Chapter 31: Zombie Watch pt. 1, Arrival

Way back when I arrived in Winterfell, fresh off the dimensional displacement boat, I had all these worries about whether the ice-demon White Walkers and their ice-zombie wights might actually exist. After all, I was magic, and so there didn’t seem to be any reason that other magic might not be waiting in shallow graves to spring up and gnaw my face off.

Now, all those fears had been validated.

Hearing rumors of Wildling migrations and intending to find some of their missing men including Ned’s brother Benjen Stark, the Night’s Watch sent out a great ranging. It was a reconnaissance in force, with everything that implied. They would investigate and scout. If necessary or given an opportunity, they’d raid and destroy the Wildlings. Three hundred men went out under the command of the Night’s Watch Lord Commander Jeor Mormont ready to kick ass and take names.

After being attacked by the ice zombies and a mutiny, fewer than a dozen made it back. The Watch was gutted. Already understrength, they were now looking at an invasion of a hundred thousand or more wildlings, followed by fucking ice-demons (or necromantic winter-fey. I wasn’t entirely sure). But what we did know was that regular steel basically did fuck all, and arrows were less than useless against the zombies unless the arrows were also on fire.

Suffice to say, it was bad.

The Wall itself was about three hundred miles long, just over half a million yards. Even with such a mighty fortification, it was unreasonable to try and hold it with less than a man per every hundred yards. The Watch really needed about twelve thousand men to properly patrol the Wall long term or defend it short term in a full-press siege situation. Then again, using the same common rules of thumb for attackers and defenders, for a full-press siege situation the enemy would need about two hundred and fifty thousand warriors, and even that would be pretty light. It was a comfort that the Wildlings probably couldn’t manage that, but I suspected the ice demons could with their zombies.

Even before losing those three hundred men, the Night’s Watch was down to about a thousand men. Now, they had only seven hundred. A twentieth of what they really needed.

When Robb got this news at Winterfell, he immediately decided it was critical enough to call his bannermen up and to use Nevermore to get a message to me. I in turn had Hue, who was stationed in King’s Landing, relay the message to Ned and Robert.

The timing could definitely have been better. It was officially Autumn, the transition from Summer to Winter years, and everyone was trying to get that last bit of harvesting done before the weather worsened and agricultural yields decreased. The word reached me in early October, right in the normal planting time for the fall-winter growing season.

Beyond that, it was the beginning of winter in general, and even during Summer years it would snow in the North. Southern troops were straight up not equipped to go on campaign in the winter months, and the North lacked the infrastructure to supply a large expedition of southerners.

For my own specific issues, it would have been much better if the fucking White Walkers had waited a year. By then I’d have had the first companies of my new model army ready, and I’d have had thousands of Guard Hounds and hundreds of Guard Horses ready too. As it was, my expanding support formations of Guard Ravens and Hounds were only just allowing my men to keep pace with the rapid population expansion around Harrentown’s burgeoning industry, and I was forced to deploy Hound units that were younger than I’d have preferred.

On the plus side, I had just crossed over the one thousand mana threshold, and there was never a more legitimate target for extermination than an undead army.

Instead of gathering all of the Seven Kingdoms’ armies and marching to war, I convinced Robert and Ned to have different houses gather specific amounts of supplies along the march. Others would be sending supplies to the North, to support the Northern mobilization. Troops from the Riverlands would march north in the spring, while troops from the Vale would sail to reinforce the Wall more immediately.

Unfortunately, it was next to impossible to move troops to the Shadow Tower by sea, the river there more of a gorge than something traversable. That just meant that the Westerlands and Reach would be more responsible for supplies, and would have to send their contingents overland to take sail from the east or to march up the Kingsroad.

It was a carefully considered and orchestrated logistical movement and mobilization designed to get up to seventy five thousand troops to the Wall if necessary. The initial wave, twenty thousand Northmen by land and ten thousand Valemen by sea would be there in time for winter to truly set in. In the spring ten thousand men would start out from the Riverlands and march for the Wall, while another ten thousand gathered from the Crownlands went out by sea from King’s Landing. Should casualties prove too high, a final reserve of fifteen thousand from the Reach would march, while ten thousand more would sail from the Stormlands.

The real problem was what to do about the Others, or White Walkers depending on your terminological preference. Reports from the ill-fated expedition were that they had completely resisted steel tipped arrows, and their own blades of ice shattered blades on contact. Wights were totally proof against arrows that weren’t on fire, and even those were less effective than one might hope in the frozen north against fresh, wet corpses.

Apparently a search of old documents turned up that obsidian, or dragonglass, was effective against the Others themselves; I could see why it would be against demons of ice and snow, what with the memory of a volcano’s fire inside every bit of rock. The rock was being mined and shipped away for processing as quickly as they could on Dragonstone, a volcanic island. Even still the Walkers would face precious little of that fell material, and we had no proof that it worked.

For my own part, Harrenhal was mostly tasked with logistics. I would be providing nearly twenty five thousand dragon’s worth of food and equipment. But in return my military would not be overly stressed; of Harrenhal’s Guard and levy, only Jon and I were obligated to attend to the Wall’s defense.

That said, as both Jon and I had horses capable of making the Wall in less than a week and I represented a strategic force all on my own, we had to set out right away as part of the emergency reinforcements. I was appointed Robert’s envoy in dealing with this situation at the Wall itself. Hue flew me the scroll proclaiming such in barely dry ink a bare day after we got the news, and I set out for the Wall.

With me were Togo, Aethon, Jon, Ghost, Shadowfax and Mu. We were accompanied by one of my two companies of Guard Ravens, and the three oldest companies of Guard Hounds. They were still young, puppies in mind if not in body, but would be invaluable for patrolling the Wall and detecting any forces thinking to sneak up onto the Wall at night, in bad weather or the like.

We made quite the procession on the Kingsroad, two riders in shimmering mail going faster than most had ever seen. Jon bore aloft a banner of grey with the silhouette of horse archer performing a Parthian shot in black. Behind followed the three blocks of massive grey hounds running in formations four abreast and twenty deep. Above our flock of ravens flew in orderly ranks, keeping pace with the men and animals below.

We made three hundred miles a day. As we grew closer to our destination we often had to leave the road, going cross country as we passed slower moving blocks of infantry and cavalry from the North headed to defend the Wall and their homes. The troops were obviously regulars, the core of different lordly houses’ professional retainers sent out as first responders. It had been too short a time for the levy to have been called and dispatched.

On the morning of the six day we arrived, and found the Night’s Watch in chaos.

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The Night’s Watch was unique in many ways from other Westerosi institutions. One of the ways it was unique was in the way it selected its leadership. It was a democracy. One man, one vote.

It generally worked. Over the past eight thousand years and despite having a large portion of the realm’s convicts, there had been only four recorded instances of men who were corrupt or power-hungry enough to get the Watch involved with matters beyond their remit.

The problem with that method however was shown during our arrival. With no clear successor, the men of the Night’s Watch were gridlocked over who the next leader should be despite, or perhaps because of, the looming crisis.

I went to meet First Steward Bowen Marsh, the acting Lord Commander. When my small army of beasts arrived he had been in a command team meeting with the people who I later learned were his political opponents, because defending a three hundred mile wall with some seven hundred men against over a hundred thousand wasn’t complicated enough already.

They rushed out of a tower, gaping at the sight of my three centuries of Guard Hounds and Ravens.

“Acting Lord Commander Marsh,” I greeted him. “I’m Lord Odysseus Gangari of Harrenhal. His Grace sent me north as soon as he heard.” He was a ruddy, red-faced man with a large rotund belly, which had earned him his nickname of the pomegranate. I presented him with the scroll that gave me authority to coordinate the Realm’s response.

He looked up at me, then over my combat contingent, then back to the scroll. “I sincerely hope we’re getting more than animals,” he muttered under his breath, erroneously assuming I couldn’t hear him, “no matter how well trained.”

Then he spoke up, loud enough for a normal person to hear. “Lord Gangari, it’s a pleasure to have the first of what I hope will be many responders to the Watch’s call for assistance. But if I may, my lord, how did you get here so quickly? I doubt the ravens have even managed to reach King’s Landing yet, let alone give you enough time to bring yourself and so many animals north.”

I smiled politely at him. “I am, as you may have heard or guessed, somewhat skilled in the magical arts. I had a raven of my own design at Winterfell who got word to me as soon as they knew of the fate of the previous Lord Commander and so many of your sworn brothers. They have my gratitude and prayers for their sacrifice.

“But when I got the word, and sent it to his Grace, King Robert, and the Lord of the Hand, Lord Stark, they asked me to come and help deal with the situation. Twenty thousand northerners are already gathering and coming here, as are ten thousand southerners by sea. In the spring, another ten thousand will march from the Riverlands, while ten thousand come by sea once more. A final reserve of twenty-five thousand will await word as to our progress.”

I was speaking loudly so that the word might spread and improve morale. “As for my own presence, it was not just the color of my hounds that I changed, or their size; each can run at thirty miles an hour for ten hours a day. We set out the day after hearing about your plight, only six days prior.”

They were visibly stunned at that performance. Making it from Harrenhal to the Wall in sixty days would have been a feat worthy of admiration and of interest to all future students of war and logistics. Making it in six, as far as they were concerned took magic; they were right, but luckily I was a mage.

I smiled widely. “And my hounds are not just fast; they are far tougher, stronger and smarter than any hound I have not improved. You will soon see that each is a match in combat for a trained man with mail, shield and sword. My ravens are likewise stronger and faster than natural ravens, and can scout from the air then return to their attached unit and give a verbal report on what they saw.”

Impressed and fearful mutterings broke out at my claims until one of the men behind Marsh challenged my statement. “Hah. I’ll believe that when I see it for myself,” he mocked.

Still mounted on Aethon I looked down at him. “Very well. Captain Poe,” I called out, turning to the lead raven of the company. “What is the combat strength of the men in this yard?”

It flew up into the air, did a quick circle of the yard and came down. “A hundred warriors in black my lord, normal humans. Three companies of your Guard Hounds. One of the Ravens. And yourself and Jon Farstark.”

Everyone was looking at us stunned. A talking, counting raven; would wonders never cease?

I grinned harshly. “Now, my good brother of the Watch, you said you wanted to see one of the hounds fight? Perhaps it would be better for you to experience it first-hand. First Captain Fritz,” I called out. “Show this man your worth. Just be careful not to injure him,” I mocked. “The Watch needs every man right now no matter how foolish.”

The lead hound gave a quick bark and broke formation, coming to stand in front of the rude man, then crouching and preparing to lunge with bared fangs. The man quickly drew his sword, a small measure of cautious fear in his eyes, his mouth set in a hard line as he prepared to try and kill my war-beast.

“I will give a count of three, then call begin.” I called out. Brothers were already gathering around in a wide circle, betting on having extra duties. “One. Two. Three. Begin!”

Like a shot, Fritz lunged forwards, getting inside the arc of the swords swing where it wouldn’t have the leverage and power needed to injure him. Fritz didn’t slow down, but smashed into the Watch’s man. A blur of movement later and the man was caught by the back of the neck.

Fritz gave a low growl announcing his victory, then threw his head back and howled. As one, the other Guard Hounds pointed their heads back and followed his lead.

“Aarrooo!!! AARROOO!!!” rang loudly, bouncing off of the walls and echoing in our ears. Once they stopped I looked down at the man who was lying on the ground.

“So, does that make you more confident my hounds can keep the wildlings from you?” I asked cooly.

The man refused to answer, spitting to the side and walking over to stand next to a man I recognized; Janos Flynt. And judging by Flint’s rapidly paling face, he remembered me too.

Marsh cleared his throat. “Well, shall we enter inside and have a word, my lord?” he asked.

“Of course, it would be my pleasure.”

It really, really wasn’t.