The Night King had chosen the Great Gorge as the main direction of attack. In addition to requiring enough troops to destroy the remaining weirwood forests on both sides of the gorge in order to open a path for cold magic to seep through, there was another reason: Nightfort, as the midpoint between the eastern and western coasts of the Wall, was located closer to the western end.
Launching a surprise attack on Nightfort from the Great Gorge required passing through only eight fortresses. Of these, only half — Canyon Watch, Shadow Tower, Sentinel Stand, and Stone Door Fortress — were garrisoned. The other four, lacking stairs to the top of the Wall, having no defensive structures, and for various other reasons, were used only in peacetime as residences for the people of the New Gift. Once an alarm sounded, the inhabitants would immediately retreat to the nearest garrisoned stronghold.
Though the wight army did not move quickly, their advantage lay in needing no rest. Overnight, they successively broke through the Great Gorge defense line, Canyon Watch, Shadow Tower, and Sentinel Stand. This overwhelming and relentless advance completely disregarded the Night's Watch's carefully crafted defense plan, leaving those overseeing the war effort with cold hands and numb scalps.
And still, the Night King was not satisfied.
...
On the surface, the army of the dead had seized the upper hand in the early hours of this final battle between ice and fire. But deep down, the Night King sensed he was losing.
To humans, losing strongholds and defensive lines one after another despite long-term preparation was undoubtedly a crushing blow. But for the Night King, none of these engagements could be considered true victories.
Victory or defeat was not measured by how many fortresses were taken, but by whether the tactical and strategic goals had been achieved.
The Cold God did not care for hard, cold, and useless castles. What He sought was to secure total victory before the dragons returned. Though the Wall was thousands of kilometers from King's Landing, for a flying dragon, that distance could be covered in just over a dozen hours. Even with the most optimistic estimates, Daenerys would return within two or three days at most. According to the Night King's original plan, after taking Shadow Tower, the army would seize intact or mostly intact climbing stairs, occupy the top of the Wall, then launch an assault from both above and below. Advancing toward the central section, they would take Nightfort before dawn and destroy the magic woven into the Wall itself.
By lifting the suppression that prevented the Cold God Priests from restoring magic and casting spells, they would then rapidly push south, eliminating all resistance in the Gift and the North before the three dragons returned. That way, even the dragons' fire would not be enough to halt the army's advance.
But in reality?
The preparation made by the living for this war had far exceeded the Night King's expectations.
It had taken over an hour just to break through the Great Gorge, with more than ten thousand wights lost — and that was even though the defense line had not performed at its full potential. Clearing Canyon Watch and felling trees to create a path had taken another two to three hours. Things were still within expectations at that point. But everything afterward began to veer off course.
...
Once the attack on the Wall began, the army lost nearly another ten thousand wights at the first obstacle, Shadow Tower. The battle lasted over an hour. Yet despite paying a heavy price far beyond what had been planned, they still failed to seize the stairs.
That initial failure might have been written off as a fluke. The army then turned to the next fortress, Sentinel Stand, which had originally been marked for bypassing. The garrison there had sealed its gates after receiving reports from survivors of Shadow Tower. The Night King made slight adjustments to his tactics, even resorting to magic to assist the assault, successfully reducing both time and casualties. Yet, inexplicably, the garrison destroyed the stairs the moment the Wall was breached.
After these two consecutive battles, the number of Night's Watch killed and turned into wights had not made up for the army's losses. The force was shrinking — an anticipated problem. But what truly shocked the Night King was the realization that destroying the stairs was not the spontaneous decision of a few commanders. It was a premeditated, coordinated strategy, laid out well in advance.
Even worse, the eastern army, which had been separated from the main force to serve as a reserve and deal with emergencies, had suddenly lost contact. Within mere seconds, its two leading Cold God Priests were annihilated.
And the mysterious weapon that could instantly kill a Cold God Priest? It appeared to be widely deployed among the human garrison. No one knew how many of these weapons they had.
...
Leaving the third fortress reduced to scorched earth, the Night King pressed forward with a heavy heart. As the massive army arrived at Stone Door Fortress — the final garrisoned stronghold before Nightfort — the sky began to lighten.
The plan for a lightning assault to win the war overnight had clearly collapsed. The Night King now faced a difficult decision: should he attack this equally fortified human castle and hope the garrison might forget to destroy the stairs, or bypass it and launch a direct ground assault on Nightfort?
The former was immediately ruled out. Gambling on chance did not align with the cautious, methodical mindset of the Cold God's servants.
As for bypassing and heading directly for Nightfort? The combined strength of the eastern and western armies had originally totaled 110,000 wights. Now, after multiple engagements and the loss of entire units, fewer than 70,000 remained.
The wights were not afraid of being flanked, but the issue was this: the closer they came to the Wall's center, the stronger the suppression on Cold God Priests became, and the slower their magic recovery. By the time they reached Nightfort, the suppression might be so strong that none of the priests would be able to cast even a single fire-extinguishing spell.
How many wights would need to burn to death just to take the fortress using flesh and bone alone? And after such a brutal fight, if only a few troops remained, even if the Cold God Priests had their powers restored, would they be able to withstand the inevitable counterattack from human forces regrouping behind them?
Having lost the initiative, with nothing to show but a string of hollow victories, the Night King now found himself in a dilemma. The Wall truly was a place that could plunge anyone seeking to destroy it into despair.
...
As he brooded, another Cold God Priest beside him spoke a few words in the ancient tongue, offering the Night King a third option.
Since the overnight lightning assault on the Wall had failed, they might as well accept it. There was still at least a day and a half before the dragons returned. While the Wall's magic was strong, it did not extend into the Gift. The army had ample time to eliminate the living forces in the Gift who remained beyond the Wall's protection. By defeating them one by one, they could wipe out future reinforcements and rebuild the wight army. Then, once their strength was restored, they could calmly return and focus entirely on breaching Nightfort.
As this new idea took shape, the Night King began to search for regions dense with human life. A moment later, he was surprised to detect a massive concentration of life energy not far to the southeast. The intensity was so high that it could only indicate the presence of tens of thousands of living people gathered in one place.
Humans thought that clustering together increased their safety. What they did not understand was that, in the eyes of the Cold God Priests, such densely packed targets were far easier to eliminate than the small, fortified strongholds along the Wall, each manned by only a thousand or two. These were not castles. They were banquets of flesh served straight to their mouths.
(To be continued.)
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