Chapter 92
"You fight the war before the swords are drawn, for after the steel is out, it is no longer a war, but a battle instead."
~King Cregan Stark~
JON STARK
The fire raged on. It raged on despite it being half a day since it had first begun, and now as the Sun rose in the skies once more, the green flames of Wildfire still rose high into the air as the armies began to reach the Wall.
The Northern armies had come first, led by his own father as he brought over twenty-five thousand strong men, armed and ready to lay down their lives for the only war that mattered.
The King's armies had come after that, twenty-five thousand strong under the command of the rather famous and stoic Randyll Tarly, who had been the King's Master of War for half a decade now.
The Wall now had over sixty thousand strong men, armed and ready for war, and yet the battle was yet to come, for the fire raged between them and the armies of the Night King.
Such was its intensity that it had thawed away the chill that had been eating away at their bones for years, and yet few celebrated the warmth, for everyone knew of the chill that awaited them after its end.
And it would end. And then war would come.
"The hinges are frozen," the new Lord Commander told them, as the men continued to hammer away at the ice that held those large gates open.
"What about melting it?" asked his father, and Donal Noye shook his head.
"The ice. It is unnatural," he said, as he picked up a hammer and swung at it with all his might, and even with one hand, the man had more power in that swing than most of the men at the Wall.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
And the hammer shattered in the blink of an eye, making all of them step back as the Lord Commander simply threw away the handle.
"It cannot be melted, nor can it be broken," and they had had giants hammer away at it. They had tried to melt it using wildfire, but to no avail. The ice refused to budge, as it kept one of the largest gates of the Wall open for the armies waiting for them on the other side of that raging fire.
"So, the gate will stay open," added the Master of War, and Donal Noye nodded.
"I am afraid it shall," and with that, the situation was clear. It was time for war.
"I will build fortifications and traps, but I have little doubt that they will hold for long," he said as he stared through the open gate at the raging fire, and finished in a solemn voice.
"As soon as that fire dies down, the Night King and his armies will come crashing down on us," and they had witnessed the sheer devastation and destruction the Night King and his armies were capable of.
"So, war it is then," declared Lord of Horn Hill, as his father nodded.
"Indeed, war it is," and despite the fire, the trebuchets, the archers, and the scorpions continued to rain down dragonglass on the armies beyond the raging flames, to buy them as much time as possible for every white that they killed, they saved a hundred souls.
"How long will it last?" he asked the most important question, for even though the fire raged on, there would come a time when the wildfire would run out, and the flames would die out, leaving them at the mercy of the daunting cold once more.
"Though we cannot be certain, the Alchemist predicts that the fire may last for four days," and that was all the time they had now.
Four days.
"And how far are the King's armies?" questioned the Lord Commander as they made their way to his solar.
"They have just crossed the Neck. If they ride hard, they might be able to reach the Wall in four days," answered Lord Tarly, as they reached the solar of the Lord Commander, and the place still held a whisper of his uncle and the whole room was laden with maps and tomes as they all prepared for battle.
They sat down on what chairs they could find, as silence hung in the room. Each of them was too nervous to utter the troubling truth until his father gathered the courage to speak up.
"So, what do we do?" he asked, as all eyes turned towards him.
"How do we fight this war?" and Jon was no matter strategist, but he had studied many battles and wars as a part of his education. And he knew that there was only one question of significance here.
"Do we fight them beyond the Wall, or do we let them come in?" his father asked, for though they were at an advantage because of his brother's efforts, the tides of battle could still shift in but a second.
"We do as our King has commanded us..."
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0000
EDDARD STARK
Days had passed since the fire raged outside that wall, and now the once towering flames had begun to come down as the chill returned, bringing with it the inevitability of the battle to come.
For days now, men had been pouring to the wall in doves, as battalions upon battalions of the King's army arrived every day, nearly a hundred thousand men.
That was the number of people at the Wall currently ready to wage war, and these were not untrained levies. No more than half of them were well-trained army, and the rest were a mix of grey beards of the North and giants and fighters from the Free Folk.
It was the greatest army he had ever seen, and yet even now he could not be quite certain of victory. Even after years upon years of preparation. Even after the sacrifice of over ten thousand men, including his own brother.
And the bodies of the ten thousand Black Brothers who had left under his brother's command had long been charred, and now, with the fire dying down, one could almost see the ocean of white and blue waiting to pounce upon them from the other side.
In the days since the fire had started, the scorpions and trebuchets had hardly stopped firing, and they still continued to rain down arrows and boulders on the enemy hiding behind that raging fire, which would go out in two days, according to the Alchemist at the wall.
The Wall was quiet, and the men all knew that war was inevitable. That death was coming for them, and retreat was not an option, for they were not fighting for gold or glory. They were fighting for the fate of humanity itself.
They prepared themselves for this battle in their own way. Some sparred, others sang, while most simply turned quiet as they enjoyed the warmth of the fire one last time.
Eddard was luckier than them, for while they had no warmth but of the fires that burned throughout the castle, he had the warmth of his own blood to warm his blood. Jon had arrived on the Wall before him, and Robb had come a day ago, with two more battalions of the King's armies.
They had grown up into such fine men, and Eddard could not have been prouder calling them his sons.
"Cregan's crossed the Moat," Jon spoke as he read from the unfurled missive, as they gathered in his late brother's quarters, and Benjen's whispers still lingered in this room, and Eddard did not have any desire to be rid of them.
"Do you think he will make it in time?" Robb questioned, and they both turned towards him. The journey from the Moat to the Wall was not an easy one, yet if he knew anything about his son, it was that he had spent years preparing for this battle, and he would not let distance come in his way.
"He will," he answered, " with the new paved roads, the journey was hard but not impossible.
"I never truly understood Cregan when he asked for all the fortresses to be repaired at the Wall," Robb began as he gazed out the window.
"Scorpions, trebuchets, Wildfire. It all felt too much," Robb added, and he was not the only one. Many times, doubt had crept up in his mind as well.
But now he knew that it was all necessary. That Cregan had done right.
"But now, as I see that fire burning and the army waiting to pounce upon us behind it, I realise that it was all truly necessary," and the pain from the earlier battle still lingered, and the raging fire was a reminder of the sacrifice thousands had made to protect them against the army of the dead.
Thousands had chosen to sacrifice even their own flesh and blood as fuel just so they could buy them time to gather their forces, so that they could win this war. They owed it to them to win.
They owed it to their King, who had given it his all in giving them this chance at saving all of humanity.
"I had hoped to make it before Benjen had left for battle," Eddard voiced out his only regret, and he had hoped to talk to his brother before he rode to battle, yet he was too late.
"The truth is that I never got to know him much," for as soon as he had grown up, he had been sent to the Vale for fostering, and the two of them had never found time for each other ever since.
"He came to meet me before riding for battle," Jon added, as Eddard's eyes widened in surprise and joy.
"He did?" Eddard questioned, and the grey-eyed boy nodded.
"He told me of mother," and Eddard had not known her any better, yet Benjen had loved their sister, and when he had learned of her death, he had nearly beaten him to death for it.
"He told you about Aunt Lyanna," Robb asked, and Jon nodded a subtle content smile on his lips.
"He did," and Jon seemed happy as he spoke of Lyanna, and all the tales Benjen had told him about her, and both he and Robb just listened as they let the weight of the impending battle fade.
"She sounds so much like Arya," Robb added, as he sipped his wine.
"She does, indeed," Eddard agreed, and both of them were like wild Winter Roses, though his daughter would never ever share the fate of Lyanna, for unlike Lyanna, she had better siblings to care for her.
As much as she may refuse to accept it, the truth was that Arya was a Princess just as much as Sansa, and many a lord desired to have her marry into their Houses to win favor from the Crown, and yet despite the pressure, Cregan had rejected all such proposals much to the anger of his court, as he chose to let her have her freedom.
It was a simple thing, and yet it revealed his own faults to him, for if Eddard had made a different choice years ago, the entire war could have been avoided.
"He left a message for you, before he left," Jon added, looking at him, making him stop.
"What..."
"Yes, he wanted me to tell you that he forg...."
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