Chapter 180: Weeper - II
Beyond the Wall, True North
POV of Weeper
Ever since Weeper was a child, he had heard the stories of how the King of the Free Folk had breached the Wall in the past and gone south. However, whenever that happened, the Southern cunts would gather an army and defeat the Free Folk, pushing them back.
He never understood how the Southerners who had spent their entire lives in their stone castles eating food, drinking wine, and getting fat could defeat the fierce men of the True North who had spent their whole lives surviving one difficulty after another.
He understood how dangerous the Southern armies could truly be, given their formidable weapons and formations.
He was brought out of his thoughts when he suddenly heard some commotion from outside.
He snarled and got up from the tree trunk he had been using as his seat, then went outside to check on what was happening and cursed as soon as he saw it.
Fire.
Around their supply tents.
'Fuck! Of course, the Southern cunts won't sit still.' He lamented this oversight of his.
After continuously thinking of his enemy as Southern, he had forgotten that they had wargs of their own. Wargs that they could use for sneak attacks.
He had no idea how those fucking wargs managed to light a fire like this, but this was no time to think.
"Pour snow and dirt over the fire, you fucking cunts!" he shouted, and the men gave a start before they leaped into action.
Buckets upon buckets of snow and dirt were poured into the fire, but it continued to burn.
What kind of fire burns green anyway?
'The fire of the sorcerer.' His mind supplied, and he suddenly realized that if the wargs were here, then a sorcerer might have been here as well.
A sudden chill went down his spine at that thought, but he snarled and kept ordering his people to douse the fire.
He observed that dirt was more effective than snow against the green fire, so that's what he told his people to pour over the fire.
Some of the foolish cunts caught the green fire and burned to death.
He didn't give them a second glance and told his people to continue.
By the end of half an hour, the fire had been doused.
But by then, everything had been lost.
All the food supplies his people had gathered over weeks and months had been turned into ash.
The food he now had left was not enough to feed them for even one day.
His people looked at him with despair and anger.
Slowly, a circle formed around him as his people came to look at him for guidance to cast blame for this misfortune, and he knew.
He knew that this was the moment.
This was the moment that would decide whether he would continue as the leader of this war party or he would die.
"What are we supposed to do now?" an older woman asked in despair. She probably lost a son or husband to the fire. Or to the battle a few hours before.
"What can we do now?" Another younger woman said, "Weeper is clearly not fit to lead. There's nothing left here. We go our own ways and hope that the winter won't kill us all."
"It won't be winter that kills us." Another man said, and a silence took over the crowd. "You know what's coming with the winter. You know that if we remain behind the wall before this summer ends, then we would all die."
"What do you want to do then?" asked another man, "Fight the Southern for the Wall?"
That brought another hush of silence to the crowd.
Their recent and crushing defeat against Southern had brought down the morale of all his people.
If they can't fight against Southern on a mountain and win, then how could they hope to do so when Southern were behind the Wall?
"I will fight Southern. But not with the few people we have left." The man said. He remembered the man. He was the younger brother of Snat, the leader of the Nightrunners. The man who was now the leader of the Nightrunners after his brother's death from an arrow that pierced his head.
"I'll gather the remaining tribes in the True North. Then I'll ally myself with the Thenn. And then when we have the numbers, we'll go and take on the Wall once," the younger brother of Snat said.
"You will do that now, will you?" he asked as he took a step toward Snat's younger brother with his axe in his grip. "With what people?"
"With your people." The man said, hefting his own old and battered bronze sword, before the man charged toward him.
The man was fast; he would give him that. And young. But he didn't have experience.
After a short and brutal fight, he buried his axe in Snat's younger brother's neck.
The young man gurgled as the sword slipped through his bloody hands and tried to strangle him with his dying breath, but the light left his eyes, and he slumped to the ground in a heap.
"Who else wants to challenge me?" he shouted as a young woman cried out and jumped on the body of the dead man. He ignored her and looked at everyone in the circle around him in their eye, the battle lust and the high of the victory giving him enough confidence to fight and defeat a hundred men all on his own.
"Hah! That's what I thought." He said before he forced himself to calm down a little.
"We lost a battle today." He said, "It was my mistake. I admit that. I had never fought a Southern army before. None of us has. We all underestimated those cunts, and we all paid for it. Now they've burned our food, and we cannot stay here to fight them even if we want."
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.181: Weeper - III
Ch.182: Aftermath of Victory