The Ghostshadow Forest was cold, damp, and moldy. Ice fangs had grown along the ironwood trunks, hanging from the bare gray branches.
The icefang wolf, Ghost, burst through a thicket, kicking up a spray of snow. Jon and Ygritte followed closely behind, matching its speed.
They climbed a small hill, then rushed down a slope into the woods ahead.
The icefang wolf let out a low howl. Jon Snow called to the team trailing behind, "Something's up!"
The downward slope faced away from the sun. The trees were sparse and stunted, and the trampled, dirty snow was stained with splashes of red blood—but no corpses were in sight.
Old ranger Ulmer crouched beside a human-shaped indentation in the snow. He pinched up a clump of dark red, congealed blood and said with alarm, "The blood just coagulated. That's a lot of bleeding… This person may have died—and then got back up. White Walkers. Be alert. I suspect a White Walker is hunting this group!"
"Ah—" A wail echoed from deep within the forest—shrill, mournful, and abruptly cut off.
"Awooo—" Ghost crouched low, adopting an attack stance and howled in the direction the sound had come from.
"There's a White Walker up ahead," Jon said uncertainly. "But it's already daytime—the sun's out. Shouldn't they be hiding?"
Dany frowned and looked around the gloomy woods. "White Walkers fear sunlight. Daylight might make them uncomfortable, but this cursed forest is so deep and dense, the sun barely reaches the ground."
"Then, should we still pursue?" Jon asked.
"We pursue!" Dany ordered. "Jon, Ygritte, Ulmer, Ser Barristan, Ser Alliser—you five take the lead. Head into the forest immediately and intercept the White Walker. Try to leave a few wildlings alive. I want to know if the White Walkers are taking revenge for their followers."
Everyone agreed readily—except for Ser Alliser Thorne, a die-hard supporter of the Dragon Party, who hesitated. He looked at the Dragon Queen with deep resentment: Why am I always the one sent on dangerous missions?
I barely survived the White Walker attack last night, where seven out of ten were wiped out. I'm terrified of those icy monsters. Why send me again?
But Dany pretended not to notice and continued giving orders, organizing the assault team into formation.
—Of course she had to assign Ser Alliser. Everyone knew by now he was a staunch Dragon loyalist. Putting a Dragon Party diehard on the riskiest missions was how the Dragon Queen won hearts, upheld credibility in her commands, and ensured her nephew Jon could always lead from the front.
After all, once you wear the black, you're a brother of the Night's Watch for life. Ser Alliser would never leave the Wall. If he didn't shine in service to the Queen now, once Her Majesty departed in a few days, he'd have no chance to prove his loyalty.
"Awoo awoo awoo—"
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Moments later, wolf howls and gong strikes rang from within the woods. Wisps of white mist began to spread outward.
"Screee—"
Big Black shrieked from the skies above. Dany drew her longsword and charged in, with more than twenty warriors howling and following behind her.
The forest was dark, shadows flickering among the trunks. The ground was littered with damp leaves and patches of snow. Faint cold mist drifted through the air. Alliser and Ulmer were surrounded by five wights.
The wights wore white sheepskin cloaks stained with fresh blood, and their eyes glowed with an eerie pale blue. They didn't seem to have died long ago.
Not far off, three dead bodies lay sprawled on the ground, and two wildlings huddled under a tree stump, wailing with their faces buried.
Jon and Ser Barristan were charging into a waist-deep thicket, the red-haired woman nocking an arrow and following close behind.
Dany rushed in, slicing a wight in half at the waist. She followed with a thrust, piercing another through the chest.
The assault team swarmed forward, stabbing the three remaining wights to shreds with dragonglass daggers and short swords.
"They really are White Walkers—and that monster was holding a baby!" Ulmer panted.
Could it be that Craster's bloodline wasn't unique? Could all wildling infants be turned into White Walkers?
That couldn't be. If that were true, wouldn't the number of White Walkers explode? Thousands, tens of thousands—even a hundred dragons wouldn't be enough to defeat them!
Dany was filled with doubt and increasingly determined to find that baby. "There was only one White Walker?"
"Should be just one. When we arrived, it was holding a baby off to the side, watching five wights slaughter five wildlings. It didn't seem prepared for us—looked very surprised," Alliser said.
"The rest of you stay. Rangers, follow me!"
Dany mounted her horse at once, leading thirteen riders into the thickets.
In the dim, gray-green gloom of the forest, a patch of heavenly bamboo was a rare sight. Most of the reddish-brown leaves had fallen, and the fine, tangled branches were strung with clusters of bright red berries, encased in frost.
Soon, the fourteen riders pushed through the low brush and reentered the dark forest, catching up with the red-haired woman and Ser Barristan up ahead.
Actually, the two of them had fallen behind. Jon and Ghost's shadows were faintly visible even farther ahead.
"The White Walker is too fast. It moves unhindered by terrain. I can't even catch a glimpse of the damned thing," Ser Barristan said, panting and leaning on his sword.
Dany raised her hand toward the sky. With a crunch of breaking branches, Big Black descended into the bamboo grove.
"Tie yourselves to Big Black's leg. He'll take you ahead to intercept the White Walker." Dany pulled a coil of hemp rope from her saddle and tossed it to the ground.
She and the White Knight had discussed this tactic long ago.
In many situations and places, Dany couldn't let the dragon take off or land freely.
Back in the Battle of Kheyburn, she'd used this method to rescue the little assassin Danise from the top of the Great Pyramid.
"I'm going too! I've got a bow!" Ygritte shouted.
"Alright. One leg each."
They tied themselves to one of Big Black's hind legs using slipknots—done in seconds.
Big Black flapped its wings and took off again. Then it swooped low across the ground, and Ser Barristan and Ygritte grabbed the hanging ropes under the dragon's legs.
Big Black couldn't ascend immediately, so it flapped its wings hard to accelerate. The two clung to the ropes, running along the ground, then gradually lifted off into the sky.
The whole process sounded complicated, but in a bonded state with Dany, Big Black completed the task easily within twenty seconds.
Afterward, the dragon climbed to a safe altitude of about 300 meters and listened for the wolves' howls from below.
Hmm… Jon had gone missing too.
At that moment, his physical body was leaning against the tree trunk, panting, while his soul entered the wolf-spirit state, tightly clinging to the wight's back through White Spirit's body.
Meanwhile, Dany climbed onto Little White's back, laid Jon's body—still in wolf-spirit form—horizontally in front of her, and left the rangers behind as she flew off alone.
Beneath the canopy, the dense forest was dark and decayed; above it, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the vast evergreen forest stretched endlessly like a green carpet covering the northern lands.
A warm southeast wind blew into her helmet, and Dany squinted her eyes in comfort.
A white and a black dragon circled above the forest, firmly locking onto the howls of the wolf below. Dany began calculating the wight's escape route.
Gradually, a clear path formed in her mind.
Little White flew past Big Black and the direwolf, quickly gathering a huge fireball of dragonflame in his mouth—his speed wasn't fast, as the wight was fleeing through the forest at a "very slow" pace, allowing him to stabilize mid-air and aim his flame.
With a nine-colored meditation vortex newly formed in his mind, Little White had evolved into a "Fairy Dragon," greatly enhancing his magic. He could now continuously breathe dragonflame for thirty seconds.
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A thirty-second breath of dragonflame condensed into a massive and heavy fireball, not much smaller than the one Big Black had unleashed in Oldtown. Even under the clear daylight sky, wildlings and Night's Watch far in the distance mistook the glowing ball for a second sun rising in the sky.
"Boom—"The giant fireball crashed down one hundred meters ahead of the wight. A shockwave rolled out, flames soared, and trees within a 20-meter radius were ignited.
Dany slapped Jon a few times—"Pa! Pa!"—snapping him out of the wolf-spirit state and asked, "So, did we blow that wight to pieces or not?"
Jon opened his eyes drowsily, "It dodged it."
No sooner had he spoken than his eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness again.
"Pathetic. Can't even multitask?" Dany scoffed in disdain.
In truth, she misunderstood—or perhaps her expectations were too high—judging all skinchangers by the standards of the green seers.
Green seers could control thousands of ravens at once, splitting their consciousness into thousands of parts—truly multitasking on a massive scale. But skinchangers and green seers differed fundamentally, like comparing a fire mage to a Valyrian grand sorcerer. They simply weren't in the same league.
Take Varamyr Sixskins, for example—he had seven animal companions but could only inhabit one at a time. His soul couldn't divide into seven and simultaneously enter each of their minds.
Jon was no different—when speaking through his physical body, his soul had to leave his animal companion.
Boom!Boom!Boom!
"Explosions are art! Ka!" Dany seemed to channel Deidara, leaving one flaming bomb after another across the forest.
In the once-peaceful Ghost Forest, blazing fires now rose in all directions. Flames and thick black smoke rose like the fingers of gods, piercing the dark green earth and stabbing toward the sky.
On the Wall, the Night's Watch, and even the wildlings in the Ghost Forest, stared in stunned silence at each falling "red sun" and each towering pillar of smoke and fire.
"This is terrifying. Absolutely insane," muttered Todd, his eyes bulging wide.
"The Wrath of Fire only killed five thousand? With this kind of firepower, even fifty thousand wouldn't be enough to satisfy it!" murmured a short, fat, bald man.
His name was Clydas, steward of the Night's Watch and Maester Aemon's assistant. Literate and knowledgeable in Westerosi history.
"What is Her Grace doing? Chasing a wight? Isn't this a bit much?" Old Aemon wondered aloud, squinting through his star-gazing lens.
The old maester had stayed up until the early morning and climbed the Wall again after barely four hours of sleep.
Ever since seeing the dragons—seeing Dany—he seemed revitalized, like he'd been granted a second life. The once bleak and grim future now seemed full of hope and light.
As long as he could see the dragons—even from afar, even if they were just circling the sky—he watched with great enthusiasm, fully captivated.
"Is all this really just for one wight?" In the forest below, Ser Melis and Ser Alliser voiced similar sentiments.
Within the span of an hour, Little White had unleashed his 47th fireball. Nearly five square kilometers of the forest had been bombarded.
Finally, the tipping point was reached. The Ghost Forest—long thought immune to forest fires—experienced the first large-scale wildfire in its history.
Thick smoke billowed, and clouds of fire loomed overhead.
On a rocky hill with sparse trees, the wight clutched a gray-skinned bundle, glancing around at the flames encircling him before letting out a despairing roar toward the sky.
"Screeeech—"Big Black swooped in a wide arc, flying just fifty meters past the wight at ground level. The White Knight and the red-haired woman rolled off and tumbled down the slope.
At that moment, the wight raised its ice sword, broke into a sprint, then suddenly hurled it at Big Black with a lethal force.
"Screee—!"But Little White was right above the wight, clearly seeing his every move. In their dual-dragon-spirit state, Big Black shared Little White's vision. He tilted his body deftly, dodging the incoming ice sword and letting out a triumphant roar.
"Monster! Put that child down!" the White Knight shouted sternly.
(End of Chapter)
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