Chapter 400: The First Clash at the Wall: Fire Against Ice

As Lynd had anticipated, when night fell, the war against the White Walkers began without a sound.

At dusk, the archers at each defensive point lit the bonfires set up outside the Wall using fire arrows, illuminating the scene beyond the Wall.

The endless horde of wights was no longer moving sluggishly; instead, as if provoked by something, they charged madly toward the Wall, crashing against its base and trying to scramble up the icy surface. Apart from a few agile wights who managed to climb partway up, most were crushed underneath, piling higher and higher against the ice.

"Catapults ready! Seventeen!" Stannis, who held command, shouted the order along with a number. The heralds on the Wall loudly relayed the command, passing it to each defensive point atop the Wall, where crews quickly adjusted the catapults' elevation according to Stannis's directive.

"Fire!"

With the order, hundreds of wildfire jars were launched into the night sky, arcing toward the distant edge of the Haunted Forest. Upon impact, they erupted into raging infernos, not only annihilating countless wights but also setting parts of the Haunted Forest ablaze, creating massive torches that bathed the battlefield in an eerie light.

However, the flames did not last long. It was as if some unseen force within the Haunted Forest was gradually smothering them.

Stannis gave another order, this time adjusting the catapults' angle lower by two degrees, and ordered the archers to prepare. Lynd stood at the foremost firing platform.

The red priests gathered by piles of arrows, reciting prayers loudly. Soon, flames sprang to life at the tips of the arrows.

As Stannis's order echoed again, the catapults hurled another barrage of wildfire jars, this time targeting the center of the isolation zone. The scattered wildfire ignited the wights immediately, and the flowing, flaming liquid quickly spread outward, turning the area into a roaring sea of fire.

By the light of the flames below, Lynd had already picked out his targets among the wights. He drew his bow and fired rapidly, each arrow flying true, striking hidden human White Walkers within the horde. With each hit, the sacred fire at the arrowheads obliterated the White Walkers' essence, causing them to shatter on the spot.

Though the other sharpshooters could not match Lynd's precision, they still managed to hit hidden White Walkers with volleys of dozens of arrows, and even when they missed their primary targets, the arrows found wights, cutting them down.

Meanwhile, the crossbowmen at the various watchtowers fired ordinary flaming arrows at the wights climbing the Wall. These simple arrows, needing no enchantments, easily set the wights ablaze. The burning wights would then fall back onto the masses below, spreading the fire further.

The Night's Watch, well-prepared, pushed bundles of firewood down from the Wall, feeding the flames. Before long, a wall of fire composed of wights and wood blazed fiercely at the base of the Wall. As more wights charged into the inferno, the fire grew only stronger, not weaker.

"This fire... it won't melt the Wall's ice, will it?" Stannis asked with a frown, glancing at the roaring blaze and turning to Melisandre.

Melisandre shook her head and explained, "No. As long as the Wall's magic remains intact, ordinary fire cannot melt its ice."

As the two spoke, ice crystal spears suddenly shot out from the Haunted Forest, soaring across the distance in an instant. They struck the Wall's defenders brutally—piercing through the bodies of sharpshooters and lookouts alike. The spears' immense force not only impaled their victims but hurled them backward, flinging them over the Wall's inner side.

Lynd also came under attack—this time by a barrage of dozens of ice crystal spears. But before any could reach him, the powerful air pressure surrounding him deflected them aside, embedding them harmlessly into the Wall's solid ice.

The other sharpshooters and watchmen quickly retreated behind protective barriers or ice bulwarks to evade the White Walkers' assault, while Lynd continued methodically hunting the hidden White Walkers within the horde.

Then, a piercing shriek rang out from the Haunted Forest. Instantly, the charging wights stopped, then slowly began to retreat, flowing back toward the forest's edge like a receding tide. They left behind a wasteland of smoldering corpses, shattered White Walker remnants, and still-burning wight remains at the base of the Wall.

After the wights retreated, Lynd put away his bow and looked toward the Haunted Forest ahead, his face showing little joy.

In contrast, the Night's Watch brothers and Free Folk warriors behind him were all celebrating excitedly, as if they had won a great victory. Their faces were full of pride and disdain, and many openly declared that the wights and White Walkers were far weaker than expected, boasting that they had defeated so many enemies with fewer than a few dozen casualties.

However, there were others who were not so optimistic, their expressions serious.

In the battle just now, the wights had indeed seemed powerless against them, and they had easily gained the upper hand. Just at the ten defensive points around Castle Black, thousands of wights had been wiped out with little effort. Counting the other defensive points along the Wall, tens of thousands of wights had likely been destroyed.

But compared to the sheer size of the wight horde, these losses were nothing—a mere drop in the ocean. Moreover, it was clear that the wights they had faced were old corpses, many dead for years, perhaps freshly summoned from graves. The truly dangerous wights, the ones directly controlled by the White Walkers and forming the core of their strength, had yet to appear.

Those more observant had also noticed that the White Walkers commanding the wights showed clear signs of intelligence. They could judge the battlefield, probe for weaknesses, strike where it hurt most, and even knew when to retreat rather than charge blindly. White Walkers capable of strategy would be far more dangerous than mindless killers.

"Keep everyone on alert. Make sure the reserves are ready to rotate in at any moment. This is just the beginning," Lynd said as he stepped down from the archer's platform and spoke to Stannis.

Stannis nodded, indicating he would stay vigilant.

Lynd did not leave but instead began inspecting the situation at the other defensive points along the Wall. During his rounds, he encountered two more probing attacks by the wight army, both targeting previously unassaulted sections. Each time, tens of thousands of wights and dozens of White Walkers fell before retreating.

Outside the Wall, the burning piles of wight corpses formed a nearly unbroken line stretching from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea all the way to the Shadow Tower. From a distance, the sight of flaming corpses and thick, rising black smoke looked eerily like the seven hells described in the Seven-Pointed Star—both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

Perhaps it was the intensity of the fires below making it impossible for the wights to approach, or perhaps the White Walkers were adopting a new strategy. In any case, after several probing assaults, the wights ceased their attacks on the Wall.

Taking advantage of the lull, the guards atop the Wall were rotated out, and Lynd returned below. However, instead of resting in the quarters arranged for him at Castle Black, he headed to the nearby military camp. There, he learned that they had captured some wights—archers and Night's Watch brothers who had been struck by the White Walkers' ice spears and fallen from the Wall.

It was clear that the White Walkers' magic had transformed their corpses into wights the moment they died. Fortunately, the mutated wights had fallen into the isolated zone between Mole's Town and the Wall, where soldiers captured them as soon as they reanimated. A few had been destroyed on the spot; the rest had their limbs severed and were brought back to the camp for study.

"Why could these people still be turned into wights by the White Walkers' power even after falling past the Wall?" Lynd asked, examining the restrained wights.

"Did the Wall's magic fail?" Melisandre grabbed one of the wights to inspect it. Then she summoned a flame and incinerated it before answering.

"The Wall's magic didn't work?" Lynd turned to glance at the towering Wall, frowning in thought. Then he ordered, "Spread word about these wights immediately. Warn all camps to stay alert in case more fallen men reanimate as wights and cause chaos."

"Yes, my lord," the officer in charge of the camp responded quickly. He immediately had sleds prepared and dispatched all available messengers to deliver the order.

"Let's head to Icemark and find out more," Lynd said to Melisandre.

Melisandre nodded, and the two mounted their warhorses and set off for Icemark.

...

Soon, they arrived outside Icemark. Unlike the other castles along the Wall, which were mainly surrounded by soldiers' camps, Icemark had, besides the God's Chosen Corps, Silent Men, and Redeemer Sisters, a secret arcane institute manned by spellcasters. Their primary task was to research and develop weapons capable of mass destruction against wights and White Walkers, while also studying the mysterious power sealed within the Wall.

Upon arriving, Lynd went directly into the ice cavern. Inside, besides Willas Tyrell and Bran Stark near the ice wall, Jojen Reed was also present.

Ella and Yara were there as well, but something was clearly wrong with them. Their eyes had rolled back into their heads, and they had entered a deep mental state. A strange force coiled around their bodies, radiating a flickering gray light that pulsed in rhythm with the ambient glow of the cavern, as if they were communicating with the latent magic inside the Wall.

"What's going on?" Seeing this, Lynd refrained from approaching, avoiding any risk of triggering an abnormal reaction by interfering. Still, he quietly asked Willas and the others.

"I wish I knew," Willas replied seriously.

Bran added, "Your Grace, your subordinate has been like this ever since arriving here. We don't know why."

Lynd frowned and guessed, "Is that why you didn't stop the White Walkers' power from taking effect on the dead tonight?"

"What?" Willas and Bran both looked puzzled.

Lynd then briefly recounted the night's battle, focusing on how the archers and warriors, after being killed by the White Walkers' ice spears and falling from the Wall, were still transformed into wights by the lingering magic.

After hearing Lynd's explanation, Willas and Bran exchanged a look, their expressions turning somewhat strange, as if they had something difficult to admit.

"You tell him," Bran said to Willas.

Willas hesitated for a moment before saying, "When the Wall was first built, it could completely suppress the power of the White Walkers. But the Wall today is no longer the same. Now, it relies on Bran and me as conduits to keep its power functioning, with mysterious souls mending the broken runes. Because of this, the Wall's strength has been weakened. Wights can no longer be fully blocked, and the power of the White Walkers is no longer completely restricted. What you described tonight happened exactly at one of the Wall's current vulnerabilities."

At that moment, Melisandre suddenly spoke. "Is it possible that those who were killed by the White Walkers' ice spears were intentionally used as pawns to test for weak points in the Wall?"

Lynd frowned deeply, then nodded. "It's possible. If that's the case, we're in serious trouble."

For some reason, Lynd recalled an old promotional animation from a game in his previous life. In that animation, attackers used catapults to launch monsters over city walls, directly assaulting the defenders inside.

Although the walls in that animation were only a few dozen meters high—far less than the towering Wall—the problem here was that this world had magic and gods, and the White Walkers possessed both. It wasn't impossible that they could craft some kind of siege engine to hurl clusters of wights like living cannonballs over the Wall.

While many wights would surely be shattered upon impact and rendered useless, others might survive. If left unchecked, those surviving wights could wreak havoc behind the Wall's defenses.

Thus, Lynd had already decided he would warn the Night's Watch and the quarantine camps to stay vigilant against the possibility of wights falling from the sky.

Bran spoke up. "Actually, we weren't idle during tonight's battle. We sensed that the White Walker Queen herself was outside the Wall, so we were gathering strength to guard against her assault."

"The White Walker Queen is observing us outside the Wall?" Melisandre asked curiously. "What kind of attack could she launch? Would she summon eternal winter directly?"

Willas looked at her and said, "No. She would attack the Wall using the Horn of Winter."

"The Horn of Winter is already in her hands," Lynd muttered, then asked, "Has she repaired it?"

"Yes," Bran nodded. "We can sense that the White Walker Queen now possesses something capable of damaging the Wall. It can only be the Horn of Winter."

Willas continued, "But you don't need to be too afraid. She can't use it lightly. Like the dragon horn, using the Horn of Winter even once would inflict serious harm upon her. And she can't simply have someone else use it, because if she does, it won't unleash the full power of the horn."

Lynd's mind drifted to the image of the elf White Walker who had retained his sanity, and he remembered the opportunity that being had spoken of.