Chapter 424

During a siege among the living, if an attacking force found its offensive unable to achieve a swift victory, they would typically retreat to avoid unnecessary losses. They would regroup, re-evaluate their strategy, and coordinate their units more effectively before launching another assault.

The army of the dead, however, followed no such logic.

Even though the defenders of the Shadow Tower had unleashed weapons specifically designed to counter them, the tide of wights did not falter. The relentless assault barely slowed—and even that was merely an illusion born of the defenders’ growing confidence. There was no sign of the dead ceasing their suicidal advance. The outer kill zone, sustained by burning wood and pitch, had been trampled to the verge of extinction. Increasing numbers of undead managed to cross the smoldering wasteland, reaching the base of the walls. Like the ceaseless waves of a high tide, they pressed against the combined defenses of wildfire and stone.

Some wights, their bodies ablaze, began clawing their way onto the battlements, forcing the defenders to resort to dragonglass spears. Yet, for now, they were no more than drops of water sizzling on a hot griddle—snuffed out in moments. The line held.

But because the assault never ceased, and under the dual pressure of the blinding glare from the flames and the immediate threat of wights at the walls, no one noticed the movements within the black tide of undead. The shifting mass concealed a new maneuver, one that only became apparent when the battle at the gates took a sudden and terrifying turn.
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The gates had been breached. To reinforce this vulnerable point, the defenders concentrated nearly all their wildfire reserves and dragonglass explosives in this area. Unlike the other sections of the wall, where the flames were limited to the base of the defenses, here they had created a massive firestorm—a searing inferno spanning over ten meters in diameter. To conserve wildfire, the defenders continuously threw wood into the blaze to keep it burning.

From atop the Wall, the fire below gleamed like a brilliant diamond set in a platinum ring, dazzling and radiant. No ordinary wight—and not even a zombie mammoth—could hope to pass through without being reduced to ash.

The roaring flames seemed to push back winter itself, warming the very air within the Shadow Tower. The suffocating tension of impending doom began to lift as enemy casualties mounted. Two scorpions were hauled to the inner courtyard behind the gates, adjusted, and aimed. With all reinforcements deployed, the secondary defensive line was in place. Amid this relative respite, some of the soldiers tasked with clearing out stray wights within the gate began to let their thoughts wander.

“Hey, do you think all this wildfire could melt the frozen ground under the walls and cause the whole thing to collapse outward?” one soldier asked, his tone half-joking.

“Stop overthinking it,” another replied. “We dug the foundation ourselves last year, remember? First, we used fire to thaw the surface and dug it section by section. It was all done under Ser Mallister’s supervision, no shortcuts. The base is four times as thick as the wall itself. If anything’s going to collapse, it’ll be the Wall itself melting and tipping over onto us!”

The joke, though grim, elicited a few chuckles from the nearby soldiers. One of them even loosed an arrow mid-laugh, striking down a lone wight that had somehow crossed the inferno and breached the gate. Compared to the chaos atop the walls, the gate seemed almost peaceful.

Then, a cold wind blew through the courtyard. The flames on the nearby torches wavered violently, and the snowflakes falling from above suddenly thickened.

The soldiers’ laughter died in their throats. Goosebumps prickled their skin as unease took hold. Before they could exchange more nervous remarks, the shouts from the walls turned their blood to ice.

“Why isn’t the fire burning?! Add more wildfire! Still nothing? Use the explosives! Where are the damn explosives?!”
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Three priests of the Great Other, concealed within the horde and protected by undead giants and mammoths, had reached the edge of the inferno. There, they began casting their frost magic.

The Wall’s suppression field limited the effectiveness of magic near its base, forcing them to expend tremendous effort and magic to enact their spells. The Night King had sent the trio specifically for this task, knowing that their powers would be significantly diminished. After tonight’s ritual, the priests would either need to retreat north of the Gorge to recover or sit out the next critical battle. It was a heavy cost, but one the Night King deemed necessary.

Together, the priests focused their spells on the air above the firestorm at the gates, disrupting the flow of oxygen. Within moments, the flames sputtered and died. As the blaze extinguished, the temperature in the area plummeted, leaving the gate completely exposed—a gaping vulnerability in the Shadow Tower’s defenses.

Seizing the opportunity, the Night King’s special units—undead bears and wolves, far faster than human-shaped wights—howled as they surged through the breach.

The defenders atop the walls responded instantly, hurling dragonglass grenades down at the advancing beasts. The explosions rocked the battlefield, momentarily halting the assault. But the limited supply of explosives couldn’t match the relentless wave of undead. Agile and relentless, the bears and wolves pressed forward, pushing aside debris and trampling the corpses of their fallen. Even if only half made it through, they would be more than enough to overwhelm the defenders.

“Loose arrows!”

The first undead wolf leaped through the gate, only to be pierced by a volley of dragonglass arrows. The scorpions fired, their massive bolts skewering several enemies at once. For a brief moment, it seemed as though the line might hold.

But the defenders’ initial firepower waned. The scorpions needed time to reload, and the archers couldn’t sustain their volleys indefinitely. As the bears and wolves broke through the improvised barricades, chaos erupted. Explosions ceased, and the undead flooded the courtyard.

The first direwolf to breach the defenses was killed after a desperate struggle, but not before it tore through three defenders. Moments later, a zombified bear slammed into the line, crushing a soldier beneath its massive weight.
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In battles among the living, a counterattack might reclaim lost ground. But in this war of ice and fire, there were no neutral outcomes.

When the defenders’ firepower exceeded the speed of the undead’s advance, they could hold the line indefinitely—so long as the White Walkers didn’t intervene. But the moment the balance tipped, casualties mounted, and the resulting losses only accelerated their downfall.

The screams of dying soldiers echoed through the courtyard as the undead overwhelmed the defenders. One death became two, two became ten, and ten became twenty.

Though over two hundred soldiers remained at the gate, each death weakened the line further. The melee turned into a slaughter, and the courtyard descended into chaos.
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“Ser Mallister, you must retreat! Your survival is crucial to the Watch!” Bann called out, clutching one of the last remaining dragonglass arrows. “I will stay here and ensure any White Walkers that show themselves are taken down!”

This time, Dennis Mallister didn’t argue. Nodding silently, he allowed his guards to escort him away from the battle. He ascended the staircase toward the Wall, heading to enact the most ruthless and desperate measure in the Wall Defense Plan:

If a fortress is lost beyond saving, the commander must destroy the stairway to the Wall, no matter the cost.

Though Dennis had already assigned this grim task to Qhorin Halfhand, the sight of the enemy’s magical prowess convinced him to take no chances. He would ensure the stairs’ destruction personally, creating a triple-layered fail-safe to prevent the Shadow Tower’s fall from threatening the rest of the Wall.