Hilvi sent her riders shortly after sunrise.
The fires from the previous evening still burned beneath the Wall. Smoke drifted across the frozen ground in long grey sheets, revealing the scale of the destruction whenever the wind cleared it.
Blackened ladders remained against the ice where Dravvaxx had burned them. The shattered ram lay near the gate beside the remains of the giant and the two mammoths, while men of the Night’s Watch moved cautiously among the dead.
Lord Commander Eckard Bolton estimated that nearly ten thousand wildling fighters had been killed during the assault and retreat. I did not ask for a more precise count. Ten thousand was sufficient.
Dravvaxx rested upon the rocky rise west of the Shadow Tower, though rest did not seem to calm him. His head repeatedly turned north, silver eyes watching the distant forest. Whatever had unsettled him the previous evening remained, although I could no longer feel the unnatural cold that briefly touched me during the battle.
Bolton noticed where I was looking. "He has watched the forest since dawn."
"He watched it last night as well."
"You believe something is there?"
"I believe Dravvaxx senses something he dislikes. That does not tell me whether it is dangerous, magical, or simply unfamiliar."
Bolton pulled his black cloak tighter against the wind. "The wildlings clearly fear something enough to bring seventy thousand people against the Wall."
"We do not know that yet."
Before he could answer, a horn sounded from one of the western watch posts. Three riders approached beneath a white hide fixed to a spear. The Night’s Watch immediately raised bows. I stepped towards the edge of the ridge and watched them advance. Two were large men wearing layered furs and boiled leather. The third rider was a woman. She carried no visible weapon.
"Hilvi?" Bolton asked.
"If she has any sense, she would send someone less valuable."
The riders stopped well outside bowshot and waited. A fourth figure came forward on foot carrying the white hide higher above his head. He shouted something I could not understand through the wind.
Bolton listened. "They are requesting speech with the dragonlord."
"That was quick."
"You burned a sixth of their fighting men yesterday. They may have discovered an interest in diplomacy."
I descended from the ridge with twenty brothers of the Watch following at a distance. Dravvaxx remained above us, close enough that his presence made any attempt at treachery unusually optimistic.
The three riders dismounted when I approached.
The woman removed her hood. She appeared perhaps thirty, though the weather beyond the Wall made age difficult to judge. Her dark hair had been braided tightly against her head, with strips of pale bone woven between the strands. A scar crossed the left side of her jaw and disappeared beneath her collar. She was neither especially tall nor physically imposing, but the two men beside her deferred without needing to be ordered.
"You are Hilvi," I said.
Her eyes moved past me towards Dravvaxx. "I am."
Her Common Tongue was rough but clear. "You attacked the Shadow Tower after Lord Commander Bolton warned your people away. Thousands died because you continued."
"I know how many died."
"Then we can avoid pretending yesterday was a misunderstanding."
Her mouth tightened. "I did not come to beg forgiveness."
"That is fortunate. I did not come to offer it."
For several moments we studied one another while the wind carried smoke between the two groups. Hilvi finally spoke. "I came because you must hear why we are here before you burn the rest of us."
"I intend to hear it. Whether it changes anything depends upon what you say."
She looked towards Bolton, who had joined us with several officers. "The crow can listen. He should know what is coming after us."
Bolton showed no reaction to the insult. "Speak plainly, and I will listen plainly."
Hilvi drew a slow breath. "My people are not running from dead things in the woods, ice demons, or whatever stories your men tell themselves when a ranger goes missing. We came south because of Magnar."
The name meant nothing to me. "Who is Magnar?"
"A king who believes every free folk should kneel because he killed enough men to make the frightened call him strong."
Bolton frowned. "We have heard the name from captured raiders. Nothing suggested he commanded an army larger than yours."
"Then your rangers have not gone far enough north." Hilvi looked between us. "Magnar has gathered more than a hundred thousand. Some follow willingly. Others follow because refusing means watching their families fed to men who have forgotten they are men."
The last part drew my attention. "What do you mean?"
"Magnar enjoys cruelty. He says fear is the strongest law because every tribe understands it. Villages that refuse him are destroyed. Chiefs who challenge him are butchered before their people. He keeps warriors who eat those they kill because he believes taking an enemy’s flesh takes his courage with it."
Bolton’s expression hardened. "Cannibals."
"They call themselves his chosen."
I had heard enough monstrous practices in both lives to know that civilisation did not possess a monopoly upon them. Yet Hilvi spoke without embellishment. There was no pleasure in describing Magnar, only disgust hardened by familiarity.
"How did this become a civil war?" I asked.
Hilvi crossed her arms beneath her furs. "Magnar declared himself king over every clan north of the Wall. I told him that free folk do not need another tyrant merely because he wears fur instead of silk. Others agreed. Some chiefs joined me. Others tried to remain apart until Magnar began forcing villages to choose."
"And now?"
"Now every valley between here and the Frostfangs is being pulled into it. His people keep coming. Mine keep dying."
"How many fighters remain with you?"
"Perhaps twenty-five thousand who can still carry weapons. Fewer after yesterday."
The accusation in the words was unmistakable. I did not apologise. "You brought those fighters against the Wall."
"I brought my people south because Magnar has twice our numbers and more joining him every moon. I believed the Wall could be breached before his host reached us."
"You intended to enter the Seven Kingdoms without permission."
"I intended to keep my people alive."
"By killing the men guarding the gate."
Hilvi’s expression hardened. "Would you watch your children butchered because someone built a wall before your grandfather’s grandfather was born?"
"No. I would find another solution before sending ten thousand people against dragonfire."
"I did not know the dragon was coming."
"You knew the Watch would resist."
"I knew the Watch had too few men to stop us."
Bolton stepped forward. "You nearly broke the gate. Had you succeeded, every brother here would have been killed."
Hilvi looked at him without remorse. "If your choice were your brothers or mine, you would make the same decision."
Bolton did not answer. He probably would. That did not make the attack lawful or something I could ignore.
I looked north, where Hilvi’s host remained scattered well beyond bowshot. Thousands of tents and wagons occupied the valley. The retreat had been military, not complete. Families still waited there because seventy thousand people could not simply turn around and vanish into the forest.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
Hilvi hesitated only briefly. "Help me kill Magnar."
The request was direct enough that I almost laughed, though there was nothing amusing about it. She continued. "You burned ten thousand of mine in less time than it takes most men to finish supper. Magnar has more fighters than I do, but he has nothing that can kill that beast if you stay above his arrows. Burn him, burn the worst of his warriors, and the clans following from fear will scatter."
"No."
Hilvi stared at me. "You have not even heard what I would offer."
"There is nothing you can offer that changes the answer."
"If Magnar wins, he will come here. He does not want only the north. He speaks of the Wall as an insult and the southern kingdoms as soft lands waiting to be taken."
"Then he can come."
Even Bolton turned towards me. Hilvi’s eyes narrowed. "You would rather wait until he has a hundred thousand men at your gate?"
"I would rather defend the Wall than involve the Iron Throne in another civil war."
"This is not your civil war."
"Exactly." The wind shifted, carrying the smell of burned timber and flesh from yesterday’s battlefield. "I have just spent many months fighting a war between people who believed their claimant justified every village burned and every soldier killed," I continued. "I watched families choose sides because refusing became impossible. I watched men who began with arguments about duty end by using corpses as bargaining pieces. I will not fly north and decide which wildling monarch deserves my dragon because one of them appears less cruel."
Hilvi’s anger became visible. "Magnar eats people."
"Magnar’s crimes make him a monster. They do not make his throne my responsibility."
"He will become your responsibility when he reaches the Wall."
"Yes. At that moment, the answer becomes simple." Dravvaxx shifted upon the ridge behind me, claws scraping stone. "If Magnar attacks the Wall, I will burn his army exactly as I burned yours. Whether he brings ten thousand or a hundred thousand makes no difference to the principle. The Wall marks the boundary I am here to defend. I will not cross it to fight your war for you, and neither you nor Magnar will cross south by force."
Hilvi stared at me as though trying to decide whether the refusal came from cowardice or madness. "You could end him."
"I could kill thousands of men who have never threatened the realm because you assure me their king deserves it. Then whichever chief survives would learn that the easiest way to defeat a rival is to convince the dragonlord south of the Wall that his enemy is particularly unpleasant."
"I am not asking you to choose every future king."
"You are asking me to choose this one. That is how precedent begins."
Bolton remained silent, though I could tell he approved more of the conclusion than the reasoning. Hilvi looked north. "My people cannot defeat Magnar."
"That may be true."
"If we retreat, he will hunt us."
"That may also be true."
"And you will watch?"
"I will defend this Wall. I will not conquer the lands beyond it for you."
Her jaw tightened. "Then you condemn us."
"No. Magnar does that if he chooses to murder you. I will not accept responsibility for another ruler’s cruelty merely because I possess the power to intervene."
She stepped closer. One of the Watch officers reached for his sword, but I raised a hand. Hilvi stopped several paces away. "You southern kings always speak of borders when suffering is on the other side of them."
"I am not a king."
"You ride the largest beast I have ever seen and speak for the woman who rules everything south of this ice. The difference matters more to you than it does to me."
"Perhaps. The answer remains the same."
Her anger did not disappear, but exhaustion began showing beneath it. "What happens to my people now?"
"They move away from the Wall."
"Where?"
"Wherever you decide, provided it is north."
"Magnar controls the routes east."
"Then go west."
"The mountains will kill many."
"If you remain here and attempt another assault, Dravvaxx will kill more."
The bluntness silenced her. I disliked saying it. That did not make it less necessary.
"I will give you until tomorrow morning to begin withdrawing your camps from the approaches to the Shadow Tower," I said. "The Watch will not pursue while your people retreat. They will recover their own wounded and dead. You may recover yours once the ground immediately before the gate is secured."
Bolton glanced towards me but did not object. Hilvi considered the offer. "And food?"
"The Night’s Watch does not possess enough to feed seventy thousand people."
"The crown does."
"The crown’s stores are several hundred leagues south."
"You have a dragon."
"A dragon carries a rider and enough supplies to keep himself alive. He does not carry grain for a migrating nation."
She looked towards Dravvaxx again. "If Magnar comes here after we leave, will you truly fight him?"
"If he tries to cross, yes."
"With no questions about why?"
"I will ask the same questions I asked you. Then I will give him the same choice. Turn away from the Wall or meet fire."
Hilvi remained silent for a long time. Eventually she nodded. "My people will begin moving before midday. I cannot promise every clan will obey immediately. Some lost fathers and sons yesterday and want revenge."
"Make them understand that revenge will add their names to the dead."
"I will." She turned to leave, then stopped. "You should know one thing about Magnar. He does not fear dragons."
"Men often claim that before meeting one."
"He would have heard what happened here. Scouts were watching from the forests during the battle."
That explained part of the activity Dravvaxx might have sensed, though not all of his unease. "What will Magnar do with that knowledge?"
Hilvi pulled her hood over her head. "He will want to see whether the stories are true."
I watched her mount. "Then he should bring enough men to satisfy his curiosity."
Hilvi gave me a strange look, somewhere between contempt and reluctant amusement, before turning her horse north. The three riders disappeared towards the wildling camp.
Bolton waited until they were well beyond hearing. "You could have allowed some through. Women and children, perhaps."
"And then Magnar follows them to the Wall and demands the same. If refused, he claims we favour Hilvi. If accepted, the Watch ceases to control the border entirely."
"They may die north of here."
"Yes."
Bolton studied me. "You are comfortable with that?"
"No. Comfort has nothing to do with it." I looked towards the Wall. "This is their civil war. Hilvi may be the better ruler. Magnar may be every monster she described and worse. None of that obligates the Seven Kingdoms to invade beyond the Wall and decide who rules the free folk."
Bolton nodded slowly. "And if Magnar comes south?"
"Then it stops being merely their civil war."
By midday, movement began within Hilvi’s camps. Wagons turned north and west. Herds were gathered. The surviving warriors formed loose columns around families still dazed by the previous day’s destruction. No horns called another assault.
Dravvaxx watched them leave. His unease remained. Perhaps Magnar’s scouts were still hidden among the trees. Perhaps the Wall itself disturbed something ancient within dragons. I did not know, and I refused to turn uncertainty into prophecy.
For now, the problem before me was human enough.
Two wildling rulers had gone to war over who would command their people. One possessed seventy thousand followers. The other apparently commanded more than a hundred thousand and had developed a reputation for cruelty severe enough to drive entire clans towards the Wall.
I had no intention of deciding which of them deserved victory. Hilvi would remain north. Magnar would remain north.
If either forgot where their war ended, Dravvaxx would remind them.