Chapter 93: Howling Gorge
The news came back from beyond the Wall on the edge of death.
The last Battanian Ranger from Jon Snow’s hunting party was found half-buried in snow by a Night’s Watch patrol two leagues from Castle Black. He had been walking for days, if that shambling, bleeding thing could still be called walking. His cloak was stiff with ice. One hand was black at the fingertips. Blood had frozen along his jaw. He had survived only because he had been at the rear of the party when the ice bridge at Howling Gorge collapsed, and because the gods, old or new, apparently liked to preserve witnesses when suffering needed a messenger.
They brought him through the gate before dawn.
By the time the man could speak, Arthur Greyoak, Stannis Baratheon, Commander Denys Mallister, and the senior officers of the coalition had gathered in the cold council chamber beneath Castle Black. The chamber smelled of smoke, damp wool, old stone, and fear forced into discipline. A small brazier burned in the corner, doing its best and failing with dignity. That was more than could be said for many kings.
The wounded ranger lay on a pallet with blankets piled around him. A maester warmed his hands, while another man forced thin broth between his cracked lips. When he spoke, his words came broken, slipping between the Common Tongue and Battanian phrases. Beland stood nearby, translating when needed, his face carved from stone.
Jon Snow’s party had reached Howling Gorge.
They had found the Night King.
They had struck him.
At first, no one moved. The words sounded too large for the room.
The ranger spoke of Longclaw flashing in blue mist, of a dragonglass dagger buried in frozen flesh, of Jon Snow and the others striking at the creature’s right arm during some ritual carried out beneath the ice. The Night King had not fallen, but the blow had severed or ruined part of his arm, and whatever spell he had been weaving had broken around him. The ice had screamed, the ranger said. Men who had seen enough war to mock fear did not mock him then.
“The ritual was disrupted?” Arthur asked.
The ranger’s lips trembled. “Yes, my lord. The dead... stopped. Not long. But they stopped. The blue fires under the ice flickered. Lord Snow shouted that it worked.”
A quiet, dangerous hope moved through the room.
Then the ranger continued.
The ice bridge had collapsed during the retreat. The survivors were trapped on a cliff beyond the gorge. The dead could not cross easily, but they watched from the far side. White Walkers moved among them. The Night King, wounded but not destroyed, had not withdrawn. He waited. Or hunted. Or both.
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Hope narrowed into a knife.
“We must save them,” Arthur said.
No one seemed surprised. That did not mean they liked the answer.
Stannis Baratheon frowned, his face drawn and hard beneath the torchlight. “How? Howling Gorge is a natural chasm. The ice bridge is gone. The main army cannot cross. A small party would be swallowed by wights and White Walkers. If the Night King was wounded there, he will have set a net around the place.”
“He has the net where he expects prey,” Arthur said.
Stannis’s eyes narrowed. “You have another path.”
Arthur moved to the map table and placed one finger northeast of the gorge. “Grey Shadow scouts reported an old passage here. The Eyrie Ice Crevice. Narrow. Steep. Hidden between two broken ridges. The free folk say only birds and mad climbers use it. It connects the two sides of the gorge, but it is not on Night’s Watch maps.”
Denys Mallister leaned closer. “I have heard of it. As a tale. Not a road.”
“Most useful roads begin as tales told by men with bad judgment,” Arthur said. “If the Night King does not know it, we have a chance. If he does know it, he may still struggle to use it in force.”
Stannis looked toward Beland.
Arthur did too.
“Beland,” Arthur said. “Twenty men. No more. Choose the best climbers, the quietest feet, and those who can keep their heads in snow and dark. Obsidian weapons. Ropes. Grappling hooks. Enough food to move fast, not enough to make them slow. You enter by the Eyrie Ice Crevice, find Jon Snow and the survivors, and bring them back if it can be done.”
Beland bowed his head. “And if it cannot?”
“If the cliff is lost, you bring back Jon Snow if he still lives. If even that is impossible, you bring back exact intelligence on the Night King’s wound, the ritual beneath the ice, and whatever they found there. This is not a raid. It is rescue and knowledge.”
Beland touched a fist to his chest. “Understood, my lord. I will complete it, even if it costs my life.”
“Try to spend something cheaper first,” Arthur said.
A few men exhaled. Not laughter, not quite. Enough to remind the room that they were still alive.
Stannis turned to one of his knights. “Send for Melisandre.”
The name chilled the room in a different way. Sorcery did that. Steel was honest. It cut what it touched. Sorcery liked contracts with missing clauses.
The red priestess arrived wrapped in crimson, her face pale and beautiful beneath her hood, her eyes reflecting the fire as if she had borrowed it. Stannis told her the plan. She listened without interruption.
“I can prepare charms,” she said. “Small ones. Crude in this cold. They may blunt the worst of the deathly chill and hide the scent of living blood for a short while.”
Beland’s face did not change. “How short?”
“Short enough that you should not waste it wondering.”
Arthur looked at Stannis. “Your Grace?”
Stannis’s jaw worked. “Give them what help you can. No theatrics.”
Melisandre inclined her head. “The dead care little for our preferences.”
That was true and unhelpful, which made it a fine priestly answer.
“No time is left,” Arthur said. “Beland, choose your twenty. You leave at nightfall. Your task is not glory. Your task is not revenge. Preserve yourselves and bring back hope, or the closest thing this place still allows.”
Beland nodded once and left.
The council remained seated after he had gone. The map of the North lay between them. A small mark at Howling Gorge now seemed larger than the Wall itself. Jon Snow had wounded the Night King. The dead could bleed, or break, or at least be made to retreat from something.
That changed everything.
It also made the danger worse. Wounded beasts did not become kinder. Wounded kings less so.
Above them, the Wall groaned faintly in the wind.