Snap.
A faint sound, like the twisting of bone, broke the terrifying silence of the room.
Mormont's eyes snapped open!
He was old, yes, but the instincts honed over decades as a ranger had not dulled.
He was certain—that was not the sound of firewood popping in the hearth.
He held his breath, straining his ears in the dim room to catch the slightest movement.
Crack... Snap...
The sound came again, clearer this time.
It was coming from the center of the room!
From the long table where Othor's corpse lay.
A chill seized Mormont's heart.
It was colder than the biting wind outside the window, shooting from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
Impossible...
This cannot be.
He must be exhausted. It had to be a hallucination.
He tried to comfort himself with that thought, but the drumming of his heart betrayed his fear.
Silently, he sat up, fumbling for the oil lamp and flint on his bedside table.
His hands shook with tension. It took several tries before the spark caught, and the lamp flared to life.
The dim yellow light chased away the shadows in the corner of the room.
Lamp in hand, Mormont approached the long table with agonizing slowness.
Every step felt like it was stomping on his own heart.
As the light drew nearer, the scene on the table became clear.
The cloak covering the body had slipped halfway off.
And the corpse, which should have been cold and stiff...
Othor...
He was sitting up!
His stiff neck turned inch by inch, craning at an angle no living man could sustain.
Those sapphire-blue eyes, illuminated by the flickering lamp, stared straight at Mormont.
There was no human emotion in that gaze.
No anger, no sorrow.
Only a pure, glacial cold—the dead silence of the Lands of Always Winter.
The hemp ropes binding him, made brittle by the supernatural frost, snapped one by one.
With the ropes broken, Othor rolled off the table.
"Ah—!"
"Guards! To me!"
Battle-hardened as he was, Mormont could not suppress the shock that rocked him to his core.
The lamp slipped from his hand, crashing to the floor and shattering.
Oil spilled across the stones, and flames roared up instantly, catching a stack of parchments nearby.
Mormont scrambled backward, trying to reach his longsword hanging on the wall.
But the wight was faster!
It lunged at Mormont with unnatural speed.
"Get back!"
Mormont grabbed a heavy wooden chair and swung it with all his might.
The chair smashed against the wight's body, shattering into splinters.
But the creature was unharmed.
It didn't even slow down.
It tackled Mormont, its ice-cold, stiff hands clamping around the Old Bear's throat like iron vices.
A suffocating chill instantly invaded Mormont's limbs and bones.
"Hkk... Ghhk..."
Mormont's face turned purple.
He struggled desperately, hammering his fists against the wight's chest.
But it felt like punching a stone that had been frozen for a thousand years.
There was no reaction.
It's over.
That was the only thought left in Mormont's mind.
Just as his vision began to black out and suffocation took hold—
BANG!
The heavy door was blasted open by an irresistible force!
Amidst flying splinters, a black-clad figure charged in.
"My Lord!"
It was Lynn.
Right behind him was Jon Snow, holding a torch, his face a mask of horror.
And beside him, the snow-white direwolf, Ghost!
"Roar!"
Almost the instant they breached the room, Ghost launched his lithe body without hesitation at the wight strangling Mormont.
Sharp wolf fangs clamped viciously onto the wight's arm.
Crunch!
The sound wasn't like biting into flesh and blood.
It sounded more like teeth grinding against hard, dead bone.
The wight's movements stalled for a split second under the sudden attack.
That was the opening they needed!
"Cough... Cough, cough!"
The pressure on Mormont's neck released, and he greedily sucked in fresh air.
He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his face flushed red from the violent coughing fits.
"Jon! The fire!"
Lynn's voice exploded in the room.
"Burn it!"
Jon Snow's mind was a blank slate.
Everything happening before him shattered the worldview he had held for over a decade.
The dead... they were actually walking.
Those eyes burning with blue fire, that inhuman strength, the biting cold radiating from its body...
The legends were all true!
Hearing Lynn's roar, he finally snapped out of his trance.
Instinctively, he raised the torch in his hand.
The wight flung Ghost from its arm.
It turned, its ice-blue eyes locking onto Lynn, who stood at the forefront.
It seemed to recognize who the greatest threat was.
"Come on, then!"
Lynn's right hand drifted to the inside of his calf.
Strapped there was a dagger.
A dagger with a dragonbone hilt, forged of Valyrian steel!
A ruthless glint flashed in Lynn's eyes.
His hand tightened around the cold handle.