But it was still too small and lacked flight experience. Although it avoided any vital points, the ice spear tore through the membrane of its right wing with a sharp ripping sound, leaving a gaping hole.
"Waaah—"
Greysmoke let out a shrill, agonized cry. Its flight instantly went out of control as it lurched and rolled violently through the air, flapping its wings in desperation, struggling to steady itself and avoid plunging into the endless sea of wights below.
"Greysmoke!"
Daenerys clutched the reins tightly, her face drained of all color.
Lo Quen urged Blooddancer into a steep dive and called out in a deep, commanding voice, "Greysmoke, take Daenerys back!"
Greysmoke blinked its enormous eyes, looking utterly aggrieved. Gritting through the pain, it forced itself to adjust its direction, carrying Daenerys back toward the safety of Moat Cailin in an unsteady, lopsided flight.
Lo Quen turned his head and locked his gaze on the Other that had wounded Greysmoke.
"Blooddancer! Kill it!"
Sensing its rider's fury, Blooddancer unleashed a thunderous roar and charged straight at the Other.
...
Daenerys landed safely in the castle courtyard.
She gently stroked Greysmoke's torn wing membrane, whispering a few soft words of comfort. Then she turned without hesitation and rushed toward the ramparts, where the sounds of battle shook the air.
She could not hide behind others. She was a Targaryen, a Flame Knight, and a Queen.
The moment she reached the wall, a brutal scene unfolded before her eyes.
Soldiers were locked in desperate melee with the wights that had climbed onto the battlements, severed limbs scattered everywhere.
Even more chilling, a tall, gaunt Other suddenly vaulted onto the parapet.
In its hand was a crystal-clear ice sword that radiated deadly cold. With every swing, it split fully armored soldiers in half, armor and flesh alike, as easily as chopping vegetables.
Wherever it went, the battlements were cleared in moments, the defenders forced back again and again.
Daenerys did not hesitate for an instant.
With a sharp cry, she drew the Valyrian steel sword at her waist and lunged straight at the Other.
Clang!
A crisp, thunderous clash of steel rang out.
The Other's seemingly unstoppable strike was caught head-on by Daenerys.
A powerful shock reverberated through the blade, forcing the Other to stumble back several steps. For the first time, disbelief flashed in its icy blue eyes.
It could not comprehend how this seemingly delicate human woman possessed such terrifying strength.
Daenerys gave it no chance to think.
Since becoming a Flame Knight, she had trained relentlessly day and night with Jaelena, Janice, and Chai Yiq. Her Dragonblood had granted her strength, speed, and reflexes that grew daily, far beyond those of ordinary men.
Her beautiful face was taut with focus as her Valyrian steel sword became a streak of silver lightning. Her assault fell like a raging storm, driving the Other back step by step until it could do nothing but defend, utterly unable to counterattack.
Nearby nobles and soldiers, fighting for their lives, caught glimpses of the duel and were left stunned.
They watched as the silver-haired Queen fought like a warrior out of legend, overwhelming the fearsome Other without mercy.
Their morale surged.
"For survival! Kill!"
The shout rang out again, and the defenders burst forth with renewed ferocity.
After more than ten fierce exchanges, Daenerys caught a fleeting opening.
She twisted aside to evade the Other's thrust, flicked her wrist, and drove her Valyrian steel blade into the icy body beneath the gap in its chest armor.
"Ssshh—AAAHHH!!!"
The Other screamed, a shrill, inhuman cry.
Its body began to convulse violently as countless cracks spread across its crystalline skin, blue light spilling from within.
Yet in the instant before it shattered completely, a flash of mad, venomous hatred filled its eyes. Gathering its last strength, it thrust its ice sword straight toward Daenerys's chest.
It meant to drag this terrifying woman down with it.
Clang!
Another sharp ring echoed across the battlements.
The tip of the ice sword struck the Valyrian steel armor Daenerys wore. It left only a shallow mark before a brittle cracking sound rang out, and the blade shattered inch by inch.
The Other's eyes filled with unwilling rage as its body finally collapsed into a heap of blue-glimmering ice shards.
"Long live the Queen!"
After witnessing an Other fall, the defenders on the walls erupted into thunderous cheers.
Morale surged to its peak.
Daenerys stood there, panting with her sword in hand. Her silver hair whipped through the wind and snow like a victorious goddess.
She forced herself calm at once and began directing the Dragon Soul Guards on the ramparts.
These fearless, painless, well-equipped warriors had been cut off and surrounded at first, their movements pinned down by the sheer number of wights.
But with Daenerys issuing orders and the main defenders drawing the wights' attention, they finally unleashed their terrifying strength.
Valyrian steel swords were unmatched, severing wight limbs with ease, and their steel armor was so sturdy the wights' blows could barely shake it.
The Dragon Soul Guards pushed forward steadily through the dead tide, unstoppable, greatly easing the pressure along the walls.
Meanwhile, high above, Lo Quen guided Blooddancer in a strike against the Other who had hurled the spear and wounded a dragon.
Blooddancer opened its jaws, and a torrent of blood-red dragonfire, hot as molten rock, poured down like a waterfall, swallowing the Other and its skeletal warhorse whole.
The Other let out a shrill, agonized scream within the flames. Its ice armor flashed violently as it tried to resist, but Blooddancer was a fully grown dragon, and its fire burned far hotter than a young dragon's.
The ice armor melted and evaporated almost at once under the extreme heat, and the Other's frozen body began to warp and crack.
Lo Quen's eyes narrowed, fixed on the figure inside the fire.
It worked.
Dragonfire was not entirely useless against the Others. It only needed to be hot enough.
At last, after an even more wretched howl, the Other melted completely, reduced to a smoking puddle of residue.
[Dragon's Soul +1000]
The system notification sounded, but Lo Quen frowned.
Only a thousand Dragon's Soul from a single Other?
That was far less than he had expected.
And the instant he killed it, the rest of the Others on the battlefield seemed to sense it at the same time.
Their icy gazes swung as one toward the dragons tearing through the sky, especially the largest of them all, Blooddancer.
After a brief pause, the surviving Others riders, including those mounted on ice spiders and mammoths, turned their mounts around and withdrew north, vanishing into the heart of the blizzard.
Their death mounts were astonishingly fast. The ice spiders skittered on eight legs, and the mammoths charged forward in long, crushing strides.
As the Others pulled back, the wight army, which had been attacking in a frenzy, seemed to lose its strings like a puppet. The assault stalled in an instant, and then, like a retreating tide, the wights followed the Others' path and streamed north.
The people on the walls stared, stunned.
The Others were retreating?
In the sky, Lo Quen frowned, turning over the possibilities behind such a strange move.
Was this force only the Others' vanguard?
After a moment's thought, he still guided Blooddancer after them, determined to see for himself.
But when he urged Blooddancer north, the dragon let out a low, resisting growl. Its massive body circled in the air without advancing, trembling faintly as a clear sense of fear flowed back through their bond.
Lo Quen's heart jolted.
Blooddancer was afraid?
Afraid of something in the north?
He immediately thought of the old records of House Targaryen.
When "Good Queen" Alysanne had tried to fly beyond the Wall, her dragon Silverwing had refused again and again to go north of it.
Could there be something in the far north so dreadful that even dragons feared it, something that had moved south with the Others?
Watching the Others' host disappear into the endless wind and snow, Lo Quen forced down the urge to pursue recklessly. With a cold snort, he turned Blooddancer back toward Moat Cailin.
...
Inside the castle, the surviving soldiers began the exhausting work of clearing the battlefield and gathering the bodies of their fallen comrades.
A preliminary count showed that, thanks to the dragons, the ice giants, and the Dragon Soul Guards, casualties were roughly one to two thousand.
The soldiers were preparing, as usual, to burn the bodies to prevent them from rising again.
"Don't burn them yet."
Lo Quen stopped them.
The bodies of these brave warriors were perfect material for transforming into Dragon Soul Guards.
After this battle, he had absorbed a massive amount of Dragon's Soul, and his Dragonblood purity had risen to 48%.
With his Dragonblood purity continuing to climb, the number of Dragon Soul Guards each of the four queens could command had surpassed a thousand.
At Lo Quen's signal, the four queens stepped forward. Light flared in their hands, spreading over the corpses of the fallen.
Under the horrified, reverent stares of the nobles, soldiers, and wildlings nearby, the cold bodies slowly stood up again.
"This…"
Lord Wyman's lips trembled, but he could not form a complete sentence.
Mance Rayder, Tormund, and the other wildling leaders looked equally stricken.
The scene was far too similar to the way the Others raised the dead into wights.
Even if these Dragon Soul Guards obeyed them, the power to command corpses still sent a chill through every living soul present, leaving them with an indescribable awe, and a thread of fear, toward the king on the throne and his queens.