GOT: Chapter 420/421

Chapter 420: Role Reversal

Euron's order to retreat rather than pursue baffled Jaime. Believing it to be some sort of ruse, he dared not hesitate. After covering the withdrawal of the last soldier still able to move, he pulled back from the shore, watching as Euron led his men back to the beach, pushed several longships resting on the sand into the cold waters, leapt aboard, grabbed oars, and rowed out into the dark Ice Bay.

He actually retreated?

If Euron's original plan was simply to disrupt the production capacity of Ice Canyon Port—burning two warships and a few warehouses—and now, with that goal mostly achieved, he chose to withdraw while ahead, that seemed reasonable enough. But there were still many Ironborn who hadn't withdrawn, and he still held a considerable advantage. Even if he were planning to flee, why would he do so in such haste?

Yet Jaime didn't dwell on the reason for the enemy's panicked retreat. Ice Canyon Port had, in fact, been saved by deserters—or more precisely, by the first group of garrison soldiers who had retreated from the eastern Great Gorge defense line.

Because Ice Canyon Port had come under attack and was unable to carry out its planned defense measures, the westernmost quarter of the entire Great Gorge frontline, which was closest to the port, was the first to collapse. Many of the defenders hastily threw their Wildfire and retreated without even using many of their Dragonglass arrows. Their perfunctory defense and cowardly withdrawal without notice had undoubtedly doomed their comrades still holding the line. On the other hand, they inadvertently aided Ice Canyon Port, which was engulfed in battle. When dozens or hundreds of garrison troops who had fled from the Great Gorge appeared on the mountain path east of the fortress carrying torches, the Ironborn who had been preparing to launch a pincer attack on the gate—coordinating with the forces already inside—mistook them for Night's Watch reinforcements. Their assault was already faltering, and they immediately dropped their weapons and fled.

After opening the east gate, the Ice Canyon Port Commander quickly gathered the retreating garrison troops from the western Great Gorge. Their Dragonglass weapons were swapped for iron arms better suited for fighting living foes, and this hastily formed force—though far from elite—was enough to intimidate Euron Greyjoy, who knew nothing about the actual status of the Great Gorge defense. Forced to abandon the Ironborn still scattered throughout the port, who were setting fires and wreaking havoc, he withdrew in a hurry.

The Great Gorge defense plan was ironically inverted by the actions of the garrison: instead of the fortress dispatching troops to reinforce the Gorge, it was the retreating defenders of the Gorge who ended up rescuing the fortress.


---

The retreat of the King of the Iron Islands stripped the remaining Ironborn in the port of any chance of escape. After burning the last longships on the beach, the now-coordinated garrison of Ice Canyon Port quickly moved to assign troops and tasks to eliminate the enemy remnants that had infiltrated the fortress.

Since no civilians lived at the port, the only casualties were among the combatants. Still, the fortress was left in ruins. More than half of it was ablaze. One of the only three warships was destroyed entirely, another had caught fire but was barely salvaged thanks to the fact it had just launched and hadn't yet loaded much Wildfire. Only the flagship, Charging Wolf, which had already seen battle, survived intact due to the crew's experience.

Most of the granaries were destroyed by fire, and dozens of tons of shipbuilding timber donated from across the North were almost entirely consumed. Fortunately, the Wildfire warehouse, reserved for wartime, was located far from the harbor and did not cause a catastrophic explosion.

The true silver lining was that the core workshops of the shipyard were preserved. The elite Northmen stationed there had fulfilled the vital task Robb Stark had entrusted them. As soon as the attack began, they had gathered the Artisan technicians and their assistants—recruited from Bear Island and White Harbor—into a single secure location. Even as chaos spread across the rest of the port, they refused to abandon their post and repelled multiple small Ironborn raiding parties who attempted to torch the shipyard and kill the technical staff. Though most of the living quarters and storage areas were lost, the tools, equipment, and most importantly, the skilled craftsmen essential to the future of the Northern navy suffered no losses. It was the only piece of good news from this disaster.

Of course, not everyone saw it that way.

To ensure the success of their surprise attack, the number of Ironborn who landed via longships was relatively small. Had the garrison been properly organized, the defenders would not have suffered such heavy losses. Jaime's unit had fought multiple engagements to retake the port and had lost nearly half their number in the battle against Euron. Recruits from the New Gift had died, and of the fifty Westermen guards he had brought, only a little over twenty remained. He had bled and sacrificed to protect the North's military harbor, while the Northmen being protected had remained holed up in the shipyard, refusing to come out.

As the Kingslayer, wounded and defeated, gradually recovered his senses, fury surged up within him. He turned that rage on the Northmen.

"I sent men to call for your help! Why the hell wouldn't you come out? If the fortress had fallen, what good would guarding the shipyard have done?" Jaime bellowed at the Northmen commander, his eyes bloodshot and veins bulging. Were he not utterly exhausted, he would have stormed over and grabbed the man by the collar.

"Ser Jaime, please calm yourself. There are few in the North who know the art of shipbuilding. Houses and grain can be rebuilt and regrown, but once these men are lost, it is extremely difficult to replace them."

"That's horseshit!" Jaime exploded with rage. "Northmen lives count, but my Westermen lives don't? You just wanted to watch me die, didn't you? That's why you hid in there and didn't come out!"

"Please control your emotions, my lord. We honor your bravery and the sacrifice of your men, but we will not accept such malicious accusations." The Northmen commander had acted in good faith and naturally did not flinch from the charge. Months of simmering tension boiled over, and the bitter defeat against Euron became the final spark. A heated argument broke out between the two groups, and not even the Ice Canyon Port Commander could bring it under control.

...

Fortunately, the Ironborn's second wave of long-range attacks soon cut the quarrel short.

The Ironborn sailing fleet, which had previously acted as a diversion, had been wary of the devastating effects of Wildfire and hadn't dared to come too close. They had only circled at the outer edges of the trebuchet range, firing intermittently, their accuracy no better than chance. It appeared as if they were preparing to assault the port, but in truth, they were merely a distraction.

However, after the longships had successfully landed and broken into the fortress during the lapse in seaward defenses, the sailing ships quietly drew much closer.

According to the plan, once the two landing forces joined and overwhelmed the fortress, the sailing fleet would dock at the port and send reinforcements ashore. If the land assault failed, the ships would instead bombard the port at close range with incendiaries to cause further damage, then cover the retreat of the Ironborn forces boarding the longships.

After Euron's longship had pulled away from shore, he raised a torch in signal. The sailing fleet, which had gone silent for some time, resumed its barrage.

One flaming projectile after another arced through the sky and crashed into the fortress. Most of the watchtowers had already been damaged in the previous fighting or were ablaze. Their ammunition stores had either been depleted or were inaccessible due to the ongoing chaos. Only a few trebuchets and ballistae could be quickly brought back into action.

It took another half hour before the Night's Watch troops, now back in control of the port, were able to restore most of the defensive positions. After a few rounds of return fire, they finally managed to drive off the Ironborn fleet using their superior firepower.

The Ironborn assault was over, but the ordeal was far from finished. While there was plenty to do—dealing with prisoners, putting out fires, tending to the wounded, burying the dead—the garrison now faced an even greater threat.

Though the arrival of the retreating garrison troops had inadvertently broken the siege, no one had forgotten the significance of the Great Gorge. Its terrain and defensive structure meant that a breach at any one point could lead to the collapse of the entire line.

After hastily extinguishing fires and salvaging wartime supplies, the garrison of Ice Canyon Port put aside the cleanup and began preparing in full for the looming assault by the army of the dead.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 421: Priest of the God of Cold

The Night King did not send even half a wight toward Ice Canyon Port.

This decision was not driven by emotion, but entirely by rational calculation:

1. Ice Canyon Port lies to the west and holds no strategic significance for their side. Attacking it would draw the wight army away from the Wall, delaying their optimal timing.

2. There are too few people at Ice Canyon Port, and they are all combatants. Attacking the fortress would yield far fewer new soldiers than the effort would cost, making it unworthy of pursuit.

Humans call them White Walkers, but the Night King knows that he and his kin are not irrational specters. Their true identity is that of Cold God Priests, the walking vessels and spokespersons of one of the world's only two true gods, executors of His will and needs.

As the leader of all Cold God Priests, every action he takes must be free of emotional influences such as hatred, disgust, or desire. His only guiding principle is to uphold the grand objective of his deity.

He was not created by the Cold God. The Children of the Forest created him first, using him as a war machine to fight humanity. After an unknown period of time without self-awareness, that great being awakened his consciousness, granted him the ability to reason and think, guided him to break free of his creators, and gave him a far greater and nobler goal: to eliminate killing and restore the world to its original, cold, orderly, and peaceful state.

Yes, the living would never believe it: he, who was created as a killing machine, the King of the White Walkers they call the Night King, actually hates killing.

The Children of the Forest, whom he hated most, are already history. But the greed and violence that arise from the desire to acquire, compete for resources, and reproduce are imprinted in the genes of all living things. They are beyond redemption. To solve this, the deity proposed the most fundamental solution: eradicate all living beings. Once life disappears entirely, killing will naturally cease.

...

To achieve this goal, and to eventually defeat R'hllor and claim control of the world, the Cold God must first destroy the magical barrier of the Wall, so that His power can flow from the Land of Always Winter into all of Westeros.

Because those three dragons could return to the battlefield at any moment to fight alongside the living defenders of the Wall.

The Cold God does not fear dragons, nor is He worried about human armies. Compared to His priests—magic-powered war machines—the living are merely future puppet soldiers, and what mortals see as magical symbols are, to Him, just large flying lizards. Dragonflame, said to possess anti-magic properties, is merely a warm breeze that makes the priests sweat.

As long as they are bathed in the Cold God's power, any enemy in the world can be crushed—provided the priests are within a dense field of cold magic and have a steady and sufficient power supply.

But while the Wall's magic still holds, Cold God Priests crossing the boundary into the south are like fish leaping onto land. Just as fish struggle to breathe in air, the priests cannot absorb the cold magic they need to survive when south of the Wall. Every ounce of energy must be conserved, not wasted.

Whether human armies or dragons, either could be dealt with alone. But to face both simultaneously while the Wall's magic still stands is like a fish flopping on dry land, trying to fight land animals, with little chance of success.

The only way to break this stalemate is to seize Nightfort before the three dragons return to the battlefield, destroy the Wall's magic, and tear down the dam blocking the Cold God's power—flooding all of Westeros with His energy.

Once the Cold God's power pours through the Wall, no force in the world will be able to stop His advance.

Therefore, the army must not only march in the correct direction but also with great speed.


---

The Night's Watch had defensive plans. The Night King had offensive plans.

After successfully crossing the Great Gorge, the first thing the White Walkers did was to surround and wipe out Gorge Lookout—the small, wooden, temporary human stronghold built in the middle of the Gorge for transporting supplies and personnel.

In this siege, the Night King encountered a new human weapon for the first time: small spherical objects that, when they exploded, did not ignite a green fire like Wildfire but instead scattered countless frozen fire fragments. These blasts could sever the magical connection between dozens of wights and the White Walkers in a single strike.

This unprecedented threat was immediately relayed to every Cold God Priest through the Night King's magical senses. The countermeasures were as follows: during attacks on fortresses, remain as far from the walls as possible, relying on wights to storm the position rather than engaging directly. If they had to close in, they must condense ice armor around their bodies to defend against the frozen fire.

The deployment of Dragon Crystal Bombs caused the Night King to lose more wights than expected in the siege of Gorge Lookout, but it was only a temporary outpost, not a permanent fortress. With no moats, high walls, or deep stores of supplies, and after a desperate half-hour defense that only managed to destroy a few thousand wights, it was inevitably overwhelmed.

After killing the thousand-plus human defenders who had retreated into the outpost and raising them as new puppets, the White Walkers immediately turned to their next task: uprooting and destroying the last remaining scattered weirwood trees on both sides of the mountain trail across the entire line.

Though the Wall still stood, clearing out the Great Gorge—a weak point on the southern flank—allowed the Cold God's power to begin slowly leaking south through this dozens-of-miles-long gap. If the White Walkers' magical recovery rate was 100 north of the Wall and 0 in the south, then eradicating the Haunted Forest on both sides of the Great Gorge instantly raised that southern value from 0 to 1. This trickle of cold magic, like waves overflowing a dam, was not enough to fight at full power, but it was a steady and reliable source that allowed minimal action south of the Wall.

Magic still had to be used sparingly, but now the priests no longer had to constantly fear exhausting their strength and vanishing because they could not maintain their forms.

Facing overwhelming numbers, over a thousand weirwood trees were felled in an instant. Bathed in the slowly seeping power of the Cold God, the White Walkers led the dead in final preparations before assaulting the Wall: they spent the night constructing gentle slopes in the flattest parts of the Great Gorge, so that wights, mammoths, and giants who had been trapped below due to their size or weight could now move forward.

To attack Nightfort in the east, they needed to pass several human strongholds along the way. While these strongholds were insignificant before the Cold God Priests, the Night King knew that, given their limited magic, they would need these thick-skinned "siege weapons" to do the heavy lifting.

Even the Cold God's servants understood the value of sharpening the blade before cutting wood. While Shadow Tower and Ice Canyon Port trembled, awaiting a powerful enemy they expected to arrive at any moment, the army of the dead spent half the night completing their preparations. Then they turned around, forming a long column, and began their march toward the Wall.

(To be continued.)