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Mance seized the fleeting moment and roared Lynn's name with everything he had.
A thousand wildling throats answered at once—"Son of the Stars!"—and the clansmen who had watched the slaughter found their courage again. They started drifting instinctively toward the loudest voices.
That was what a banner did. It lifted morale, gave men something solid to rally around, and stood for victory itself.
The Free Folk had never carried a flag, but the blood-red dragon wheeling overhead was better than any banner they could have dreamed up.
The battered Hardfoots regrouped fast into fresh ranks.
Dozens of walrus-bone war chariots formed a ragged wedge on the eastern flank, packed with spearmen gripping sharp bone points, ready to slam into the enemy's side.
Varamyr's huge boar came huffing out of the brush, one tusk snapped off, half its head matted with blood, small black eyes burning with hate.
The momentum on the field began to shift.
From the top of the Wall the Thenns who couldn't get through the blocked tunnel dropped thick ropes and slid down the ice face in near-freefall. The leather wrapped around their hands smoked and tore away in strips.
The instant their boots hit the ground they didn't pause to form up. They moved toward the center of the fight in tight ten-man teams.
Every Free Folk fighter still willing to stand was heading in the same direction. Their determination started turning the tide of the rout.
Lynn still had one last heavy blast of dragonflame left. Seeing the battle swinging back their way, he decided to use it to finish the job.
He flew straight for the crowned-stag banner.
But Stannis's army wasn't only heavy cavalry. Veteran foot soldiers and longbowmen—hard men who had survived the Blackwater—held their lines. They didn't break at the first taste of dragonfire.
Lynn tried several times to close on the royal standard and was driven back each time by thick arrow fire.
Weeping Blood was still too small to shrug off volleys. Lynn refused to risk him. Instead he poured the final heavy blast straight into the reforming cavalry.
This time he kept the flame tight and lethal instead of spreading it wide.
White-hot fire swallowed twenty or thirty riders whole. The shockwave hurled twice as many more from their saddles.
The surviving horsemen finally broke—some on purpose, others simply swept along in the panic.
Lynn let out a long, piercing cry and streaked like a meteor over the chaos.
The power he had stolen from the red woman's magic was spent. Weeping Blood's own flame wasn't strong enough yet to dominate a battlefield, so after ordering the dragon to hold back from further attacks, Lynn released the link and returned to his own body.
Weeping Blood kept circling overhead, keeping the Free Folk's spirits high and pinning Stannis's men with constant terror.
When Lynn reached the field with his Thenn bodyguards, the wildlings greeted him with a roar that shook the ground.
In that moment he knew these men would die for him if he asked.
But he took no pleasure in the worship of tens of thousands. The sight of dead women and children scattered along the route left him seething with rage.
Harma's attempt to pursue brought him back down fast. The Baratheon troops weren't routing—they were withdrawing in decent order.
The moment her riders cleared the treeline they ran straight into two disciplined volleys from the longbowmen and lost nearly half their number before limping back.
Still, Lynn had no intention of letting them slip away cleanly.
"Can we figure out where they came from?" he asked Mance while he watched the enemy through Weeping Blood's eyes.
Mance answered without hesitation.
"Tormund's Red Hall clan and the Walrus Folk hold Eastwatch. There's no way an army this size could have wiped out ten thousand people without a trace. They must have landed at Hardhome."
Hardhome had once been a Free Folk settlement.
It sat at the very tip of Storrold's Point where the peninsula jabbed into the Shivering Sea. The bay formed a deep natural harbor that could shelter the largest ships.
The land was rich in timber and stone. Fish practically jumped into your hand, and the waters were home to seals and walruses.
Long ago it had been the only place beyond the Wall that came close to being a real town. But three hundred-odd years before Aegon's Landing, some unknown disaster struck one night. The entire settlement burned. Every soul died.
Some blamed cannibals from Skagos. Others said slavers from across the Narrow Sea. Even the Night's Watch never learned the truth.
Now the place stood empty except for caves the black brothers called the Screaming Caves. A ship sent to investigate found no survivors. Eerie howls echoed from the cliff caves above the ruins.
The fire that destroyed Hardhome had burned so bright that men on the Wall swore the sun had risen in the north. Ash fell like gray snow over the Haunted Forest and the Shivering Sea for half a year.
The Free Folk never went back. Rangers spoke of burned ghosts wandering the ruins, still hungry for living flesh. Everyone called Hardhome cursed.
"Hardhome…" Lynn recalled the location and spoke urgently to Mance.
"Get a man to Maester Aemon right now. Tell him to write to Eastwatch—Tormund has to seize Hardhome before Stannis's army can pull back there. Ideally take every one of their ships."
He had sent Samwell Tarly and the ravens to Eastwatch earlier so the two locations could stay in contact. That small decision might now decide the entire battle.
"Also, every man and woman willing to fight—arm them. Harass the southerners as much as possible without getting killed. Don't let them withdraw easily."
Mance understood. A strong enemy army camped permanently beyond the Wall would be a disaster, especially with another forty or fifty thousand Free Folk still marching down from the Milkwater valley.
They had to bleed Stannis's force now, ideally cut off their escape. They might not destroy them outright, but they could at least keep them off balance.
Mance immediately called for Jarl—Val's lover and the fastest climber among the raiders. With the tunnel blocked, the only way across was up the Wall.
The ropes the Thenns had left behind would make the climb much faster.
Just then Mag the Mighty returned with the giants driving dozens of woolly mammoths back toward the field.
Lynn's eyes brightened. A bold new idea took shape in his mind.