To guard against the Others, the campfires burned all night. In the darkness the flames made the Wall glow like a beacon.
Warhorses that had lived among men for years knew how to find safety. They understood that where there was fire, there was hope.
The moment Lynn saw the horses he knew they belonged to Stannis's army. The saddles were far too fine and ornate for the Night's Watch at Eastwatch.
A few soldiers were already calming the animals, feeding them grain and water.
Only a few days had passed, yet these once-fat warhorses now showed every rib. They had clearly been pushed to exhaustion and hadn't eaten properly in days.
Someone searched the saddlebags and found nothing but a few grooming tools.
"No riders?"
Lynn asked.
"Harma went herself. The tracks in the snow are clear. She'll find them."
Hark answered at once.
By now everyone who had been sleeping was awake. The cavalry stood ready—armor on, horses saddled, weapons in hand.
Roughly fifteen minutes later Harma returned with a dozen riders. Their spare horses carried three unconscious men.
All three wore wool cloaks marked with the crowned stag. One man's tunic had been cut open; his chest was flushed deep red—he was deep in hypothermia.
The other two weren't much better. The men worked on them—fire, water, rubbing limbs—but two still died. Only the youngest survived.
Once he was conscious enough, they carried him straight to Lynn.
"What happened? Where is your king and his army?"
Lynn asked, looking down at him.
The young man looked about Jon's age—probably some knight's squire.
At first, half-delirious, he mistook the Free Folk cavalry for his own men because of the armor sigils.
"Scattered… all scattered… dead men everywhere… and dead beasts…"
The look of half-awake terror on his face made Lynn frown.
The worst-case scenario had happened.
Stannis's army had lost its armor, but over a thousand men still together, well-armed and using fire for defense—yet they had still been attacked by the Others. That left only two possibilities.
Either they had pushed too far north into the Others' territory.
Or the Others no longer cared about numbers and were now willing to attack groups of a thousand or more.
Until now the Free Folk had stayed safe as long as they kept enough fires burning.
Did this mean most of the wildlings who had ignored Mance's call and stayed scattered across the vast northern mountains and forests—two to five thousand of them, by Mance's own estimate—had already been turned?
Some had scorned Mance's summons. Others lived too far away and never received the news.
This was not good.
The young squire looked ready to pass out again. Lynn pressed him.
"Where were you attacked? Where is Stannis?"
"Hard… Hardhome… The king was… taken by ship… left the horses… for the rest of us to escape…"
The squire lost consciousness again. Lynn ordered the men to keep working on him.
None of this was good news.
Lynn had hoped that once Stannis lost his supplies and retreat route he would have no choice but to come to the Wall and surrender.
Instead Carter Pyke had taken him away.
Lynn thought for a moment, then called Harma over.
"Send a fast rider back to Mance. Best horses only.
Tell him the Others are now ignoring numbers and fire. They're attacking large groups. Their army of the dead has probably grown a lot."
There were still slower-moving groups of Free Folk on the road. They had to be warned.
Harma nodded and started picking men.
Lynn stared out at the endless forest. It felt full of shadows, as if thousands of wights could come pouring out at any moment.
A chill ran down his spine.
"Wake the giants. We're moving tonight."
He told Hark, who had stayed beside him.
The giants had come to check the noise earlier, seen nothing was wrong, and gone back to sleep—snoring loud enough to shake the ground.
The cavalry had to bang steel swords against shields and helmets right next to their ears to wake them.
The giants were not happy about being woken again. Lynn had to use the broken Old Tongue he'd only recently started learning to explain the situation.
The moment Mag heard there might be danger he was wide awake. He started yelling and kicking his still-sleeping clansmen to their feet.
Giants had trouble breeding. To keep the race alive, the females were never allowed to take any risk. That was why every giant who had come was male.
If something happened and they were wiped out, that would be the end of them.
While the men made torches, a few others stripped the dead Baratheon soldiers, boots and all, and threw the bodies onto the fire with extra wood.
The Free Folk had long ago learned never to waste anything. They handled the task with practiced efficiency and no hesitation.
Half an hour later the two groups split—one riding west to warn Mance, the main column continuing east toward Eastwatch.
They didn't meet the second group of routed troops until the following evening, just as they were nearing Eastwatch.
There were about twenty of them. They looked better than the first three—still able to sit upright in the saddle instead of falling off from weakness.
Harma surrounded them easily.
It was less a surround and more a surrender. The moment the Free Folk riders moved to cut off their retreat, the starving men dismounted, dropped their weapons, and knelt in the snow.
They were all gaunt and hollow-eyed, yet they still hadn't killed and eaten their horses. That was surprising.
Maybe they understood that in the wilds beyond the Wall, losing your mount was the same as a death sentence from the winter itself.
When Lynn asked if there were more survivors, the oldest rider answered,
"If you ride north along the coast you'll find at least three hundred more. The king promised he would send ships for us."
He spat weakly on the ground in disgust.
"But I don't think the king is coming back. That red priestess has poisoned his mind.
Before she arrived, the Lord of Dragonstone never abandoned men who were loyal to him.
But ever since the red witch came, Stannis first left his army behind at the Blackwater, and now he's left us to die—taking only his red-robed whore and the so-called 'queen's men' nobles with him on the ships…"
Combining this with what he already knew, Lynn understood.
When things got desperate, Stannis had only saved his nobles and Melisandre's important followers. The common soldiers had been left to fend for themselves.
After taking such heavy losses, promising to send ships was nothing but a lie to keep them quiet.
At least these angry-looking men didn't believe it.