The order to abandon the Wall was the hardest command Jon Snow ever had to give. For eight thousand years the Nights Watch had stood their ground. To leave felt like a betrayal of every vow sworn before a heart tree.
But Andar was right. The Wall was a shield and shields eventually broke. Winterfell was a sword.
The evacuation was a logistical nightmare. The narrow gauge railway running along the top of the Wall was stripped of its Maxim guns. The heavy cannons at Castle Black were winched onto the waiting flatcars of the Armored Train.
"Take the coal first," Andar ordered standing on the platform amidst the chaos of steam and shouting men. "Then the ammunition. Then the women and children. If there is room left we take the food. If not we burn it."
"Burn the food?" Samwell Tarly asked clutching a stack of ancient books. "But winter..."
"If we lose we won't need to eat," Andar said grimly. "And I will not leave a single grain for the dead to rot in."
The first train departed at noon carrying the wildling non combatants and the wounded. It chugged south into the grey horizon its whistle a mournful cry against the wind.
By dusk the rearguard was all that remained.
Daenerys landed Drogon in the courtyard. The dragon was restless snapping at the snowflakes. She had spent the day ferrying heavy crates of dynamite to the fallback positions at Last Hearth acting as a heavy lift transport.
"The storm is getting closer," Daenerys said sliding off her saddle. She looked exhausted. "I can feel him. He knows we are leaving."
"He won't let us walk away," Jon said. He looked up at the Wall one last time. "He will chase us."
"Let him chase," Andar said. He was supervising the loading of the Iron Wolf. The armored locomotive hissed steam venting from its pressure valves. "We have rigged the tunnel. We have rigged the stairs. When we leave Castle Black becomes a crater."
Suddenly the temperature dropped ten degrees in a second. The wind stopped howling and went deathly silent.
From the top of the Wall a sentry fired a single red flare.
"They are here!"
A wave of wights crested the top of the Wall not by climbing but by falling. They simply threw themselves off the edge thousands of them raining down into the courtyard like hail. Their bodies shattered on impact but the magic bound them together. Broken spines straightened. Shattered legs crawled.
"Board the train!" Andar shouted. "Go! Go!"
The last company of the Nights Watch and the Northern Riflemen scrambled onto the armored carriages. The wights were sprinting now a horde of blue eyed death closing the distance.
Jon Snow stood at the rear of the train Longclaw drawn. He slashed a wight that tried to leap onto the coupling.
"Get in Jon!" Robb yelled from the doorway.
Jon jumped onto the moving step.
The Iron Wolf's wheels spun sparks flying against the frozen rails. The heavy train lurched forward gathering speed.
As they pulled away from the castle Andar stood in the rear turret of the caboose. He held a detonator box in his hand. A wire ran from the box out the back door trailing along the track toward the castle.
"Goodbye Lord Commander," Andar whispered.
He twisted the handle.
KA BOOM.
The explosion was not a singular event it was a chain reaction. Five tons of dynamite buried in the foundations of Castle Black and the ice of the Wall detonated simultaneously.
The base of the Wall shattered. For the first time in history the great ice barrier groaned. A section of the Wall hundreds of feet wide sheared off and collapsed inward burying the castle and the thousands of wights swarming it under a mountain of ice and stone.
The shockwave shook the train rattling the teeth of every man on board.
"You blew it up," Sam gasped staring out the back window at the rising cloud of white dust. "You actually blew it up."
"I closed the door," Andar said coiling the wire. "Now we race."
The train picked up speed hitting forty miles per hour. But the danger wasn't over. The tracks ran through the haunted forest for ten miles before clearing the tree line.
"Contact left!" a rifleman shouted from the firing slit.
Through the trees shapes were moving. Fast shapes.
Ice Spiders.
They were keeping pace with the train skittering over the snowdrifts and leaping from tree to tree.
"They are trying to board!" Robb shouted. "Man the guns!"
The side of the armored car erupted in gunfire. The Type 3 rifles cracked rhythmically. Soldiers fired through the loopholes picking off the spiders as they leaped.
One spider managed to land on the roof of the carriage. It hissed its mandibles dripping venom and began to tear at the steel plating.
"Roof breach!"
Daenerys who was sitting in the officer car stood up. She grabbed a sawed off shotgun a new trench broom Andar had prototyped for close quarters.
"Stay down," she told Tyrion.
She climbed the ladder to the roof hatch. She kicked it open.
The spider lunged at her.
BOOM.
The double barrel blast of buckshot hit the spider in the face. It screeched and tumbled off the moving train rolling into the snow.
Daenerys racked the lever loading two fresh shells. She looked fierce the wind whipping her silver hair. She wasn't just a Queen of Dragons anymore she was a warrior of the wasteland.
"Clear!" she shouted down.
The train burst out of the forest and onto the open plains of the Gift. The spiders exposed and unable to keep up without the trees fell back.
Andar walked through the cars checking the men. They were shaken cold and terrified but they were alive.
"Next stop Winterfell," Andar announced.
He sat down opposite Jon Snow. Jon was staring at his hands.
"We lost the Wall," Jon said quietly. "The realm is open."
"We traded space for time," Andar corrected. "It is a standard tactical maneuver. We draw them into the open. We stretch their supply lines though they don't have supplies they have magic and magic weakens the further south you go."
"Does it?" Jon asked.
"I hope so," Andar admitted. "If not then Plan B is just to kill them all."
The train chugged south into the long night a lone spark of fire and iron carrying the last hope of the living toward the final fortress.
[Quest Complete: The Great Retreat]
[Asset Destroyed: Castle Black Denial of Asset]
[Army Saved: 80% Evacuated]
[Morale: Shaken]
High above them three dragons circled in the darkness their bellies full of fire guarding the iron worm as it crawled home.
.….
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
50 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
75 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
120 Power Stones: 3 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!