After the War of Restoration, the Night's Watch had never been stronger. Gone were the days of scarce soldiers and desperate shortages of supplies. The Great Wall was now filled with skilled men, well-armed and equipped for any challenge Beyond the Wall. Viserys had poured immense resources into bolstering the Night's Watch, and every Ranger now carried a pair of binoculars, a rarity in days past.
Ned Stark and Brynden "Blackfish" Tully led a dozen Rangers on horseback through the icy wilderness. As they moved deeper into the frozen North, they occasionally lifted their binoculars, observing the strange towers that had appeared overnight. These gray spires were spaced about ten li (roughly three miles) apart, looming unnaturally tall and stark against the bleak landscape.
The group pressed onward, but the temperature seemed to drop unnervingly. This was no ordinary cold—it seeped through their thickest layers of fur and zeng-hide cloaks, chilling them to the bone. Even the innermost padded layers, carefully crafted under Viserys's orders, couldn't keep out this unnatural chill. It felt like icicles stabbing directly into their flesh.
Hee-lurk!
One by one, the warhorses began to balk, refusing to move forward. Not only were the Rangers frozen, but the animals were as well, reluctant to take another step toward the eerie towers ahead.
"Seven Hells, what is that?" Brynden exclaimed, raising his binoculars to examine the spire looming before them.
The rest of the Rangers followed suit, and a collective gasp escaped them. The structure wasn't made of stone or wood; it was a forty-foot-tall tower composed of decaying human and animal body parts—arms, legs, and heads stacked together in grotesque layers. Some limbs twitched with unnatural life, while others, blackened and shriveled, remained eerily still. A rotting leg bone protruded here, a bare foot there, half-covered by an ancient, tattered shoe.
Among the ghastly features, they could see the remnants of blue-eyed, half-dead creatures—the wights. Some had been sliced in half, yet their torsos had been crudely reattached, flailing about as if grasping for the living. Writhing across the tower's decaying surface was a sickening breed of maggot known as "limbless arms"—wriggling and oozing decay over the bones of giants, men, and beasts alike.
Ned's stomach churned as he surveyed the grisly sight. He recalled standing atop the Wall and seeing more than a thousand such towers stretching toward the horizon. How many more of these abominations lay waiting Beyond the Wall, in the Land of Always Winter?
...
Meanwhile, Viserys had returned to Westeros, riding his dragon with Falia and their twin daughters clutched safely to him. He was troubled; Bloodraven, the ancient seer, had promised him seven years of peace before any major threat from the North, but now, just two years later, the signs of danger were unmistakable.
Upon landing, he instructed Monterys to take Falia and the children back to King's Landing to reassure the court of their safety. Viserys, however, changed course toward the Isle of Faces. If Bloodraven was still there, Viserys intended to confront him and uncover the truth about the threat from Beyond the Wall.
As he approached the Isle of Faces, he noticed that, despite the snow covering most of Westeros, the Weirwood forest on the island remained untouched. The red leaves on the ancient trees stood vivid and full, as if protected from the unnatural cold creeping across the realm. The trees loomed like red-crowned sentinels over the frozen lake of Gods Eye, unchanged and still vibrant amid the surrounding winter.
Viserys dismounted his dragon, letting its warmth linger a moment longer before stepping forward into the forest.
As soon as Viserys landed on the Isle of Faces, he heard Bloodraven's voice.
"Viserys, the Night King is here!"
The words cut through the cold air like a knife. Any question of why Bloodraven hadn't been able to hold off the threat for the promised seven years now seemed pointless. Following the sound, Viserys reached a Weirwood tree, its face carved and worn, and suddenly Bloodraven revealed a spectral vision—a 'hologram' of the front line Beyond the Wall.
Viserys saw the desolation stretching from the Frozen Shore in the west to the jagged peaks of the Frostfangs, from the frozen Milkwater to the eerie, shadowed depths of the Haunted Forest. Across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, Topless Towers now dotted the landscape, each a gruesome spire of bones and decaying flesh. By Bloodraven's conservative estimate, there were over 100,000 of them. The tallest tower, a towering monstrosity of bones, rose from the Fist of the First Men, a hundred-foot colossus that seemed to claw at the sky.
Figures moved below this Tower of Bones, but Bloodraven's high perspective, hovering two to three hundred meters above, blurred the details. Even from this distance, though, Viserys could feel the intense cold and a murderous aura emanating from the figures in white below, as they turned to look directly up at him.
"The Night King is there," Bloodraven's voice intoned, "but I cannot zoom in for you."
Viserys strained to discern the figures' faces, but their features remained unclear. He sensed only an overpowering malevolence from their gleaming white forms. Just then, the vision flickered, distorting like a faulty signal, and the image tore. Bloodraven shifted the view, revealing Ned Stark and his men retreating from the scene.
"My lord, Benjen is still inside! We have to save them!" one of Ned's Rangers pleaded, desperation in his voice.
Ned's jaw tightened, his face a mask of hard-won resolve. "No! We have to hurry back and inform the Iron Throne of what's happening here."
Ned's group was still more than ten miles from the Tower of Bones, yet the cold was unbearable even at this distance. It was clear to everyone that the bone-chilling cold emanated from the Tower itself. If they couldn't withstand it from this distance, there was no way Benjen and his men could survive within the Tower's deadly radius.
With a heavy heart, Ned ordered his men to fall back. Under his strong leadership, the Rangers began to retreat, putting distance between themselves and the Tower of Bones. Gradually, the biting cold began to fade, and for a moment, they allowed themselves to hope.
Pop!
A sudden burst shattered the silence—a signal flare ignited behind them. Benjen and his men were still alive.
"My lord!" Brynden warned, his face shadowed with concern.
"Go!" Ned's voice was raw, torn between duty and the unbearable ache of leaving his brother. But he made his choice—the hard choice.
"Find out where the signal came from," he commanded, pushing forward with grim determination.
Bloodraven's vision shifted, zooming in on the source of the flare. Viserys watched as the image focused on a makeshift Night's Watch outpost, a crude wind shelter of ice and packed earth, barely large enough to hold a dozen men and their horses. At the door, a lone Night's Watchman stood, his arm outstretched in the position he'd been in when he fired the flare. But he was frozen in place, his skin pale, his eyes wide and unseeing.
And then, a White Walker appeared, cloaked and hooded, with an air of chilling authority. It resembled the 'White Walker priest' Viserys had once encountered at Craster's Keep. The creature approached the dead Ranger, extending a skeletal hand and placing a single icy finger on the soldier's forehead.
The Ranger's frozen eyes shifted, a cold blue light flooding them. He had become a wight.
The White Walker priest turned, beckoning, and more White Walkers filed into the outpost, the wind shrieking around them. Sounds of a brief, desperate struggle erupted from within, only to be drowned out by silence, then by the relentless howl of the wind.
When the White Walkers finally emerged, they were accompanied by newly raised wights, their pale eyes glowing blue. The dead had joined the ranks of the Night King's army.