After the battle against the Ice Dragon near the Frozen Shore, the White Walkers seemed to lose their nerve. Not only did the army of wights in the Haunted Forest retreat, abandoning their reckless assaults on the Wall, but even Westwatch-by-the-Bridge—once chosen as a potential breakthrough point—was given up. Overnight, the mountains and valleys once swarming with wights and White Walkers became completely empty.
Through reconnaissance by the skinchangers, it was discovered that the White Walkers east of the Frostfangs had all fallen back toward the Fist of the First Men, while those along the western coast had withdrawn south of the Frozen River. They stood as still as statues, and more White Walkers were seen arriving with fresh groups of wights. Among them, scouts counted no fewer than a thousand giant White Walkers, along with numerous others of bizarre forms. It looked as though they were gathering all their forces for a massive offensive.
Lynd did not conceal this intelligence. As soon as he received the report, he made it public.
Everyone who heard the news, even the slowest among them, could sense that an even harsher war was looming. As a result, they threw themselves into their assigned tasks with urgency and discipline, reinforcing fortifications and strengthening defenses across the Wall. Morale throughout the Wall was tense, but orderly.
Compared to others, Lynd understood even more clearly what the White Walkers were planning. He could feel the shift in northern magic—an extreme cold gathering in the far north, powerful enough to make even him sense real danger.
Beyond the magic, the climate across the Wall and all of the North was turning even colder. The Long Lake and the White Knife near the Wolfswood had completely frozen over, and the bitter cold was pushing further south. Ice had already begun to form along the Green Fork of the Trident River. It was clear that the great cold that once swept across all of Westeros was returning—and this time, it seemed stronger and more enduring.
Under the effects of this bitter cold, rivers north of the Wall were freezing solid, which in turn caused the rivers downstream to dry up. The most serious case was the lower Milkwater, where the once-rushing waters of the Great Gorge were slowing drastically, with river levels dropping visibly each day. In some places, the riverbed was already exposed. This created a glaring weakness in the Wall's defenses; if the White Walkers attacked, they would almost certainly attempt a breakthrough here.
And that wasn't even the worst part. Even more alarming was the rapid expansion of sea ice at the southern edge of the Frozen Shore. In less than ten days, it had spread to the waters near the Bay of Ice, only about twenty leagues from Bear Island. At this pace, it would take no more than ten days for the ice to reach the mouth of the Milkwater, perhaps even reaching the coastline at the foothills of the Wolfswood Mountains—or worse, encasing Bear Island itself.
In response, Lynd ordered everyone on Bear Island to evacuate southward, relocating temporarily to the Stony Shore while awaiting further orders. At the same time, he notified Sansa at Winterfell and the other northern lords to prepare for battle. If the wights succeeded in crossing the sea ice and bypassing the Wall's defenses, the entire North would be at risk of being overrun.
Beyond preparing the North, Lynd also ordered the other regions of the Seven Kingdoms to begin raising levies, undergoing temporary training, and building defensive positions near Greywater Watch. Should the Wall and the North fall, this line would serve as the second front, buying precious time for the evacuation of Westeros.
Determined to ensure that the Seven Kingdoms understood the gravity of the situation, Lynd withheld nothing. He directly sent reports about the approaching extreme cold, the expansion of the sea ice, and the potential threat of the White Walkers bypassing the Wall to King's Landing. From there, the information was passed on to the major lords.
When the lords received Lynd's orders and the reports from the North, they were stunned. Only days earlier, they had been reassured that the Wall had held the White Walkers and the wights at bay. Now, in such a short span, they were being told to prepare for evacuation.
However, after carefully studying the intelligence, they understood the necessity behind Lynd's command. The problem wasn't a failure in the Wall's defenses, but rather that the extreme cold from the Land of Always Winter had given the White Walkers an opportunity to circumvent the Wall altogether.
Grasping the seriousness of the situation, the lords began transferring select groups from their lands—mostly their own families and retainers—to nearby islands or even directly to Essos.
For now, the common folk remained unaware of the true danger, still believing the conflict at the Wall to be distant and irrelevant to their lives.
Meanwhile, religious organizations like the Faith of the Seven had quietly begun relocating their devout followers and their families. The Citadel was also discreetly moving its more precious archives and documents.
At the same time, on the continent of Essos, preparations had long been underway according to Lynd's instructions. He had anticipated the coming of the Long Night and eternal winter, and had arranged for the construction of many migration centers in the Free Cities. Because of these preparations, accepting refugees from Westeros was not difficult, and the entire process unfolded smoothly and orderly.
In the North, although signs of extreme cold had begun to appear and the sea ice was expanding, Lynd was not one to simply stand by and do nothing.
As soon as he received the news, he immediately sent men to throw wildfire and other combustibles onto the expanding ice in an effort to melt and break it apart. Near Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, this method worked relatively well, easily clearing the newly formed ice. However, on the west coast, the results were far less effective.
While the intense heat of wildfire could melt the ice, the ice along the western coast was simply too thick. No matter how high the temperature, it was difficult to completely melt it away. At best, they could burn open cavities filled with meltwater. Wildfire could only burn on the water's surface, and its heat couldn't penetrate deeper into the ice. As soon as the wildfire died down, the meltwater would quickly refreeze into solid ice once more.
Faced with the changes brought by the extreme cold, Lynd had no real solution—not even a means of responding. It wasn't just that he wasn't a god; even a deity like R'hllor, the Lord of Light, would have been powerless against this situation. Otherwise, R'hllor would have already destroyed his ancient enemy, the Lord of Cold, who resided deep within the Land of Always Winter.
Now, Lynd was beginning to realize that the earlier attacks by the White Walkers and wights against the Wall had merely been a form of military training—to teach the inexperienced White Walkers how to command in battle, and to probe the Seven Kingdoms' methods of warfare. Their true offensive would come when the extreme cold swept southward, and they could leverage the power of this Long Night and eternal winter to assault the Wall.
Given the worsening situation, Lynd could no longer be certain whether he would be able to hold the Wall or keep the White Walkers at bay. His only hope was that the opportunity Willas had spoken of truly existed—and that it would make a difference. Otherwise, he would have to prepare for a swift retreat if their first strike failed.
Thus, Lynd had privately sent messages to Summerhall, the Stepstones, the Free Cities, the Kingdom of Lorne, and Qarth, requisitioning all available ships and ordering them to be ready for the potential fall of the Wall and a southward invasion by the White Walkers.
Lynd didn't hide his concerns from the upper leadership of the Wall, but to maintain morale, Stannis and the others refrained from spreading Lynd's pessimism among the garrison. Most defenders of the Wall still believed they could defeat the White Walkers and the wights. Only a few, from the sharp drop in temperatures and the shifting deployments across various castles, had begun to sense that something was terribly wrong.
Karṇa came from Braavos. A devout follower of the Lord of Light and captain of the Red Temple's Holy Fire Hands in Braavos, he had been dispatched by the High Priest to the Wall, joining as one of the Holy Fire Warriors.
Perhaps it was luck, but less than a day after Karṇa had left Braavos, the Miracle Fleet arrived and placed the city under blockade.
Although both branches belonged to the Red Temple, Karṇa was not under the authority of the temple in Volantis. When assigning forces, Lynd had placed Karṇa and the Holy Fire Hands from Braavos at the Sentinel Stand near the Shadow Tower, deliberately distancing them from the eastern coastline to avoid any potential trouble connected to the conquest of Braavos.
Fortunately, Braavos was conquered swiftly, and Karṇa's group gradually earned the trust of their allies. Their bravery during earlier battles against the White Walkers won Lynd's praise, and he later requested another group of Holy Fire Hands from Braavos to reinforce Karṇa's command.
"Damn it, it's getting colder every day. When will it end?" Karṇa muttered, curling up behind an icy wall at the top of the Wall. He wrapped himself tightly in a shadowcat pelt he had bought from a Night's Watch brother, trying to stay as close as possible to the bonfire in front of him.
Another Holy Fire Hand warrior grumbled as well, "I almost hope the White Walkers attack. At least then we could sacrifice ourselves for our Lord. If we freeze to death here, we'll just end up dragged into the Wall by its evil spirits and turned into offerings."
It was hard to blame them for feeling this way. Only a few days ago, several Holy Fire Hand warriors had frozen to death while standing watch—mere steps away from a brazier, separated only by a pile of supplies.
Braavos lies on the northern side of the continent of Essos. As Braavosi, they naturally had a stronger resistance to cold than those from the southern cities like Volantis. However, when facing the extreme cold of the far North, their endurance was, in truth, rather average.
Without exception, those who froze to death experienced an intense sensation of heat just before dying—many even stripped off all their clothing, standing naked in the freezing wind until death overtook them. When such corpses appeared, rumors quickly spread that the ghosts of the Wall were at work.
However, Lynd understood very well why people who froze to death felt heat in their final moments. To prevent these rumors from damaging morale, he took the initiative to explain the real reason to everyone, and soon the explanation spread throughout the Wall.
While many accepted Lynd's explanation, there were still plenty who clung to the belief that it was supernatural, convinced that those who died at the Wall would be absorbed into it, becoming part of the Wall itself. Karṇa was among those who believed it.
So when he overheard his men muttering about it, his face grew dark.
"Be careful, Lord Karṇa!" Just as Karṇa was inwardly grumbling about why the White Walkers hadn't attacked yet, one of his men suddenly shoved him aside. The next moment, Karṇa saw a catapult not far away collapse, shattering several sections of the ice wall atop the battlements.
And it wasn't just the catapult near Karṇa. In the distance, several others collapsed as well, seemingly for no reason.
"Are we under attack?" Karṇa pushed the man off him, stood up, and shouted, "Assemble, prepare for battle! Assemble, prepare for battle! Sound the horns, sound the horns!"
"Wait! Wait! We're not under attack! No enemies!" someone shouted from not far away, struggling through the fierce snowstorm toward Karṇa.
Karṇa hesitated for a moment but quickly recognized the man battling the wind—it was his second-in-command. He immediately called out, "What's happening? Are there no enemies?"
"No! No enemies!" The deputy stumbled behind the shelter of the ice wall where Karṇa stood, leaning against it and gasping for breath as he spoke.
Karṇa, still confused, asked, "If there's no enemy attack, why did the catapults collapse?"
"They froze and collapsed," the deputy explained, but seeing Karṇa's doubtful expression, he quickly added, "It's gotten even colder. The wrought iron nails on the catapults have all cracked from the freezing temperatures. Normally you wouldn't notice anything wrong, but the moment they shook even a little, they shattered completely."
To make his point, the deputy grabbed a piece from the wreckage of the fallen catapult, squeezed it with both hands, and the iron crumbled into several smaller fragments.
"This is bad!" Karṇa muttered grimly, realizing just how serious the situation had become.
The key reason they had been able to hold the White Walkers at bay until now was the use of wildfire and catapults. Wildfire could completely counter White Walkers and wights, while the catapults allowed them to launch the wildfire deep into enemy lines, dealing devastating blows.
But now, with the catapults crippled by the cold, even if they managed to repair them, they would not last long in these extreme conditions. Without the catapults, their ability to fight the White Walkers and wights would be severely weakened. If battle broke out, the defenders would be forced into direct combat with the enemy, just like during that terrifying night when the White Walkers launched their sudden assault.
Thinking of this, Karṇa's face turned pale. He noticed that his deputy wore the same grim expression, and glancing around, he saw that the other Holy Fire Warriors had all gone equally stiff and uneasy. A thin wave of fear began to ripple silently through the defenders atop the Wall.