Chapter 426

The Shadow Tower exploded.

Literally exploded.

The fiery blast was visible for miles, and the shockwave rippled along the icy expanse of the Wall, triggering minor avalanches that sent dozens of tons of loose ice crashing down its sides. The explosion obliterated the first two levels of the Wall’s stairway at the Shadow Tower—roughly ten meters of structure. The third-level platform, stacked with lamp oil, had also ignited and was engulfed in flames, threatening to collapse entirely. On the fifth-level platform, forty meters above the ground, Qhorin Halfhand wept silently as he led his men in retreat. As they climbed toward the Wall's summit, they methodically destroyed the stairs behind them.

The battle at the western end of the Wall, including the Shadow Tower and the Gorge, was reaching its inevitable conclusion. Meanwhile, over a hundred leagues to the east, the fight at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea was also entering its final stages.
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At Eastwatch, the defenders were fewer in number than those at the Shadow Tower, having suffered heavy losses when an ice storm claimed most of the de-icing crews and several soldiers atop the Wall. Unlike the western strongholds, Eastwatch lacked reinforcements from the Gorge. Nevertheless, the attackers were also fewer in number—an eastern contingent of wights numbering less than twenty thousand, only a fifth of the Night King’s main army. This force lacked heavy siege units like mammoths and giants.

As a result, the evenly matched battle began earlier than the one at the Shadow Tower but lasted far longer. It wasn’t until the two White Walkers commanding the assault personally intervened, using their magic to disrupt the wildfire defenses, that the wights finally scaled the walls and breached the fortress.

The scene was eerily similar to that at the Shadow Tower—snowfall mingling with flames, the air filled with the crackling of fire and the howls of the dead. However, the wights attacking Eastwatch were predominantly human in origin, their strength and combat abilities familiar to the Night’s Watch. Even after breaching the walls, they failed to achieve a decisive advantage. With reinforcements trickling in from Watchtowers like Signal Fire and Black Otter Hall, the battle inside the fortress devolved into chaotic skirmishes. The defenders managed to slow the enemy’s advance enough to create a tenuous stalemate, giving some commanders hope of reclaiming the fortress entirely.
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Among the reinforcements was a small detachment loyal to Daenerys Targaryen. These soldiers, part of a retrieval expedition, had arrived less than a day earlier. After some chaotic fumbling, they located the quartermaster and hastily armed themselves with dragonglass-tipped spears and arrows. Now, they followed a Red Priest named Makiro through the burning alleys, intercepting Eastwatch's commander, Cotter Pyke, who was rushing toward the Wall’s stairway with a small contingent of soldiers.

“Commander!” Makiro called out, his booming voice cutting through the chaos. “I’ve pinpointed the location of the two servants of the Great Other—what you call White Walkers. Follow me, and we can hunt them down together!”

“I’m on a more important mission than playing hunter, priest!” Cotter bellowed, his infamous temper flaring. Were it not for Makiro’s towering frame and the dozen Unsullied at his back, Cotter might have shoved him aside and continued on his way. “Move!”

Not long ago, Cotter himself had believed reclaiming the fortress was possible. He had even led several counterattacks, each time repelling waves of wights. However, the relentless stream of undead steadily pushed his forces back, shrinking their defensive lines to the fortress’s center—now a mere two or three hundred meters from the Wall's stairway. Only then did Cotter recall the evacuation protocols requiring the destruction of the stairs. He hurriedly gathered a small unit and made for the Wall, leading to his current confrontation with Makiro.

“You won’t accomplish anything without killing those two White Walkers!” Makiro insisted, standing firm. He raised his right hand, conjuring a floating ball of flame to prove his magical prowess. “If you’re intent on retreating, then at least leave me the Lightbringer weapons. I can use them to deal with the White Walkers myself!”

Cotter hesitated, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at Eddyn Emmet, the ranger carrying the Valyrian steel-tipped arrows. Finally, he relented. “Eddyn, take two men and go with this red-cloaked fool. Bring a bomb with you. If I don’t see you back at the third-level platform, I’m lighting the damn stairs, with or without you!”

“Yes, Commander!” Eddyn saluted, his frustration at a night spent fruitlessly searching for White Walkers replaced with grim determination. With two of his best soldiers, he joined Makiro’s team.
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The two groups parted ways. One headed toward the stairway at the Wall, the other toward the southern wall of the fortress, navigating through chaos and flames. The streets were teeming with wights, and while human-shaped wights were easier to dispatch with dragonglass weapons, their true danger lay in their unpredictability. Emerging suddenly from rooftops, corners, or alleys, they forced the hunters into constant vigilance.

Makiro’s presence, however, changed everything.

As a high-ranking Red Priest of R’hllor, his connection to fire magic granted him an uncanny ability to sense wights and White Walkers. He guided the group away from large clusters of enemies, allowing them to focus on eliminating smaller groups. The Unsullied under his command, armed with dragonglass spears, dispatched the wights with surgical precision. Any stragglers were swiftly neutralized by Makiro himself.

Unlike the dramatic magic one might expect, Makiro’s method was simple but effective. He released bursts of pure fire-aspected magic, targeting the frost magic animating the wights. The moment his magic entered a wight’s body, it severed the White Walker’s control, reducing the undead to lifeless corpses. His approach mirrored the effect of dragonglass but required no physical medium—only proximity.

To the astonished soldiers, it seemed as though Makiro merely snapped his fingers or waved his hand, and wights collapsed like empty sacks. With the suppression of magic near the Wall not affecting fire-based spells, Makiro unleashed his power without restraint.
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After carving a path through the burning fortress, they reached the wall’s stairway. The defenders had already retreated, and the area was eerily quiet. Most of the wights had surged into the fortress, leaving the outer perimeter desolate. Peering over the wall, Makiro confirmed his suspicions: the once-overwhelming horde had disappeared, leaving only charred remnants and a few twitching corpses.

“Priest, are you certain the White Walkers are outside the wall?” Eddyn asked, his skepticism evident. “Wouldn’t they follow their army into the fortress?”

“They wouldn’t risk being ambushed in such a confined space,” Makiro replied confidently. “They’ll stay outside, waiting for their wights to clear the fortress before entering.”

Despite his conviction, Makiro’s certainty was more hope than fact. His ability to sense White Walkers was limited when they weren’t actively using magic. Still, he led the group to the location where he had last detected them, reasoning that a guess was better than aimless searching.

As they advanced cautiously along the wall’s parapet, Makiro gestured to an Unsullied to scout ahead. The soldier obeyed, peering over the battlements into the darkness below.

A sudden whistling sound cut through the air.

Before anyone could react, the Unsullied’s head exploded in a mist of blood, his lifeless body collapsing onto the parapet. Whatever had struck him had been swift, precise, and lethal.

Makiro wiped the warm blood from his face, his expression grim.

“Looks like we’ve found them.”