause the ice to accumulate and thicken until all previous efforts were rendered futile.
They had scattered cinders along the entire shoreline and several meters into the water. Every morning at dawn, the dark cinders would absorb heat, melting the sections of sea ice bonded to the shore until they were thin or broken. Then, the ships would send men to break up and segment the drifting ice. Large chunks were secured with ropes and iron stakes to be towed away by ships, while smaller fragments were caught in nets and hauled to a natural bay a few miles south to be dumped, preventing them from drifting back.
As long as they persisted in this cycle, the ice bridge the enemy needed to bypass the Wall would never form.
The weather was cold enough to freeze a man's ears off, yet the soldiers involved in the de-icing worked with fervor. The labor was grueling, but Cotter Pyke, the Commander of Eastwatch, understood their hardship. Those on this duty received the highest stipends and worked a one day on, one day off rotation; many were clamoring to join, even resorting to backdoor influence to get on the roster.
However, Yohn Royce—once the Bronze Lord of Runestone, now the officer in charge of the de-icing team—did not enjoy the work at all. Handpicked as the commander, he didn't have to labor on the ice himself, but he was denied the rotating rest days and had to go out to sea every day. Since Egger had outmaneuvered him upon taking office and threatened him with death, Cotter Pyke seemed to have changed entirely. He not only refused to discuss any further plans to deal with the boy but also denied Royce's requests for leave when he was exhausted, even sending men to supervise him—as if Royce would surely find a way to kill himself if he wasn't watched for a single day.
Though he understood Cotter was trying to protect him, no one would enjoy such an extreme method.
Despite his inner fury, Yohn stood tall at the prow of the warship Mermaid, supervising the work of the ships and soldiers. There was no other choice; he was living under another man's roof. If he failed even at this task, no one would be able to save him if Egger decided to settle old scores.
Nearly eighty percent of today's task was complete. After one last haul to move the final few acres of ice, they could return to Eastwatch and hand the ships over to the night patrol.
At this thought, everyone's energy surged. But as they were chanting cadences and hacking at the ice, the shouting suddenly weakened. More and more soldiers stopped working to point at the northern sky. Yohn was about to bark at them for idling, but when he turned to look, he froze.
By the last light of the evening sky, the northern horizon presented a bizarre scene: at the edge of his vision, a gray-white mist, which shouldn't have existed, spanned east to west. It was hard to see where the sea met the sky, but against the dark silhouette of the forest, it stood out starkly. It looked like an infinitely high, wide, and thick white curtain hanging between heaven and earth.
What was that thing?
Yohn Royce's eyes widened in suspicion, but a second later, he snapped back to his senses. It didn't matter what it was; what mattered was that it was moving, and it was rushing toward the Wall!
An object that massive, yet moving so fast that its speed was visible to the naked eye from miles away... what was its actual velocity?
Judging by the color and texture, it had to be an unprecedented ice storm! A chill surged from his lower back to his spine—Yohn didn't believe a gust of wind could blow down the Wall, but, gods be damned, he was on a ship! A ship floating on the freezing waters of Seal Bay!
"Stop looking! Everyone—get back to the ships!" he roared at the top of his lungs toward the soldiers still standing on the floating ice. Without waiting for their reaction, he turned to the sailors of his flagship, the Mermaid: "Lower all sails! Turn the ship to face north; a massive wind is coming! Order the Blackbird and the other galleys to do the same! Anyone with nothing to do, hide under your bunks in the cabins! Cover your heads with blankets and douse all lamps!"
The soldiers on the ice now realized the danger. They frantically dropped their tools and ran for the nearest vessels. In their haste, some slipped and fell, though fortunately without breaking the ice and falling in. The visible ice storm moved so fast that people soon heard the howl it brought—a sound like ten thousand dragons roaring as they pounced. It moved with such speed that barely a minute passed from the time they saw it until it reached them. When the distance closed to just a few hundred meters, Yohn Royce stopped urging the stragglers who hadn't reached the cabins and dove inside himself, slamming the wooden door shut and crawling under a table.
He was a man of years; decades of daily life and military experience gave him a certain level of judgment. He made the correct decision in an instant: had he ordered the sails raised to return to Eastwatch, the ship wouldn't have lasted three seconds before being capsized. But even with the ship pointed into the wind and everyone hidden inside, the situation was hardly better.
BOOM—
No one could imagine a wind hitting a ship could make such a spectacular sound. Accompanying the roar of impact was the clatter of debris being hurled against the hull, but soon no one cared about the noise. Despite being inside the cabin, everyone was like ants in a tumble dryer, tossed about as their bodies made intimate contact with the ceiling and all four walls.
After agonizing for about half a minute in boundless pain and terror, Yohn woke from a brief dizzy spell. The cabin was a shambles; furniture, supplies, and people were piled in a heap. Fortunately, the oil lamps had been extinguished, or they would have been roasted alive.
He was certain he felt the ship roll at least once, but for some reason, it had returned to an upright position. It was now steady and motionless, lacking even the normal swaying of a ship at sea, as if it had been blown ashore and run aground.
This shouldn't be possible. A medium-sized ship with no cargo, at least a mile from shore—how could it run aground from a gust of wind?
With doubt in his mind, Yohn struggled to open his eyes. He realized the stinging pain in his body was fading... he thought it was because the impact wasn't severe, but the stiffness in his face and the frost he felt in his beard brought him back to reality: he was freezing.
Supporting himself against the wall, Yohn ignored the others groaning in pain. After a few tries, he kicked open the cabin door, which seemed to have warped and jammed. He stepped back onto the deck.
"By the Old Gods!"
By the last sliver of twilight in the sky, he saw the scene outside and finally understood why the ship was no longer rocking, and why the surroundings were as cold as the depths of the seven hells.
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