Chapter 6: To Be a Dead Man or a Coward?
A second White Walker silently emerged from the shadows behind a tree, looking almost identical to the first. Just like Aeg's inability to distinguish some European American faces before his transmigration, he couldn't tell the difference between them. Then came the third, fourth... Aeg's heart sank rapidly. When the fifth pale figure entered his peripheral vision, all the blood in his body seemed to freeze. Something was wrong, wasn't there supposed to be only one!
Wait, maybe only one would strike down Waymar, but how many would appear, he really couldn't remember that part!
There was no time to consider whether the story's progress in the world he had transmigrated to had deviated from the plot or if his memory was at fault. Now, Aeg faced a more urgent choice. If it were just one or two White Walkers, he could muster the courage to fight with the obsidian dagger, but now the number of enemies far exceeded his side. The obsidian dagger might indeed kill White Walkers, but its wielder had no extraordinary martial skills. The idea of using a glass dagger to slaughter the magical monsters that appeared was impossible.
To be a hero for a few seconds and then fall in this nameless hollow of the Haunted Forest, only to be resurrected by the White Walkers as part of their army of the dead, or...
The thought turned in his mind in less than half a second, and Aeg made his choice. He stopped his steps towards Waymar, turned around, and ran without hesitation. Out of a sense of duty, to ease his conscience, and to alert Gared, who was watching the horses nearby, he shouted as he turned, "Don't engage, run!"
"Coward!" The young noble's roar, mixed with the whoosh of his sword cutting through the air, sounded behind Aeg. Royce was already too close to the eerie intruder in front of him, with no time, no room, and no intention to turn and flee. His steel sword clashed with the semi-transparent weapon of the White Walker, but instead of shattering it as Waymar had imagined, it emitted a sound that was close to the upper limit of human hearing, a high-pitched, thin sound like the painful wailing of an animal.
The other White Walkers did not intervene. They stood by, watching the battle with no sign of worry. One of them looked at Aeg's fleeing back and said a sentence in a voice as grating as nails on a chalkboard, which Aeg couldn't understand but clearly had a specific meaning. Another White Walker nodded slightly and pursued the escapee with his weapon in hand.
Behind him, the sharp sound of glass cracking rang out again and again, echoing through the dense forest and startling a flock of crows into the sky. A few seconds later, amidst Royce's roar of "Long live King Robert," it turned into the crisp sound of shattering glass, followed by the young noble's screams.
Aeg did not look back instead, he quickened his pace.
The pulsing of his blood pounded against his eardrums and soul, making it difficult for him to hear the outside world. Both before and after his transmigration, he had never been so close to death. The monsters behind him were more terrifying than the most vicious murderers or terrorists. Their sole purpose was to kill him and use his corpse to strengthen their newly forming army of the dead. This was a struggle for dominance in this world between ice and fire, life and death, with no room for compromise, a fight to the death.
The soft armor he wore, the animal fur he was draped in, and the steel sword in his hand during his desperate flight, all these external objects felt so heavy. Aeg almost forced himself to resist the urge to throw away his weapon. Running for survival was different from being completely scared out of one's wits and fleeing with one's head down.
His all-out sprint caused a mild oxygen deficiency in his brain, and the young noble's horrific screams echoed through the forest at night, mixing with Aeg's own heartbeat and breathing, making everything around him seem blurry. Was he having a nightmare again? Maybe when he woke up, he would find himself still lying in bed in the rangers' dormitory at Castle Black, with a patch of sweat on his back?
There was a layer of snow on the ground, and under the snow were puddles and stones. Coming here, he could carefully feel his way forward, but now, in a life-or-death escape, there was no time for that. In his daze, his foot hit a round stone, and his body lost its balance. The ground rushed towards him, rapidly expanding in Aeg's vision. He fell in an ugly face-plant, his face hitting roots and branches in the snow, stinging painfully.
In an instant, everything from his past flashed before his eyes, from the playful antics he remembered as a child to enrolling in school, graduating and starting work, finding a girlfriend and preparing to start his own family. Just at that moment, he had transmigrated to this damned world and, unfortunately, followed Waymar Royce, the harbinger of disaster, on patrol. At this critical moment, he had even taken a fall. Was it all fated that today would be his death day?
After becoming a Night's Watchman who had transmigrated, he might become the first corpse of a transmigrator? What dark humor.
"Boom!" A loud noise pulled him back to reality. In his mind, he had already roughly recalled his entire life, but in reality, his face had only hit the ground for a second. The snow had caused him to fall but also cushioned the impact of his collision with the ground. His face hurt, but overall, he was unharmed.
Aeg felt he still had a chance and struggled to get up. He immediately found the source of the loud noise, in front of him, in the direction he was fleeing, a sword encircled by a faint blue light was embedded in a straight pine tree, its eerie and terrifying appearance contrasting with the pale moonlight. The force with which it was thrust into the pine tree was so great that half a meter of the blade had sunk deep into the trunk.
If he hadn't just tripped, he would now be nailed to the tree trunk by that beautiful semi-transparent magical weapon.
A moment ago, Aeg was despairing over this misstep, but the next moment he felt an unprecedented sense of relief. Thank the Old Gods, the Seven, the Lord of Light, the Many-Faced God, or any other gods. He vowed that if he could live to return to the Wall, once he became successful, he would donate a grand statue to every god in Westeros and the entire world of ice and fire.
But now, he had to seize the chance to live brought about by this lucky fall. Aeg got up, finally unable to resist looking back. Royce's screams had stopped. On the small mound a few dozen meters away, where Will had led him over a few minutes earlier, a grayish figure stood quietly, muttering something in a chilling shriek, as if cursing the perfect sword throw that had missed its target.
Once, he had been amused by a video made by netizens, with a sports channel javelin competition commentary dubbed over a scene of a White Walker killing the dragon Viserion with an ice spear. Who would have thought that life could be so unpredictable, that he would one day experience such a luxurious attack method, worthy of killing a dragon? Should he feel honored or ironic?
The moon still hung quietly in the dark, deep sky. Aeg locked eyes with the White Walker pursuing him from a short distance away, and a thought struck him: this pursuing White Walker was now unarmed.
The White Walker facing him had thrown an ice sword instead of an ice spear. Aeg instinctively picked up his steel sword and faced off against it for a moment, but ultimately suppressed the feeling that he could counterattack. He didn't know if the White Walkers had other means, and even if he could kill this one, there were more White Walkers on the other side of the mound, free after dealing with Waymar Royce.
He valued his own life more than the temptation to kill a White Walker.
Glancing at the ice crystal sword embedded in the tree trunk beside him, knowing he didn't have the strength to pull it out, Aeg stared at his opponent for another second. After confirming it wouldn't conjure another ice spear out of thin air to kill him, he turned and continued to flee in the direction where the four of them had tied their horses.
"What happened?" Gared called out when he saw Aeg from a distance. He had heard Waymar's screams and had already untied the reins, ready to flee on horseback. If Aeg had appeared a few seconds later, the old soldier would have taken the four horses and fled. "Where are Waymar and Will?"
"White Walkers!" Aeg gasped as he ran to the tree where the horses were tied, grabbed the reins of his horse, and climbed on with both hands and feet. "Run!"
"White Walkers?" Gared's eyes widened as he looked behind Aeg into the distance. "Is it... the one chasing you?"
Aeg was startled and looked back. It was difficult to distinguish the figure of the White Walker in the dim, dense forest, but the moonlight reflecting off the ice sword it held and its eyes glowing with a faint blue light were too conspicuous... The figure raised its arm again, and a flash of blue light appeared.
"Duck!" Aeg shouted the moment he realized something was wrong, at the same time pressing himself flat against the horse's back.
The old soldier did not hesitate to follow suit, which saved his life. The ice sword flew past Gared's fur hat, hitting Will's horse in the head and still not spent, it slammed into the tree where Royce had tied his horse, causing a loud bang and sending wood chips flying. The snow on the treetop fell with the vibration, showering the two Night's Watchmen and the four horses.
What kind of power was this?
The dead horse collapsed with a thud, and the remaining three horses were startled into neighing. Gared's horse reared up on its front legs, almost throwing him off. The old soldier hugged the horse's neck with all his might to get through the crisis, but the reins of Waymar's warhorse he was holding broke free, and the horse ran off, disappearing from sight. The two men were disheveled and frightened, with no intention of shaking off the snow on them or trying to retrieve the spooked horse. They kicked their horses' flanks and fled south without looking back.