"You don't know how to tell the Others from the wights?"
Faced with everyone's strange looks, Dany's tone became even stranger.
The soldiers glanced at one another, completely at a loss.
Only the captain of the guard, Ser Krus, and Ed Amber seemed thoughtful.
"This is the first time we've ever seen real walking dead. The earlier reports sounded as distant as an old wet nurse's bedtime stories," Ser Krus said with a bitter smile.
"News of the Others appeared years ago, didn't it? I've been promoting a 'united front against the dead,' yet Hearthfire City, the lordship closest to the Wall, had no preparations at all?" Dany found it unbelievable.
"How were we supposed to prepare? We only knew that dragonglass weapons could deal with the Others, but dragonglass is so expensive, far more costly than white bread. We simply couldn't afford to stockpile it on a large scale," Earl Ed said dejectedly.
That was the truth.
Don't be fooled by how happily Dany mined dragonglass on Dragonstone. Dragonglass veins only appear around volcanoes.
How many volcanoes are there in the world?
The world of A Song of Ice and Fire is even larger than Earth, yet the only places confirmed to still have active volcanoes are Dragonstone and Valyria. Of course, volcanoes existed elsewhere in the past. The Children of the Forest's dragonglass weapons came from beyond the Wall, and in east–west trade, Asshai dragonglass was once one of the most important export commodities.
This shows that Asshai and the lands beyond the Wall once had volcanoes. But over tens of millions of years, the fire at the planet's core dwindled year by year, and the volcanoes gradually went extinct.
"In fact, even if we had dragonglass weapons, we still couldn't hold the castle. During the War of the Five Kings a few years ago, Hearthfire City's able-bodied men were nearly drained away. We simply didn't have enough troops," the captain of the guard said bitterly.
That was also true.
At the first harvest feast after Robb marched south, the two acting castellans of Hearthfire City, due to a lack of able-bodied men, even asked Bran Stark to send help to harvest grain and fend off wildlings coming around from Seal Bay. After Robb left, eight-year-old Bran had become the acting castellan of Winterfell.
Because the War of the Five Kings dragged on for too long, vast stretches of golden wheat in the North rotted in the fields, unharvested.
Put bluntly, more than ninety percent of the Northern warriors Robb took south were farmers.
"You said earlier that, counting the town outside the walls, Hearthfire Castle has fifteen thousand people," Dany said with a frown.
"For every thousand men conscripted, at least three thousand family members were left behind," Ser Krus said, his face so bitter it looked as if one could wring out a whole bowl of bitter gourd juice. "We sent a total of three thousand soldiers to march with King Robb. None of them ever returned. What's left are only the old, the weak, women, and children."
Earl Ed added in a hoarse voice, "Your Majesty, you may have misunderstood. It's not that there are fifteen thousand subjects around Hearthfire Castle.
"It's that our entire Amber domain moved into Hearthfire Castle to spend the winter. That's how we ended up with fifteen thousand people."
How large is House Amber's territory?
At the very least, it's larger than the land area of South Korea.
Such a vast territory, reduced to only fifteen thousand people?! (ps)
"You must leave," Dany said even more firmly after learning about Hearthfire Castle's situation. "As you said, the wights attacking Hearthfire Castle this time numbered forty thousand, but that actually accounts for only a very small portion of their total, perhaps just one percent.
"If you don't leave, sooner or later you'll be completely wiped out by the wights when they return."
"One percent?!" Everyone's expressions changed drastically as they cried out in shock.
"That can't be right. If forty thousand wights are only one percent, then the total wouldn't that be four million? Four million, gods above!"
Ed Amber's youthful face, still covered in fine downy hair, instantly turned as white as snow.
"Maybe it was originally only a million, but…" Dany swept her gaze around the room. "You all practice burial, don't you?"
"Don't tell me they even dig up the bodies in graves? Do they have no humanity at all?" Ser Krus said grimly.
"How could you think they have humanity?" Dany asked strangely.
"How could the gods allow such monsters to appear?" Ser Krus murmured.
"Now that they've appeared, all we can do is accept reality and then study their habits and weaknesses.
"The walking dead revived from corpses are wights. Wights are resurrected by the Others and are controlled by them. Kill an Other, and all the wights it controls will die as well, or rather, turn back into rotting corpses."
"Ah, I get it now," young Earl Ed said in sudden realization. "Your Majesty must have killed an Other earlier, and then all the wights it controlled in Hearthfire Castle died!
"No wonder hundreds of wights on the second floor suddenly dropped dead after the explosion."
Dany nodded and smiled. "That's more or less what happened. At the time, there was an Other standing openly on the platform in front of the castle, looking proud, as if savoring the fruits of victory.
"But it stood there all alone, so conspicuous, that I couldn't help throwing a great ball of dragonfire at it.
"However, it was only one of the Others attacking Hearthfire Castle. There was another one outside the city. Seeing things go badly, it immediately dispersed the wight army and split them up to hide in the icy forests.
"I was worried about falling into an ambush, so I only cleared out the remaining wights inside the castle and didn't pursue them.
"You can imagine that once I leave, with just that one escaped Other, it will be very hard for you to survive."
Ed·Amber helplessly expressed his gratitude to the Dragon Queen, then agreed to leave his homeland according to her arrangements.
Since the decision to depart had been made, the people of Hearthfire Castle began preparing their belongings.
Food and valuables were sealed away in the deepest part of the cellar. With the limited carrying capacity of the wyverns, they could take nothing except the clothes on their backs to keep warm.
Ed·Amber and the captain of the guards led people in their work in the cellar, while Dany climbed up the gate tower, faced the biting cold wind, closed her eyes, and entered cultivation.
Together with the little golden dragon spirit, her consciousness returned to the strange space within the Wall. The laws of the world opened themselves to her, just like the holy spirits at the dawn of creation, allowing her to directly listen to the Song of Laws.
Before that, she had also ordered the three giant dragons to breathe fire along the Wall, melting all the snow piled more than ten meters thick into water, which then flowed into the nearby Last River.
In this way, even if the White Walkers returned, the Wall would be able to hold them back for a while.
Half a day passed like this, until Dany, immersed in meditation, was startled awake by the creaking sound of the city gate opening.
Looking down, she saw a group of more than a hundred people, holding spears and carrying bows on their backs. It looked as if they were preparing to leave the city to fight.
"What are you doing?" Dany called out loudly as she looked down at the crowd below.
"Ah, it's the Dragon Queen!"
A wave of commotion broke out among the people below.
It seemed they had originally intended to avoid her while going off to do something improper, but now they had been caught red-handed and were a little flustered.
Dany's gaze sharpened. Among them were both men and women, yet all of them had gray hair.
There was not a single adult, nor a single child.
She found it increasingly strange.
She leapt down, drifting like a wisp of cotton from the eighteen-meter-high wall, which caused another round of startled cries among the crowd below.
"Where are you going?" Dany asked sternly, sweeping her gaze over the elderly people dressed in worn leather furs.
They lowered their heads, their expressions embarrassed.
At last, a lame old man with green eyes stepped forward, bowed to the Dragon Queen, and said, "Your Majesty, we're going out to hunt. Perhaps tonight you'll be able to eat some fresh roasted venison."
"Nonsense. In this weather, where would there be any deer? And there are White Walkers hiding in the woods. Are you going out to die?" Dany said calmly.
"Ah, the White Walkers…" someone murmured as if suddenly awakened. "There are White Walkers outside the city. We can't become the walking dead."
"Sigh, what are we supposed to do?" an old warrior stamped his spear and sighed repeatedly.
"Your Majesty, I am Tukas·Amber, Big Jon's grand-uncle. Could I have a word with you privately?" the lame old man moved closer to Dany and said in a low voice.
There was a faint plea in his voice. Dany felt it and could not bear to refuse.
The two of them then walked around to the outside, bypassing a pitch-black snow mound scorched by the bonfire of wights, thereby avoiding the attention of the others.
"Sigh, to be honest, we really are going out to hunt. But hunting in winter means something different for the people of the North," the lame old man said bitterly.
Dany suddenly realized something and remembered what the Old Bear had once told her: after winter arrived, elderly Northerners would take up their bows and tell the young that they were going out hunting, but once they left, they never came back.
They were not going hunting at all. They left their villages only because there was not enough food to survive the winter, and they wanted to leave the stored provisions for the younger generation.
"With so few of you, is the food still not enough?" Dany frowned.
The lame old man's eyes lit up, and he let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that this mysterious and powerful Dragon Queen also knew of the Northerners' "glorious tradition."
"If Hearthfire Castle can hold out, we might be able to endure a few more years. But as you said earlier, a wyvern can't carry so many people at once.
And once we go to Winterfell or somewhere else, food will always be in short supply.
I've lived long enough and understand this better than anyone. During the War of the Five Kings, the North did not store any grain at all. Even without the White Walkers, a long winter lasting more than three years would still starve seventy percent of the North to death.
Now the Long Night has come. We've lived long enough. Let's leave more chances to survive for the young," the lame old man said with a sigh.
Listening to a story and experiencing it firsthand were entirely different things.
When she had heard the Old Bear tell it back then, Dany felt little. But now, with an old man standing before her, speaking the most hopeless words in the calmest tone, she was deeply shaken and powerfully stirred.
"Absurd. Absolutely absurd. I will not allow something like this to happen before my eyes. Go back. Take them all back.
I will stay at Hearthfire Castle for a few more days. The wyverns will transport you south in batches," she said, her face flushed as she pointed loudly toward the city gate.
The Dragon Queen's voice was too loud and her tone too intense, drawing the attention of the group of old fellows beneath the gate, who quietly crept closer and stood on tiptoe to watch.
The lame old man shot a subtle glare at his peeking old companions, then turned back to the Dragon Queen. Staring steadily into her resolute purple eyes, he gave a bitter smile and said,
"This happens every winter in the North. You can stop it this time, but can you change everything in the past? Can you stop everything in the future?
Right now, I'd wager that the elders in other castles have already begun to act as well. You cannot change all of this."
"The past cannot be changed, and the future is not yet decided. Perhaps one day the people of the North will completely abandon this so-called tradition.
But I only care about the present. As long as I can change the tragedy happening right before my eyes, that is enough," Dany said seriously.
"A tragedy? If you stop me, that is what will lead to a tragedy. Thousands of years of history have proven this. Either one lives, or the whole family dies.
This is not a bad custom. The people of the North have been able to endure for tens of thousands of years precisely because the elders are unafraid to sacrifice."
There was deep pride in the lame old man's tone, as if he were about to carry out a sacred and glorious mission.
Dany waved her hand and said firmly, leaving no room for doubt, "Come with me to the Claw Peninsula, to Dragonstone. I will support you.
I have been providing relief to refugees throughout the Riverlands and have saved tens of thousands of people. I can certainly afford to take care of a few more old fellows like you."
(End of chapter)
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