From the plateau to the mountain peaks, from the forest to the frozen river.
Hundreds of thousands of Topless Towers, ranging from tens of meters to hundreds of meters in height, moved forward in unison. Behind them, millions of ice soldiers advanced slowly.
As the Icebone Towers and the army of the dead marched across the land, snow and ice were churned up into the air. At first, it looked like a light mist had risen. But the mist thickened, growing taller and denser, until it became a vast white "wall."
It wasn't a wall, though—it was more like a colossal mountain range rising suddenly from the Flatlands. It stood even taller than the Great Wall itself, forcing Ned and Loras to crane their heads upward, then level their gazes, and finally even look slightly downward.
A million-strong army was a rare sight in the known world.
For the Night's Watchmen guarding the border fortresses, however, this spectacle was nothing less than a natural disaster. Many of them felt their legs weaken and their hearts pound so hard they collapsed where they stood.
Fortunately, the Icebone Towers stopped after advancing a short distance.
When the misty, iceberg-like mountain range began to dissipate, the Icebone Towers and the White Walkers appeared only 500 feet from the Wall.
The Night's Watch's crossbows were now utterly useless.
Viserys and Dany had already used up all the explosive packs before leaving, and reinforcements or new weapons would take time to arrive. The only thing they could depend on now was the Great Wall itself.
"Lord Commander, what should we do now?"
"What should we do? What should we do?"
The question came from the former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jeor Mormont. His pet raven, Moon, echoed the phrase in its usual mocking tone.
The moment Ned arrived at the Wall, Jeor had eagerly relinquished his position as Lord Commander.
First, Ned's natural charisma made it clear he would become the de facto leader of the Night's Watch sooner or later. Jeor felt more comfortable letting him take the official title. Second, being Lord Commander had become an increasingly burdensome position.
Though Viserys had provided the Watch with sufficient supplies, the sudden influx of personnel had made managing the Wall's operations exponentially more difficult. Jeor had gladly handed over responsibility to Ned.
Take the current crisis, for example—if Ned weren't leading, Jeor would have been crushed under the weight of it all.
"We still have the Great Wall to rely on," Ned said firmly. "Triple the number of guards and keep a constant watch on the movements of these monsters… and wait for His Grace's rescue."
In truth, Ned had no better options.
Or rather, holding fast was the best strategy. Charging out with cavalry, like in some reckless tale, would be pure foolishness.
Ned's priority was to buy time for the evacuation of civilians from the North.
Yet it wasn't just the Icebone Towers and the White Walkers creeping closer to the Wall. The merciless cold followed in their wake, seeping into every corner of the land.
Late that night, as Ned prepared to go on patrol, a commotion broke out in the Night's Watch barracks. Alarmed, he grabbed his squire Gendry and his personal guard to investigate.
Shouts of battle echoed through the barracks, and flames illuminated the night sky.
When Ned and his group arrived, they found chaos. A dozen Night's Watchmen, some not even wearing their cloaks, were locked in fierce combat.
In the bitter cold, running around without proper clothing was almost certain death.
Several of the combatants stood out—they fought with extraordinary ferocity, seemingly immune to pain. When struck with weapons, they didn't falter. Instead, they lunged at their attackers with relentless, almost suicidal determination.
Ned's breath caught when he saw the face of one of these men.
Blackfish Brynden.
The unmistakable blue light in his eyes revealed the truth: he had become a wight.
"Brynden is dead?"
Ned couldn't believe it. Brynden had always been so strong, a symbol of resilience. But there was no time to dwell on the thought. Not only Brynden, but several other Night's Watchmen who had died inexplicably were now immune to the cold, hunting down their comrades and savagely biting them.
Without hesitation, Ned and his guard joined the fray, their intervention like tossing ice into a boiling cauldron of chaos. The situation began to stabilize under their efforts.
Ned raised his sword to block Brynden's attack.
The familiar face before him had lost all traces of its former wisdom and determination, replaced by a bloodthirsty, feral glare.
Ned understood that the man he faced was no longer the Brynden he had once known. A flicker of pity crossed his eyes before he drove his sword through Brynden's body.
The blue light in Brynden's eyes dimmed, fading into the dull grey of the truly dead.
After slaying "Brynden," Ned hurriedly examined the corpse for any signs of wounds, but aside from the injury he had just inflicted, there were none.
"Poison?"
It was the first explanation that came to Ned's mind. Brynden had seemed so vigorous—despite being over fifty, he had the strength and spirit of a younger man. But then the question arose: who would have poisoned him, and why?
Searching the bodies of the other wights, Ned found that nearly all their wounds were fresh, inflicted during the battle.
The realization hit him hard: there had to be a murderer among them.
A deep anger flared in Ned's face, but Gendry, standing nearby, interrupted his thoughts.
"My lord, they're old," Gendry said cautiously.
Only then did Ned notice that most of the Night's Watchmen who had turned into wights were elderly.
The realization chilled him. The elderly were the most vulnerable to the cold.
These men hadn't been poisoned or killed by an enemy—they had simply frozen to death, only to rise again as wights.
It had been a mere ten days since the Icebone Towers appeared, and already the situation had deteriorated this far. Ned could only imagine how much worse it would become.
He glanced down at the Valyrian steel sword in his hand, its dark, rippling blade gleaming faintly in the firelight.
This weapon had been reforged from the Stark ancestral sword after Ice melted. Viserys had personally ordered its reforging, providing the Starks with additional Valyrian steel for the process.
The original Ice had been melted down to create three new Valyrian steel swords.
One stayed with Ned, one was given to Robb, and the third went to Jon.
Sentiment aside, the Starks had come out of the arrangement quite well.
Ned was prepared to die if it came to it, but his hope rested on the swift evacuation of the Northern civilians and the timely arrival of Robb's reinforcements.
...
Meanwhile, in Winterfell:
The Great Hall was filled with tension.
"My lord, is this even the North without Northerners? If the Northerners go south, are they still Northerners?" Rickard asked, his tone bitter.
"Yes, my lord," echoed another noble. "The North cannot survive without its people!"
"And the Northerners cannot abandon the North!"
"We can send support to the Wall, but our families must stay home!"
The debate touched on the very foundation of these feudal lords' power: their population.
Though many of these nobles derided the common folk as "scum" in private, they all understood the harsh reality. Without the common people, what power would they hold? What wealth would sustain them?
Their impassioned talk of "family" masked a deeper self-interest. Without peasants to work the land, pay taxes, and provide labor, the nobility's entire way of life would collapse.
The very idea of a mass migration struck at the heart of their existence.
Without their people, what would the noble lords be?
At this, another voice broke the tense silence.
"My lord, if we leave, the future imperial court will turn our land into some kind of county, and then we won't even have a home!"
The speaker was a bearded noble in a turquoise tunic: Lord Wylis Manderly of White Harbor. His words found resonance among many of the gathered lords.
Though Viserys' county system had not yet been implemented in the North, it loomed as a growing concern. To many northern nobles, it had become a nightmare. They recognized their diminishing status and resented the increasing reliance on Maesters, which forced them to take on tasks they would have once delegated.
Unable to voice open dissatisfaction with Viserys, they channeled their frustrations toward the so-called "imperial court."
Now, Viserys' suggestion that the Northerners seek refuge in the Neck was seen as an affront, an insult to their autonomy and pride.
To some, it felt like a direct challenge to their dignity.
"I think something really must have happened Beyond the Wall. His Grace even rode a dragon to the Wall not long ago…"
"Shut up, you lackey!"
The sharp interruption came from Harrion, Rickard's eldest son. His contemptuous gaze fell on Jon, echoed by sneers from others in the room.
Jon had intended to speak up, to offer a fair perspective. He had been on the Wall, seen the threat firsthand, and even fought the walkers. His firsthand experience gave him a better understanding of the peril than anyone in the hall.
But Jon's actions—the splitting of the Starks' ancestral fiefdoms and even the melting down of Ice—had deeply alienated him from the northern nobility.
"If you consider the Night's Watch oath to be meaningless, then don't start preaching here," Harrion said harshly.
Jon felt a wave of helplessness. But when he thought of Shiera and Shiree, he chose to endure the scorn. He remained silent, focusing on the greater threat.
However, Jon knew he needed support. The White Walkers weren't a threat to one family or one name; they were a catastrophe for the entire world.
He looked toward Robb, hoping for his brother's backing.
But as Jon raised his gaze, he was met with Robb's expressionless face.
Robb sat at the head of the hall, flanked by Bran and Rickon, who had grown into young men and would serve as Robb's closest advisers in the years to come.
For a moment, Jon was overwhelmed by a sense of estrangement. It felt like those days in Winterfell, where he had always been the outsider among the Stark children.
Robb's mind drifted, his frustration mounting.
Catelyn was away in King's Landing because of Sansa's pregnancy with triplets, leaving him without his most trusted adviser. He faced difficult decisions, and the weight of them pressed heavily on his shoulders.
At twenty years old, Robb was a father of two and understood the importance of fiefs to a noble house.
He felt a growing distance from Jon, not out of malice but from the necessity of his position. He couldn't afford to prioritize old bonds when the interests of the North—and its nobles—were at stake.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a voice from outside the hall rang out, startling everyone:
"What? Who has a problem with my appointment of the Lord of Icebreaker Castle?"