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Once again, Mance Rayder's stubbornness reshaped Clay's understanding of what it truly meant to be reckless. Only now did he realize just how far ignorance and arrogance—coupled with that ridiculous thing people called pride—could blind a man to everything that mattered.
After personally witnessing with his own eyes that the last envoy sent by Lord Commander Mormont had been stripped of his weapons and gear, then driven back in disgrace, Clay understood. There was no more talking to these people. Negotiations were truly over.
And if there was no room left for talk, then so be it—let them fight. As far as Clay was concerned, nothing truly belonged to you unless you took it by force. Expecting tens of thousands of wildlings to submit willingly to a few hundred men in black cloaks, men they viewed as sworn enemies, soaked in blood and hatred, was nothing short of a ridiculous fantasy.
That night, Clay used the Night's Watch's human-powered elevator and ascended to the top of the Wall. He wanted to see the wildling encampment with his own eyes.
He had to admit, the height and sheer thickness of the Wall really did deserve to be called a miracle. A feat of this magnitude… it couldn't have been built without magic. Not with the sparse manpower and resources of the North. There was just no way the people here had managed to create something so enormous and awe-inspiring on their own.
Which only raised another question: if the North truly did possess the know-how to build something like this back in the day, then why were the castles of its noble houses so pitifully small? Most of them looked more like oversized cottages than anything resembling real fortresses.
After all, in the current lordly system, the beating heart of any region—its absolute core—was always the noble estate or the castle. That was the very center of power, the anchor of order and law.
So, if the North really had once possessed the technology and craftsmanship to build the Wall, there's no way its castles would still look like glorified sheds.
Wrapped in a heavy fur cloak, Clay stood on top of the Wall, where the sunlight had long since faded. Snowflakes, now gray-black in color, fell without restraint, slipping cold and sharp into every seam of his clothing, ignoring all sense of courtesy or personal space.
"Clay, look over there. That's Mance Rayder's camp. Even the trees of the Haunted Forest can't hide their fires," Jon Snow said.
He had brought Clay to the top of the Wall and was now pointing beyond the icy crenellations, into the seemingly endless stretch of the Haunted Forest. Tiny pinpricks of firelight twinkled faintly in the gloom, scattered like stars across the darkened woods.
That was the wildling army's encampment. Each flicker of flame likely marked a tent… at the very least, one shelter per fire. And each tent would hold no fewer than ten people.
To Clay's eyes, the firelight below looked like husks of grain scattered across a threshing floor, countless and unending. Only now did he understand what Lord Commander Mormont meant when he said Mance Rayder was bluffing.
Because if you assumed that every flame had people beneath it… then the wildlings pressing in beneath the Wall might already number over a hundred thousand.
But that wasn't the kind of thing you could just declare on a map and expect to come true. This wasn't some game where you drew lines and armies appeared on command. It simply didn't work that way. The wildling society, as primitive and disorganized as it was, didn't have the capacity to support or mobilize an army that massive.
A hundred thousand people—whether soldiers or not—meant colossal logistical demands. How would you even begin to handle the food? Where would you house them? How would you send orders or messages?
It was a nightmare without a solution. The snow-covered wilderness stretched endlessly around them. If there really were that many people out there, then there had to be an enormous herd of livestock or a mountain of food stashed somewhere to feed them all.
And if not—if Mance was just relying on the individual tribes to bring their own supplies—then it wouldn't take long before everything fell apart on its own. Clay wouldn't even have to lift a finger. The camp would collapse under the weight of its own chaos.
Based on what he could see, Clay figured his real opponents numbered somewhere around forty or fifty thousand at most. And out of those, maybe ten thousand were adult males capable of fighting. As for actual warriors with iron weapons who posed a genuine threat to his soldiers, he estimated a few thousand at best.
So yes, Mance Rayder's claim of leading a hundred thousand strong sounded impressive. But in truth, there weren't many capable fighters among them.
Still… Clay had to give the man some credit. Managing to herd such a ragtag group of wildlings into a single, unified force and making it all the way to the Wall—he couldn't deny the man had some serious skill.
"Mance Rayder, this King-Beyond-the-Wall sure is bold," Clay said with a puff of white breath. "He's practically set up camp right under your noses. Must've figured out that you don't have enough men to ride out and hit him first."
As he spoke, Clay casually reached out a gloved hand and scooped up a handful of freshly fallen snow from the icy crenellations. The gray-white slush crumbled and deformed in his palm until all that remained was a small, compact clump pressed between his fingers.
"For this kind of arrogance alone," he said softly, "I've got a duty to teach him what real war looks like. His little pretend camp, like a child playing house—I'm going to smash it to pieces."
Jon Snow stood beside him, quietly studying his face as those words left his mouth. That youthful face, so close in age to his own, didn't flinch. It held no emotion at all. As if what Clay had just described wasn't some brutal battle to come, but a matter already decided—an inevitable future, beyond any question or surprise.
Jon felt a chill slip down his spine. The last time he'd seen Clay was back in Winterfell, just before he left to join the Night's Watch. Back then, Clay had struck him as nothing more than a spirited and confident youth.
He was the heir of House Manderly, after all…just as Robb had been for the Starks.
But now, the person standing beside him felt like a stranger. There was something terrifying in the way Clay spoke, the casual disregard for human life in his tone. These were tens of thousands of people they were talking about, yet to him, it sounded like nothing more than a matter of strategy. Was he really planning to strike first?
"Clay… they haven't actually done anything wrong," Jon said hesitantly. "They just… want to live…"
He never got to finish his sentence. Clay lifted a hand to cut him off, casting a cold glance his way. A mocking smile tugged at his lips.
"Jon, I treat you like a brother—but I'm not your father. I have no duty to teach you wisdom. So listen carefully, because I'll only say this once."
He locked eyes with Jon, voice low and steady.
"Get rid of that compassion. If you want to survive here, then never speak those words again. Use your brain, think about it: how many of the people in this place don't hate the wildlings with every fiber of their being?"
"You've only just arrived, but before you came, how many of your sworn brothers have already died under their shabby weapons?"
"And even if they weren't outright murderers, they refuse to follow orders. If we let them past the Wall, then what happens to the people of the North? Once they're scattered across our land, they'll rob, they'll rape, they'll kill, they'll destroy. Just think about the things they've done beyond the Wall… now imagine all that happening on our soil."
Jon remained silent, lips pressed tight. Clay didn't wait for a reply—he gave it himself.
"When that happens, the North's lords, like House Umber, House Karstark, even your own Stark family from Winterfell, they'll send out troops to hunt them down. And the Boltons from the Dreadfort? They'll flay them alive and hang their skins on the walls to dry."
"So rather than waiting for the wildlings to wreak havoc and leave our people bleeding and in tears, only to hunt them down one by one afterward… we may as well wipe them out now, clean and simple."
Clay turned away, no longer looking at Jon's pale, stricken face. His voice dropped, softer now, almost like a murmur to himself.
"I should really thank you, Mance Rayder. Thank you for gathering them all in one place for me. Just wait. Tomorrow morning, I'll return the favor—with my own sword."
Wrapped in his pale gray cloak, the young man stood tall atop the Wall, his deep eyes gazing out across the snowy wilderness. The wildling camp, lit by countless flickering fires, stretched out below him like prey waiting in the open. He understood.
And beside him, another young man cloaked in black, dark hair dusted with snow, stood motionless in the wind. The fire in the brazier at his feet flickered weakly, casting a trembling glow—but Jon could only stare at it, speechless.
It hadn't even been a full year. Maybe just a few months. Yet the two boys who once shared drinks and idle chatter in the dungeons of Winterfell had already reached the point where they had nothing left to say to each other.
Their paths, perhaps, would never cross again.
Clay would return south to carry out the work that awaited him. And Jon Snow… Jon would remain here, bound to this giant block of ice at the edge of the world, slowly freezing in the loneliest corner of existence.
"Let's go. Nothing more to see up here," Clay said as he began walking toward the lift. "Hopefully the people out there," he added, "can at least get one good night's sleep tonight…maybe dream about all the things they've always wanted."
His final words were quickly scattered by the raging wind, shredded and flung into the cold night.
"Because come the day after tomorrow… many of them won't live to see the sun. And as for dreams… those won't be visiting them ever again."
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