A harsh caw-caw shriek came from above.
As the wildlings passed a line of cedars, a raven circled overhead and screamed its grating cry.
But there was no clang of steel on steel, no twang of bowstrings—only the faint creak of hooves crunching through broken ice.
Mance Rayder stared blankly at the abandoned camp ahead.
Just a few hours earlier, his people had been bleeding themselves dry against it, unable to advance even a step.
And now…
They had taken it so easily.
Is this a trap?
Unease churned in Mance's gut.
But before the King-Beyond-the-Wall could issue an order, the wildlings swarmed into the camp like a flood, ransacking everything.
They tore down leather tents and yanked up ropes. Like bloodthirsty flies, they left no scrap of iron or leather behind.
What delighted them most was the storehouse—packed with piles of grain, fine wine, and weapons. Cheers erupted everywhere, the wild joy of plunder.
Night.
The north wind surged and tugged at the heavy cedars. Ravens flapped through the trees, wheeling back and forth.
A tall tent stood not far from the camp.
This was the personal tent of the King-Beyond-the-Wall—Mance Rayder.
Beneath his patched wool cloak stitched with faded red silk, Mance wore black ringmail and rough fur trousers. A heavy helm of copper and iron sat on his head, raven wings decorating either side.
Giantsbane Tormund and Doghead Harma sat nearby. Styr of the Thenns was there as well, along with the skinchanger Varamyr and his wolves and shadowcat.
Mance Rayder looked uncertain. "All of you… does this mean we've won?"
"Of course we've won!" Tormund thumped his chest and roared, chewing on a pig's leg. "Didn't you see? The invaders ran. They're scared of us!"
"They must've fled in a hurry—look at all the food and supplies they left behind… gods, this wine's good!" Styr drew a long dagger, pried out a cork, and gulped straight from the bottle.
"So… we really won?" Mance asked, still unsure.
He lifted his gaze to the sky, black as pitch. Something about this victory felt too sudden.
In his original plan, there would have been a brutal, grinding fight.
"We won!"
"The enemy felt fear…"
"Our warriors are unstoppable!"
…
Inside the tent, the clan leaders all chimed in.
But then someone voiced a dissenting thought:
"The invaders may not have been defeated. They might have withdrawn on purpose—luring us to chase them, so they can ambush us."
Mance looked up.
It was Ygritte—one of his most trusted.
Ygritte was eighteen, and for her age she was quite small, half a foot shorter than most wildlings.
Small, but fast—strongly muscled, skilled in a fight. Her weapon of choice was a short recurved bow made from horn and weirwood.
She had a round face, small hands, a flat nose, and uneven but white teeth.
Her most striking feature was her wild blaze of red hair.
Among the wildlings, red hair was considered lucky, and those born with it were called "kissed by fire."
Ygritte had once served in a wildling scout band. Half a year ago, while gathering information south of the Wall, she'd been captured by northern nobles and sent to some lord's domain as a slave laborer.
Luckily, she'd escaped and returned.
But to Mance, the Ygritte who came back felt… different. He couldn't say exactly how.
"Ygritte, don't tell me those nobles scared you witless!" Jarl grinned and laughed.
"I'd forgotten—you got captured once," Doghead Harma sneered. "Must've been tortured half to death. Makes sense you'd be afraid…"
"Shut your mouths. If they're still this foul, I don't mind sewing them closed," Ygritte snapped back. She might be small, but she was dangerous—and carried real weight among the free folk.
"All right, enough," Mance Rayder cut in quickly, stopping the argument. Ygritte wasn't wrong. If the enemy was feigning defeat to lure them into an ambush, they needed to be cautious.
"Varamyr—send your wolves to scent them out. Track the invaders, in case they're trying to circle back and strike.
Tormund—double the patrols. Everyone carries a torch and flint.
Styr, Jarl—you lead men at first light. Pursue them.
Don't let these invaders slip away so easily—but be careful. Don't walk into their trap."
Mance decided to send a small force first and see what they found. If it was an ambush, he could always pull his people back strategically.
The free folk couldn't stand against a disciplined northern army…
But if they ran like their lives depended on it, the enemy could grow a third leg and still never catch them.
The next day…
To Mance Rayder's surprise, there was no ambush.
Instead, thirty miles away, the invaders had established a second line camp.
It was unfinished too—only about half built.
If they left it alone, once it was completed it would become a nail driven into the Haunted Forest.
How many warriors' lives would it take to pull it out then?
They had to take it—
Before it was finished.
Mance Rayder made up his mind.
Several days later.
Castle Black.
The Wall.
Near midday, Domeric stood atop the Wall in the sun—checked the place off properly by taking a steaming piss right there.
The sun broke through the clouds, and the Wall gleamed with a crystalline blue sheen.
It wasn't Domeric's first time seeing the Wall, but it never failed to shake him.
Wind and grime from countless generations had left stains and scars on the ice like a thin film, sometimes turning it a pale gray—like a sky heavy with storm.
But when the day was clear and the light struck it full on, the Wall seemed almost alive, glittering—an enormous blue-white cliff cleaving the world in two.
It was the greatest structure ever built by human hands.
And it was the end of the Seven Kingdoms' civilization.
Sometimes you forgot it existed—like the sky over your head or the earth beneath your feet, so familiar you stopped thinking about it.
And sometimes it felt like the only real thing left in the world.
It was older than the Seven Kingdoms.
The north wind blew. Dead leaves whispered. It felt like countless icy fingers crawling slowly up his spine.
Domeric almost felt the massive weight of the ice pressing down on him, as if the Wall might collapse and bury him.
He found himself thinking—
When the White Walkers came… and the Wall truly fell, that hundred-yard-high barrier crumbling with it…
What would this world become then?
-
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🏰 Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort
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