Chapter 402: A Strong Counterattack

"I suppose no one thinks the White Walkers and wights are easy to deal with anymore," Lynd said calmly, looking at the grim-faced Stannis, Mance Rayder, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the Free Folk leaders, and the others.

Everyone remained silent.

"Report the losses," Lynd continued, not wasting time with further rebuke.

Stannis and the others began reporting the casualties among the Night's Watch, the Free Folk, the Hand of the Fire, the Chosen Corps, and the volunteer armies from the Seven Kingdoms.

Without a doubt, the warriors stationed at the top of the Wall suffered the heaviest losses. Yesterday's White Walker assault had struck nearly the entire Wall, from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to the Shadow Tower, with all eighteen castles under attack. The fiercest battles occurred at Icemark, Castle Black, and the Nightfort.

At those three castles, all defensive structures were destroyed. Aside from a small number of Redemptive Sisters and Silent Men who, with Lynd's power, managed to survive the wildfire explosions and fires, the rest of the defenders were completely wiped out. More than seven hundred soldiers from Lynd's Chosen Corps perished, and the Red Temple lost seven high priests and red priests—a staggering loss.

The camps on the ground inside the Wall also suffered some casualties because the White Walkers had launched wights over the Wall. However, the damage there was relatively minor. Thanks to Lynd's strict orders for constant vigilance, the camps were able to organize an effective counterattack as soon as the wights landed.

Most of the wights had been shattered upon impact from the fall and couldn't even move properly—children could have finished them off. Only a handful remained intact, and they posed little threat.

The real danger came from the White Walkers hidden among the wights; they were the main cause of casualties and disruption. Even so, because of Lynd's meticulous preparations, the Redemptive Sisters and Silent Men were able to act swiftly and eliminate them, keeping losses limited to a few hundred. Half of those had been killed by wights falling from the sky.

Although total casualties reached seven or eight thousand, Lynd had long anticipated such a scenario and prepared backup plans. Spare parts for defensive devices had been stockpiled, and while this meeting was ongoing, the catapults and other defenses were likely already repaired.

Troop reinforcements had also been deployed immediately, ensuring the Wall's overall defense remained intact.

After hearing the full damage report, Lynd turned to Meera Reed, who was waiting nearby, and asked, "What's the word from Willas? How did the White Walkers manage to get onto the Wall?"

Meera, a bit tense, answered, "When the White Walkers launched their full assault, the Horn of Winter was blown. They had to focus all their strength on resisting the Horn's power, and could no longer maintain the Wall's protective wards. Lord Willas is currently in deep sleep, recovering. Bran asked me to deliver this message to you."

"The Horn of Winter was sounded?" Lynd was stunned by the news. Clearly, it had caught him off guard, because he hadn't sensed any strange power coming from the Haunted Forest at the time.

If Bran and the others weren't lying, the Horn of Winter's power must have been targeted specifically at the Wall, detectable only by Bran and Willas, who were fused with it.

Setting aside the matter of the Horn of Winter for now, Lynd turned to Stannis and the others and asked, "How do you intend to deal with the White Walkers' stone-throwing tactics?"

Everyone looked at each other before offering suggestions. But all their ideas amounted to the same thing: adding more manpower or equipment—purely passive defenses. None of their plans truly addressed the root of the White Walkers' new tactics.

After listening to their scattered proposals, Lynd said nothing. He simply ordered everyone to go back and prepare for the White Walkers' next assault.

When Stannis and the others left, Meera remained.

Lynd glanced at her and asked in a low voice, "Is there more Bran asked you to tell me?"

Meera nodded and said solemnly, "Yes, Your Grace. Lord Bran wanted me to inform you that the White Walker Queen has been injured."

"Mm." Lynd hesitated briefly, nodded slightly, and gestured for her to leave, showing no visible reaction.

After everyone departed, a trace of weariness appeared on Lynd's face.

Though he had performed magnificently yesterday—rallying forces and repelling the full force of the White Walkers' assault—he had consumed a tremendous amount of rune power. Even with the support of the Redemptive Sisters and Silent Men, who bore the Nameless King's rune marks, the strain had been immense.

But the rune power exhaustion was only part of it. The true source of his fatigue was the mental focus required to control the clouds, the winds, and the massive firewall stretching from east to west across the continent of Westeros.

The difficulty of sustaining such a colossal force was beyond even Lynd's limits; he had needed to devote every ounce of concentration and effort just to barely maintain it. His spirit had been pushed to the brink of collapse, and even now, he had yet to fully recover.

This is why Lynd had remained so calm upon hearing the news that the White Walker Queen had been injured. In his current state, even if a perfect opportunity to assassinate the White Walker Queen presented itself, he couldn't act—because it would be far too risky.

If the assassination succeeded, all would be well. But if it failed, he would inevitably be besieged by an endless horde of White Walkers and wights. In his prime, such a siege would not have posed much threat to him, but in his current condition, it would be impossible for him to escape unharmed.

Moreover, there was another important reason: he didn't fully trust the elf White Walker named Peinan. Even though Lynd could sense that Peinan truly wished to destroy the White Walker Queen and her followers, he couldn't believe the matter was so simple. Peinan was surely scheming something beyond what Lynd could currently imagine. Until he fully understood Peinan's intentions, Lynd would not consider cooperating with him.

Inside his room, Lynd closed his eyes and rested for a while. Then he stood up, left the room, and headed up to the Wall to inspect the repairs to the defenses, the resupply of materials, and the reinforcement of troops at each defensive point.

Although the commanders and captains had already reported the situation earlier, he still felt more reassured checking everything personally.

While inspecting the recovery of each defensive point, he also occasionally cast his gaze toward the Haunted Forest outside the Wall, which remained shrouded in thick snow and mist.

It was clear that the mist swirling through the forest wasn't naturally formed. Some extraordinary power must be involved. Even with Lynd's keen vision, he couldn't penetrate the fog to see what was happening inside—especially not to locate the White Walkers' catapults.

Although he couldn't see the catapults, Lynd could easily guess that they must be damaged as well. Otherwise, when he had dispersed the wall of fire, the White Walkers would surely have resumed their attacks. After all, unlike humans, the White Walkers and wights didn't need to sleep or rest; they could have kept launching wights over the Wall without pause.

Lynd wasn't surprised by the likely damage to the catapults. Even though the wights were dried husks and much lighter than living beings, a bundled mass of them would still weigh a tremendous amount. To launch such a payload over the Wall would require an enormous catapult—at least ten times larger than the ones stationed at the Wall's defensive points—and even that would barely suffice.

Moreover, the catapults had to be imbued with some extraordinary power, because pure mechanical force alone would never be enough to hurl such heavy masses more than two hundred meters into the air.

Given their massive size and the strain of using supernatural force, it was inevitable that such siege engines would break down under the harsh conditions Beyond the Wall. Judging from the current situation, it seemed that almost all of them had been damaged.

Still, relying on guesswork was never as reliable as seeing things with his own eyes. Lynd tried to create strong winds to disperse the snow mist cloaking the Haunted Forest.

As expected, no matter how powerful the winds he summoned, the snow mist remained utterly still, as if it were merely an illusion.

Next, Lynd instructed the Skinchangers to possess ravens and other flying creatures to attempt scouting the mist.

However, without exception, every animal that entered the mist died instantly. The pain of death fed back through their spiritual connection, causing the Skinchangers to suffer unbearable agony. Only after drinking specially prepared pain-relieving potions did they gradually recover.

Since normal means of reconnaissance had failed, Lynd decided it was time to adopt a harsher, more direct counterattack against the White Walkers.

His plan was simple: use the catapults at every defensive point to continuously bombard the Haunted Forest with wildfire jars, burning away anything flammable near the Wall. Even if the White Walkers' catapults were made of steel, they would still melt under a raging fire that engulfed the entire forest.

As Lynd's orders were relayed to each defensive point, the repaired catapults launched one wildfire jar after another into the snowy mist. Explosions of green flame erupted, and soon, the Haunted Forest near the Wall was thoroughly set ablaze. The roaring flames and thick smoke dispersed the snow mist cloaking the Haunted Forest, finally allowing Lynd to see what lay within.

Scattered at regular intervals throughout the Haunted Forest were enormous catapults. Just as Lynd had guessed, they were many times larger than standard catapults—roughly forty to fifty meters tall. These towering siege engines weren't made of wood, but of solid ice, resembling small frozen fortresses from a distance.

However, most of these fortress-sized catapults were already damaged. Some had shattered bases, while others had broken throwing arms.

Still, it wasn't the catapults that caught the most attention. Once the mist cleared, everyone's gaze shifted to the operators of these massive machines. They were not human wights or ordinary White Walkers, but giant White Walkers.

These giants were colossal. To ordinary people, even Stone Giants several meters tall would have seemed awe-inspiring, but the shortest among these giant White Walkers stood over ten meters, and the tallest reached nearly twenty meters—each like a moving mountain. Their sheer size struck as much fear and amazement into the hearts of the Wall's defenders as dragons once had.

"Your Grace, what should we do?" Stannis, visibly shaken by the sight, hurried over to Lynd to ask.

Lynd quickly issued his command. "Don't spare the wildfire. Keep firing until we reach the maximum range. I want everything in sight turned into a sea of fire."

Hearing this, Stannis hesitated briefly, then turned and immediately gave the order. The catapults' settings were quickly adjusted, and the range of the launches grew longer and longer.

Soon, a rain of wildfire jars began to land directly on the giant catapults and the massive White Walkers.

It didn't take long to realize how fragile the terrifying giants actually were. They moved slowly, unable to dodge the falling wildfire. The forest around them was engulfed in flames, and all the White Walkers and wights caught in the blaze were trapped in an ocean of fire.

Perhaps the power within the White Walkers could suppress flames to a certain degree, sparing them from immediate destruction, but under a relentless barrage of exploding wildfire jars, even their resilience had limits. Before long, one of the giant White Walkers, just like the smaller ones before it, shattered into countless ice crystals.

As the first giant White Walker disintegrated under the fierce burning, others quickly followed, breaking apart into shards of ice amid the fire. Only a few giants managed to retreat beyond the range of the Wall's catapults and survive.

At the same time, the giant ice catapults began to melt rapidly under the intense heat. Just as Lynd had demanded, everything visible to the defenders turned into a raging inferno. The towering flames pushed thick black smoke into the sky, forming massive clouds of ash. Some of the ash was carried by the north wind to drift down near the Wall like falling snow.

Watching the massive ice catapults collapse with deafening crashes, seeing countless wights and White Walkers consumed by fire, and watching the remnants of the White Walker army flee deeper into the Haunted Forest, everyone on the Wall was filled with excitement. The morale that had plummeted during the last battle was instantly rekindled, and the defenders raised their weapons high, shouting in celebration.

At that moment, even Lynd allowed a rare smile to appear on his face. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, he thought to himself that the fire would likely burn for a few days. For now, the White Walkers would probably not launch another attack, giving him precious time to rest and plan his next move.