Chapter 435

In the thick, swirling snowfall, two fiery flashes lit up the darkness a thousand feet away. A second later, the sound of explosions echoed back to the defenders on the wall. As if scythed down like wheat, the wight horde surging toward the fireline collapsed en masse, not a single one making it to the walls for an attack.

For a brief, fleeting moment, amidst the tsunami of cheering, Aegor allowed himself to believe—like the exhausted soldiers around him—that this horrific, unprecedentedly brutal battle was finally over.
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But Melisandre’s grave voice quickly shattered that illusion. “The Night King is dead, but the other Others haven’t vanished. I felt another, weaker presence emerge in the wake of his death—a powerful magical transfer. One of the Others must have absorbed his strength! Quickly, use the dragonsteel bombs! We may have a chance to snuff it out before it fully consolidates its power.”

The defenders immediately acted on her suggestion. The rolling explosions shook the ground as more bombs were launched into the enemy ranks. Yet no miracle occurred. The already diminished wight horde retreated into the shadows, leaving the walls unchallenged. For a fleeting moment, Aegor even considered breaking open the gates and pursuing the enemy—but the chaotic fighting within the town walls quickly reminded him that the battle was far from over.

Quelling his reckless thoughts, Aegor ordered half the wall’s defenders to remain on high alert and continue extinguishing fires. The rest were to regroup and move inside to annihilate the remaining enemies within Crown’s Rest.

The disciplined command structure, forged from the Night’s Watch logistics corps and reinforced with well-drafted contingency plans, allowed the Gift’s ragtag army—composed of wildlings and hill tribesmen—to punch far above their weight. Yet even with such organization, mistakes arose amidst the chaos. Fires were lit indiscriminately as soldiers retreated through the outer city, using the dense urban sprawl to trade space for reduced casualties. While this tactic lowered immediate losses, it caused devastating collateral damage. Many civilians, unable to evacuate in time, perished in the very fires their defenders had started.

By dawn, Crown’s Rest—a once-thriving heart of the Gift—was a smoldering ruin, resembling a battlefield razed by incendiary bombing. Amidst this devastation, the squads tasked with hunting the eight Others in the town found their efforts hindered by the chaos. In the end, only three were successfully slain. The remaining five escaped through the fiery wreckage, climbing over the walls and fleeing under the helpless watch of defenders who lacked the dragonsteel arrows needed to stop them.
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It was a victory, but a bitter one.

The dead—both wights and Others—were gone, leaving a devastated town behind. Preliminary casualty reports estimated over seven hundred defenders killed, including more than a dozen giants. Civilian losses exceeded a thousand, with nearly equal numbers burned alive by their own side’s fires as were killed by the invading undead. The surviving industrial district and the untouched inner keep, where key personnel were sheltered, were among the few pieces of good news in an otherwise catastrophic aftermath.

Extinguishing the fires, hunting down scattered wights, and clearing the ruined streets consumed the survivors’ entire night. When dawn finally broke on the third day of the assault, the defenders cautiously dismantled the barricades at the gates and began the grim task of burning the tens of thousands of wights lying beyond the walls.

Amidst the chaos, Aegor had a near heart attack upon learning of Arya Stark’s recklessness. Before the battle, she had begged to help fight the Others, only to be harshly refused and locked inside the keep. But during the confusion of the night, she freed Asha Greyjoy from her restraints, disguised themselves, and joined a detachment of reinforcements heading for the walls. The two women had even encountered wights during a skirmish, narrowly avoiding disaster before being discovered by the squad leader and escorted back to the keep.

Had it not been for the dragonglass ingestion plan, which hampered the Others’ ability to exploit the outer city, things might have ended far worse. Asha’s life was her own risk to take, but if Arya Stark—daughter of the Warden of the North—had perished in Crown’s Rest, Aegor had no idea how he could have faced the Starks of Winterfell.

As Aegor berated Arya for her reckless stupidity, a scout burst into the room, bringing troubling news.

“Commander, the rangers have completed their first reconnaissance. Based on the tracks in the snow, the enemy’s remaining forces number between ten and twenty thousand. They’re retreating south along the Kingsroad and are at least ten miles away.”

“What?” Aegor’s shock was poorly concealed. “South along the Kingsroad?”

Arya, still brimming with energy despite the scolding, perked up. “If the Others are heading for the North, then you can’t stop me from protecting my homeland this time!”

“Shut your mouth!” Aegor snapped, glaring at her before barking orders to the guards. “Take Lady Stark away. Inform her companions from Winterfell that while I’m willing to overlook this incident for their contributions last night, if they can’t keep her under control, I’ll bring it directly to their lord’s attention!”

As Arya protested loudly while being dragged away, Aegor turned back to the scout, his tone grim. “You’re certain the dead are heading south along the Kingsroad?”

The scout nodded. “The rangers followed their tracks for miles. There were no signs of them turning or doubling back.”
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Damn it. This was a disaster.

How could the Others, after suffering such a catastrophic defeat—even losing their leader—have the audacity to continue advancing south?

Logic dictated that a stronger force, rebuffed so decisively, would retreat to its stronghold to regroup and reassess. For the Others, that stronghold was north of the Wall. If they had chosen to retreat, whether via the Gorge or the frozen Bay of Seals, the Night’s Watch would have gladly allowed them to leave unchallenged. It wasn’t mercy but necessity—the defenders were exhausted and lacked the strength to pursue an enemy retreating into their icy homeland.

But instead of retreating, the remnants of the Others’ forces pushed deeper into human territory. Worse, their undead army required no supply lines and was immune to the usual perils of overextension, exploiting humanity’s greatest vulnerability: the inability to sustain prolonged, resource-intensive warfare.
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“Send ravens to every Northern house,” Aegor ordered. “Detail our battle and the importance of our tactics—tell them to prepare fire, pitch, and oil, and emphasize that they must hold their castles and wait for reinforcements! The Wall still stands, and the Others have already overextended their magic. If we can keep them contained and buy time for the Queen’s dragons to return, we’ll have a decisive advantage.”

“Commander,” the Maester of the rookery interjected, “a raven arrived from Winterfell yesterday. You were preoccupied and might not have read it—Lord Stark has already issued a general call to arms across the North. Their armies are likely already marching toward the Wall.”

“What?” Aegor froze. He vaguely remembered seeing the message, but with the siege pressing down on Crown’s Rest, he hadn’t opened it.

The newly reconstructed northern stretch of the Kingsroad had made travel faster than ever—for both sides. Now, a hastily assembled Northern army, equipped with symbolic quantities of dragonglass and lacking proper training, was on a collision course with the remnants of the undead horde.

Aegor clenched his fists. There was no choice.

Allowing the Others to annihilate the Northern host and replenish their ranks would be a disaster. But committing the battered forces of the Gift to another risky battle so soon after this victory could lead to utter ruin.

“Damn it,” Aegor muttered. “Send word to prepare the troops. We march south.”