WILOW-Ch.323: A Lone White Walker
Lands Beyond the Wall
POV of Domeric Bolton
15 days later.
"It's coming," Domeric whispered to Ygritte, who was hiding underneath the snow like him.
"Are you sure that there are no wights near it?" Ygritte asked once again, and he nodded.
"That sounds too good to be true." Ygritte said, "This might be a trap."
"I know." He said, "If it is, then that is alright as well. We're far more prepared this time than we were before."
And they were. The dragonglass grenades he had created were going to be a game-changer.
Those grenades had a radius of 15 meters and would throw dragonglass shrapnel in all directions upon detonation.
They would not harm his troops thanks to the magical armor, but they would shred the wights to pieces.
And considering how even a little bit of dragonglass was lethal to the wights, he wasn't truly all that afraid of a wight army anymore.
The problem was that he had only been able to create 100 of those grenades, as he needed to make them on his own.
Once he had some free time, he would try to set up a factory line to generate these grenades without his supervision.
It was going to be hard, no doubt about that. But a single dragonglass grenade was more lethal to the wights and White Walkers than anything else in his arsenal.
If he could mass-produce these things in large numbers, then the war against the White Walkers would go much better.
He was brought out of his thoughts when a figure walked out of the thick forest and into view.
It was a White Walker in all its splendor. And it was alone for some reason.
That was perhaps why it took him so long to find it, even though green dreams guided him.
If hundreds of wights followed a White Walker, then the wights leave behind trails, and it was easy to find and track them that way.
But a White Walker left no tracks on the ground for some reason. It was probably because of some magic that he didn't understand.
After scouting the area half a dozen times, he had made sure that there were no other White Walkers or wights nearby.
But that only served to make him more cautious, and he had already deployed his men in a defensive formation in case some White Walkers ambushed them that he failed to find.
As the White Walker walked toward the ambush point, Domeric noticed that it was carrying a bundle in its left hand while its right hand held onto its Ice Sword.
He frowned.
This was… unusual.
Well… nothing could change his plans at this point.
As the White Walker came closer to the ambush point, its speed lowered, and then it stopped.
He could sense the White Walker's powers from this distance, and it seemed… weaker compared to the other White Walkers he had fought.
Far weaker in fact.
As if they had been fighting against veteran warriors up till this point, and this one was a stable boy who had only held a wooden stick at best.
The thought that this could be a trap and that perhaps the White Walker was somehow hiding its true strength came to his mind once again.
Its apathetic gaze scanned through the area.
It had sensed their presence, and Domeric was not really surprised.
Regardless, it was time for action.
"ATTACK!!!" he shouted.
The White Walker's eyes instantly fell on him, and it went on a defensive posture while discarding the bundle in its left arm on the ground.
Varko and Raksa rose out of the snow ground, employing the same tactics that the White Walkers used on them, and charged at it with their Valyrian Swords.
Instantly, he could tell that the White Walker was really weaker than the others.
It was being pushed back by Varko and Raksa very easily. And while they did receive their own body enhancements after the last White Walker fight, they were not so powerful that they would be able to bully a White Walker like this.
The only reason it was still alive was that he had warned them not to kill it.
"Raksa. Disengage from the fight." He said.
Raksa grunted and pulled back, allowing Varko to fight one-on-one against the White Walker.
It was still a one-sided fight.
This White Walker was really weaker.
Which meant that not all White Walkers were as powerful as the ones they had fought before.
It was a relief.
Maybe the size of the wight army under a White Walker denoted how powerful that White Walker was.
Or maybe it was the other way around, and it was the wight army that made the White Walkers more powerful.
These hypotheses could wait.
He looked at his men, who were ready with their own Valyrian-coated chains.
"GET READY!!!" he shouted and used his magic to transfigure the snow under the White Walker's feet into hands that held it in place.
The hands broke a moment later because a weak White Walker was still far stronger than average humans.
But the pause gave Varko enough time to disengage from the fight and retreat.
And as soon as he did that, the men surrounding the White Walker swung their Valyrian chains around the White Walker.
The chains wrapped around the White Walker and bound it tightly in place.
The White Walker struggled against the chains, and the atmosphere dropped a dozen degrees instantly, but the Valyrian-coated chains held strong.
"Put it down." He said.
Raksa came from behind it and kicked it to the ground face-first and then removed its Ice Sword from its vicinity.
He walked forward and put the hand and leg cuffs made of pure Valyrian steel around its hands and legs.
The white Walker shrieked at him, and the temperature took another dip, but it wasn't that bad, which meant that the White Walker had reached its limit.
He smiled under his helmet and locked the hand and leg cuffs together so that the White Walker would be truly helpless.
This should be good enough.
"The box." He said.
Ygritte nodded and took a metal suitcase from one of the guards. She entered the suitcase and came back a few moments later with a large coffin.
A coffin made entirely of Dragonglass.
The White Walker shrieked once again, and he wondered if it honestly could not speak or if that shrieking was some language that only these Ice Monsters understood.
Then he shrugged and chucked the White Walker inside the Dragonglass Coffin.
It shrieked one last time at him before it closed the lid on its face.
He turned to his men, and there was a pin drop silence in the forest.
Then he smiled and raised one fist in the air, "WE WON!!!!" he shouted, and everyone else cheered with him.
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.324: A... Normal Baby and the Northern Army
Ch.325: Catelyn Stark's Letter
Ch.326: Craster's Keep