The blatant provocation shattered the creature's icy calm.
As a being far superior to a mindless wight, the White Walker possessed its own thoughts and will. Facing Lynn's taunt, it abandoned its slow, menacing pace.
It raised its ice spear, quickened its stride, and lunged straight for him.
Life and death hung by a thread. In that split second, Lynn's honed swordplay—sharpened by countless hours of drill—transformed into pure instinct.
He pivoted, twisting his hips.
Longclaw swept up from below in a vicious, difficult arc, meeting the thrust of the crystalline spear with precision.
Clang!
A sharp ring, like shattering glass, exploded in the dead silence of the hollow.
A force like a falling boulder traveled down the blade, instantly numbing Lynn's entire arm. The webbing between his thumb and forefinger tore open, and warm blood began to slick the hilt of his sword.
Seven Hells, the thing is strong! Lynn cursed inwardly.
He used the force of the impact to throw himself backward, putting several yards between them.
He glanced quickly at his weapon. Longclaw, forged of Valyrian steel, was unharmed. The dark, rippled patterns on the blade seemed to flow like smoke.
Then he looked at the Other's spear—a weapon that should have been indestructible.
There, on the translucent tip, was a hairline crack.
It works.
Valyrian steel really was the bane of these monsters. A surge of wild hope rose in Lynn's chest.
The White Walker evidently realized it, too. It looked down at the fracture in its weapon, its expression one of utter disbelief.
It stopped testing him.
Suddenly, the ice spear became a blur. It unleashed a storm of attacks, the strikes coming so fast they seemed to create a wall of deadly cold. Every thrust was sharp enough to punch through plate, sealing off every avenue of escape and forcing Lynn to retreat step after desperate step.
Lynn pushed his skills to the absolute limit. He bobbed and weaved, a lone figure dancing in a forest of lethal ice.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of metal meeting ice was deafening, dense as hail lashing against a wooden shutter. Sparks and ice chips flew together in the darkness.
Lynn was completely on the defensive, forced to parry and dodge. Every collision sent a fresh shock of numbness through his arm; every dodge brought him inches closer to the Stranger's door.
Damn it.
The creature's technique was flawless, as if practiced for a thousand years. There were no openings. The unnatural vigor Lynn had gained from the Frostbloom was nothing compared to this ancient power.
If this kept up, the sheer force of the blows would rattle his bones to dust before the spear even ran him through.
He needed a way out. He needed a breach in its defense...
Just as Lynn's strength began to flag, his mind racing for a solution, the White Walker lost its patience.
The attack pattern changed. Gone was the intricate, deadly flurry. In its place came a simple, brutal horizontal sweep.
It was a blow carried by unstoppable momentum, covering a wide arc.
Too wide. He couldn't dodge it.
Lynn's pupils constricted to pinpoints.
Screw it. All or nothing.
In that moment of peril, a flash of madness took hold of him. A flicker of blue light passed through his eyes as he quietly channeled a burst of pure, hidden magic into the snow beneath his feet.
Ice Magic.
As the strange new energy was drained from his body, the patch of snow in front of him instantly turned slicker than oil.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Aside from Lynn, no one noticed the subtle shift in the terrain.
The White Walker certainly didn't. To the creature, the struggling human was already a corpse. In its arrogance, it believed only the Great Other and the Night King could command the cold.
Its elegant, swift boot stomped heavily onto the patch of snow Lynn had trapped.
And then...
It slipped.
Though the creature regained its balance almost instantly, that lethal sweep suffered a tiny, almost imperceptible delay.
Now!
Lynn's eyes burned with a ferocious light.
Instead of retreating, he stepped into the sweeping spear, lunging forward.
Moving with impossible agility, he practically brushed against the deadly shaft of ice, drilling himself right into the White Walker's guard.
He was close. Too close.
Close enough to see the ancient, etched runes on the Walker's armor. Close enough to feel the absolute zero radiating from it, a cold that threatened to freeze the blood in his veins.
Shock flooded the White Walker's icy blue eyes. It tried to recoil, tried to bring the spear back to skew the audacious human.
But it was too late.
Lynn's sword moved.
Longclaw swept up from below in a gutting stroke, channeled with every ounce of strength he had left.
Shhhink!
There was no resistance.
The Valyrian steel sheared through the seemingly impenetrable ice armor like a hot knife through tallow.
From the gut, all the way up.
It split the creature's chest wide open.
The White Walker's body went rigid. It looked down at the gaping wound in its torso.
There was no blood, no entrails. Only the sight of pale blue crystals rapidly collapsing.
Craaaack...
A sound like a frozen lake fracturing under weight.
The arrogant monster, that perfect vessel of magic and ice, began to crack apart from the wound outward. The fissures spread instantly.
With a final POP, it exploded into a cloud of glittering ice dust.
illuminated by the campfire, the shards refracted a dreamlike light before dissolving into the cold night air.
It was as if the monster had never existed.
The hollow fell into a deathly silence.
Lynn leaned heavily on his sword, gasping for air, his chest heaving like a bellows.
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