The Wall appeared near the end of the second day.
For almost two full days, Dravvaxx and I had flown north with only brief descents for food, water, and rest. We crossed the Riverlands before the first evening, followed the Kingsroad through the Neck during the night’s final hours, and passed above Winterfell shortly after dawn on the second day.
Cregan Stark had already received Rhaenyra’s command. Beacon fires burned upon the castle’s western towers, and men gathered in the yards below as ravens travelled towards every northern house capable of placing soldiers on the road.
I did not descend. Every hour spent at Winterfell was another hour granted to the army approaching the Shadow Tower.
The land changed as we continued north. Farms became smaller and farther apart. Roads narrowed beneath old snow, and villages appeared as clusters of timber surrounded by darkness. By the time Castle Black passed beneath Dravvaxx’s eastern wing, daylight was fading, and the air had become cold enough to pierce the layers beneath my riding coat.
The Wall stretched across the horizon like a pale wound dividing the world.
I had seen it only through the histories of another life. No written account conveyed its scale. The Wall did not resemble a fortification built by men. It resembled a cliff raised by something that wished to separate one age of the world from another. Its face caught the final light and returned it in shades of blue, grey, and white, while its summit disappeared at intervals behind drifting cloud.
Dravvaxx disliked it immediately. His flight changed as soon as the Wall came into view. The muscles beneath the saddle tightened, and his wingbeats became slower and more deliberate. He did not refuse the northern course, but his silver eyes remained fixed upon the ice rather than the land ahead.
I leaned forward and placed one gloved hand against the warm scales of his neck.
"There is nothing in the Wall that can harm you," I told him in High Valyrian.
The reassurance was meant as much for me as for him. Dravvaxx released a low sound that vibrated through the saddle. It was not the challenge he offered other dragons or the irritation he directed towards handlers who approached too confidently. The noise carried uncertainty.
Perhaps the Wall itself disturbed him. Its magic was older than the histories I remembered, and dragons had never been ordinary animals. He might sense whatever power held the ice together after thousands of years. Yet his attention did not remain upon the Wall. Again and again, he looked beyond it.
North.
The remembered history of Mance Rayder offered no explanation. Mance would not be born for almost two centuries, and his great host belonged to another age. Hilvi was not an early version of a future man whose decisions I already understood. She had united her people beneath different circumstances and marched upon a different part of the Wall for reasons no history had recorded.
Whatever Dravvaxx sensed belonged to this moment.
A dark column stained the western sky. At first I mistook it for cloud. Then the wind shifted, and I saw the smoke spreading from the base of the Wall. The Shadow Tower was already under attack.
I turned Dravvaxx west. The Wall passed beneath us as the last sunlight vanished. Wind struck us from the north, colder and sharper than anything south of the ice. Dravvaxx descended slightly, following the Wall while keeping enough height to avoid arrows from either side. The smoke grew thicker with every league.
We heard the battle before seeing it. Horns sounded beneath the wind. Men shouted in numbers large enough that individual voices became a continuous roar. Wood cracked against wood somewhere below, followed by the dull impact of something massive striking a gate. Dravvaxx increased his speed without command.
The Shadow Tower emerged through the smoke.
Its defenders crowded the summit and battlements, firing arrows into the darkness below. Burning barrels fell from the Wall, leaving brief trails of light before breaking among the attackers. Stones followed, though the Night’s Watch possessed too few men to maintain the volleys required against a host of that size.
The ground north of the Wall appeared to move.
Thousands of fires spread across the valley and into the surrounding forest. Tents, carts, herds, and gathered clans filled every open stretch of land. The encampment extended farther than I could judge in the failing light, but the assault concentrated around the Shadow Tower and its gate.
Hundreds of wildlings were already climbing.
Some used rope ladders weighted with hooks. Others ascended upon crude timber frames pressed against the lower ice. Groups worked beneath shields made from hide and woven branches, protecting climbers from arrows falling from above. Several had reached heights that made them difficult to distinguish from dark marks upon the Wall.
The defenders were losing control of the face.
More wildlings waited below with ropes, axes, bows, and bundles of timber. When climbers fell, others immediately took their places. The dead lay so thick around several ladders that the living stepped upon them to reach the ice.
The gate was under heavier attack.
Two mammoths stood before it. For a moment, I could not understand what I was seeing. Their bodies were larger than any elephant I had known in my first life, covered in long brown hair darkened by mud and melted snow. Crude plates of timber and hide protected their heads. Chains ran from harnesses around their shoulders to a massive tree trunk hanging between wheeled frames. Men drove them forward with spears and torches.
Between the mammoths stood a giant.
He towered above every wildling around him, broad enough through the shoulders that several men could have stood side by side within the space he occupied. His body was wrapped in hides and rough armour made from bone, leather, and overlapping pieces of wood. He gripped the suspended trunk with both hands, adding his strength to the animals pulling it.
The ram struck the gate. Even from the air, I felt the impact. Timbers shuddered within the tunnel. Ice broke loose from the Wall above and fell in glittering fragments. The men of the Night’s Watch poured burning oil through murder holes, but hides soaked in water protected the mammoths while the giant stepped back beyond the worst of it.
Another strike would come quickly.
I had believed the old accounts of giants because dragons had already removed the luxury of dismissing the impossible. Belief was different from seeing one standing beneath me, directing animals large enough to make warhorses appear small.
Dravvaxx saw them too. His unease sharpened into aggression. Smoke poured between his teeth, and the heat beneath my legs increased as flame gathered inside him. The giant looked upward. He pointed.
Horns changed across the wildling lines.
Thousands of faces turned towards the sky. Arrows rose before I completed the first descent. Most fell short. Dravvaxx remained too high and moved too quickly for bows fired from the ground. A few heavier shafts passed beneath his wings, launched from large weapons that resembled oversized bows mounted upon wooden frames. They were not true scorpions, but they could injure a dragon if they were lucky.
Honeyholt remained written across Dravvaxx’s wing. I would not repeat it.
We climbed briefly, circling above the assault while I studied the ground. The wildlings had massed their strongest fighters around the gate and lower ladders. Their numbers made the attack possible and also made them vulnerable. Thousands were packed together within a space bordered by the Wall on one side and their own approaching ranks on the other.
Burning them would be easy. Controlling what followed would not. Families and herds filled the distant encampment, but the people before the Shadow Tower carried weapons. They had come to breach the gate, kill the Watch, and open the road south for those behind them. Whatever drove them did not change what they were doing now.
I gave Dravvaxx the command.
He folded his wings. The descent drove cold air against my armour hard enough to make breathing difficult. The Wall rose beside us while the wildling army spread below in firelight and shadow. Arrows climbed again, but our speed ruined their aim. Dravvaxx turned sharply before reaching the ground, his wounded wing holding without weakness.
We crossed the first line of ladders from east to west. "Dracarys."
Flame struck the base of the Wall.
Dravvaxx’s fire was not the bright orange of ordinary burning timber. It poured from him in a dense amethyst-white torrent, hot enough to turn snow into steam before it reached the ground. The first ranks vanished beneath it. Ladders caught along their full height, carrying flame upward faster than the climbers could descend.
Men threw themselves from the ropes. Others remained trapped above the burning sections and began falling as the ladders broke apart beneath them. Shields of hide shrivelled. Timber frames became torches pressed against the ice.
Steam exploded across the Wall’s face. For several seconds, the entire battlefield disappeared inside white vapour and black smoke.
Dravvaxx climbed before the wildlings could adjust. Screams followed us into the darkness. The men of the Night’s Watch shouted from the summit. Some raised weapons in celebration. Others backed away from the edge as Dravvaxx passed close enough for the heat of his body to reach them.
The giant roared below. He drove the mammoths forward again while wildling leaders struggled to keep the assault from breaking. The ram struck the gate for a second time. One of the outer timbers split, and men within the tunnel rushed to reinforce it.
I turned Dravvaxx towards the gate. The mammoths sensed him before the wildlings did. Both animals began pulling against their chains, trying to retreat from the heat and sound descending upon them. Their drivers stabbed them with spears. The giant seized the ram and attempted to force the animals forward through strength and rage.
Dravvaxx roared.
The sound struck the valley with enough force to silence every horn. The mammoth on the left reared. Its chains dragged the wheeled frame sideways, crushing several men beneath it. The second tried to turn, tangling its harness around the giant’s legs.
He did not fall. The giant released the ram and pulled the chain free with both hands. Then he lifted a stone large enough to crush a horse and hurled it towards us.
Dravvaxx turned beneath my command. The stone passed behind his tail and struck the Wall, shattering into fragments. Several pieces cut through wildlings standing below.
The giant reached for another. I brought Dravvaxx around from the west, descending along the Wall rather than approaching directly from the north. The large bows near the gate tried to turn with us, but their crews could not move the frames quickly enough over trampled snow and bodies.
"Dracarys."
Flame crossed the gate approach. The giant disappeared within it. So did the mammoths, ram, and several hundred fighters gathered around them.
One mammoth collapsed almost immediately. The other broke free of its harness and emerged from the fire with half its hide burning. It charged blindly into the wildling ranks. Men scattered too slowly. The animal trampled a path through shields, carts, and bodies before falling onto its side.
The giant remained standing for several heartbeats. Fire covered his hides and climbed through his rough armour. He staggered away from the gate, striking at himself with hands already blackened by heat. His roar became something deeper and more terrible than the cries of men.
Dravvaxx’s second breath ended it. When the fire cleared, the gate remained intact. The wildling assault did not.
Their front ranks broke first. Men who had survived the burning ladders fled north, colliding with those still advancing. Leaders shouted for them to hold formation, but no formation existed once Dravvaxx turned along the base of the Wall again.
I directed him against the armed concentrations rather than the distant camp. We burned bow crews, reserve fighters, and the groups attempting to raise new ladders. Dravvaxx swept low enough for his fire to reach them but never low enough for the largest weapons to gain a clean shot. When arrows filled the air, he climbed. When the crews shifted position, he descended elsewhere.
The wildlings possessed courage. They had climbed the Wall beneath arrows and falling stone. They had followed mammoths, and a giant against a gate defended by men who knew surrender meant death. Several bands even attempted to hold beneath Dravvaxx’s attack, raising shields and loosing volleys as though resolve could prevent dragonfire from reaching them.
Courage did not make them fireproof.
Each pass widened the panic. Burning men ran into unburned ranks. Horses tore free from carts and dragged supplies through the crowd. Warriors fleeing the Wall collided with families moving forward to learn what had happened. Commands vanished beneath screams, horns, and Dravvaxx’s wings.
I saw banners among them.
Some carried antlers. Others showed skulls, clawed hands, crude trees, or animals painted upon hide. One standard stood higher than the others near the centre of the retreat: a pale woman’s face crowned with black branches.
Hilvi’s banner.
I searched the people beneath it but could not identify a queen among thousands. The standard withdrew before we reached it. Dravvaxx followed for half a league, then resisted when I urged him farther north.
His head turned sharply towards the forest.
The retreating wildlings were directly beneath us, yet his attention fixed upon the darkness beyond their camp. His body tightened again, not with the excitement of battle but with the same unease he had shown upon first seeing the Wall.
He climbed without waiting for my command. Something had frightened him. Not the giant. Dravvaxx had attacked it without hesitation. Not the mammoths, arrows, or wildling host. His silver eyes searched the trees north of the fires, where the forest extended into darkness untouched by moonlight. I saw no movement large enough to justify his response. No army waited there. No second giant stood among the trunks.
Yet the cold changed.
It reached me despite Dravvaxx’s heat, passing through armour and cloth with a suddenness that felt separate from the northern wind. The sensation lasted only a few breaths before fading. Dravvaxx continued climbing until the battlefield became a field of scattered light beneath us. I did not force him back towards the forest.
The immediate threat remained at the Wall.
The retreat had become a rout. Thousands fled from the Shadow Tower, abandoning ladders, weapons, packs, and wounded companions. Some stopped only when they reached the outer camp. Others continued into the surrounding valleys, carrying panic far beyond the reach of Dravvaxx’s flame.
I turned him south again.
The Night’s Watch had opened a smaller inner door beside the damaged gate. Black-cloaked men emerged cautiously, dragging wounded brothers away from the base of the Wall and killing wildlings who still resisted. Their officers tried to prevent pursuit from becoming slaughter.
They did not need to chase far. The field already contained enough dead.
Dravvaxx landed upon a rocky rise west of the Shadow Tower, far enough from the Wall that his weight would not threaten any hidden tunnels beneath the snow. The ground shook beneath him. Men upon the battlements stared down at us, their faces blackened by smoke and their cloaks stiff with frost.
For several moments, no one approached. Then the gate opened far enough for a small mounted party to emerge.
The rider at its head wore the black cloak of the Night’s Watch over heavy armour. His horse objected to Dravvaxx from the moment it saw him, forcing the man to dismount before coming nearer. He removed his helmet as he approached, revealing a narrow face, dark hair touched with grey, and the pale eyes associated with House Bolton.
"Prince Othorion," he called when he judged himself close enough to be heard without entering reach of the dragon’s jaws. "I am Eckard Bolton, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch."
"I expected to meet you inside the Shadow Tower rather than outside a battlefield."
"So did I. Your arrival prevented the gate from deciding otherwise."
He looked towards the burning ground before the Wall. The scale of the destruction became clearer from the ridge. Bodies lay in great blackened bands marking each of Dravvaxx’s passes. The remains of ladders burned against melting ice. The giant’s corpse rested near the ruined ram, larger even in death than many houses I had known as a child.
"How long has the siege lasted?" I asked.
"The first attacks began yesterday evening. They tested the Wall throughout the night and committed their main strength several hours before you arrived. Another two strikes against the gate might have broken the outer timbers."
"You did not mention mammoths or giants in your letter."
"Our scouts reported large animals, but none returned with descriptions I trusted. As for the giant, the men who claimed to have seen him were dismissed as frightened until he walked out of the smoke this afternoon."
"I owe several old stories an apology."
Bolton did not smile. His attention remained upon the field. "The fires will show us the number more clearly by morning, but you killed thousands."
"Approximately ten thousand fighters were caught near the Wall and gate. Some may have escaped the flames only to die during the retreat."
The number left a bitter taste even as I spoke it. They had come armed and attempted to breach the Wall. Had they succeeded, every man within the Shadow Tower would have died, and the road south would have opened before a host numbering tens of thousands. Necessity did not make the dead lighter.
Bolton regarded Dravvaxx. "Whatever their number was when they arrived, they will not assault us again tonight."
"No. They may not assault for several days."
"You believe they will return?"
"Seventy thousand people cannot disappear into the haunted forest because one attack failed. Their fighters fled, but their families, animals, and supplies remain. Once fear fades, Hilvi will decide whether to attack again, retreat farther north, or negotiate."
The Lord Commander’s expression hardened. "The wildlings do not negotiate unless they lack the strength to take what they want."
"Tonight they lack it."
"They may have lost ten thousand and still possess more warriors than the Watch has men."
"Which is why Cregan Stark is raising the North. Ships and supplies are being prepared, and additional royal forces will follow. Dravvaxx and I reached you first because nothing else could."
Bolton looked north towards the scattered campfires. "You intend to remain?"
"Until the threat is resolved."
Dravvaxx released another low sound. His head remained turned north. The wildling retreat continued beneath the darkness, carrying thousands away from the Wall. Behind them stood forests older than any kingdom and mountains whose valleys remained blank even upon the Watch’s maps.
I had come expecting to put down an army. By nightfall, Dravvaxx had burned nearly ten thousand of its fighters and broken the siege of the Shadow Tower. The gate remained standing. The climbers were dead or fleeing, the giant lay burned beside the mammoths, and Hilvi’s host had been driven back in panic.
Yet victory did not calm my dragon. Whatever unease had followed us along the Wall remained within him, directed not towards the defeated enemy but towards the darkness from which they had come.
Hilvi had brought seventy thousand people south. Before I decided how to destroy what remained of her army, I needed to learn what had persuaded them to approach the one barrier their people had feared for thousands of years.