148: Chapter 148 The Ice Dragon's Throat Glare

North of the breach in the Wall. Ice Cliff. Dusk.

The last wisp of gray light from the setting sun slowly faded from the Ice Cliff. The Night King stood alone at the edge of the Ice Cliff, his ice-crystal longsword plunged into the ice layer before him. His ice-blue eyes were fixed on the direction of the ruins of the Wall.

The Ice Dragon crouched behind him. The giant beast, formed from ten thousand years of cold ice, had its wings folded, the tips hanging over the edge of the Ice Cliff. The ice-crystal fragments on the edges of its wings collided gently in the wind, emitting a faint tinkling sound.

Its ice-blue eyes were half-closed, and the ice-crystal core deep within its throat pulsed slowly, wrapped in layers of White Walker runes—each pulse condensed the moisture in the surrounding air into fine ice crystals that drifted down.

The way the runes wrapped around the core was not a simple layering; it was weaving.

Eight thousand extremely fine frost rune lines radiated outward from the core. Each rune line vibrated at an extremely low frequency, a frequency that happened to match the rhythm of the Night King's heartbeat—that heart, which had stopped beating eight thousand years ago after being pierced by an obsidian dagger, still had its rhythm lingering in the frost runes, like an echo that would never end.

The Night King sensed the evolution shard.

It was not in the ice. It was not in the fire. It existed at this moment in a form he had never sensed before: ice and fire running parallel within the same vessel, neither blending nor merging, yet checking each other. That was a new form that the evolution shard had evolved on its own. That vessel—that black Dragon—was waiting for him on the ruins of the Wall.

The Night King did not urge the Ice Dragon. He did not order the army of wights to advance. He had waited eight thousand years; he could wait these few hours. He pulled the ice-crystal longsword from the ice layer, the tip carving a long ice groove on the Ice Cliff—extending from the edge of the Ice Cliff all the way to the direction of the ruins of the Wall. The moment the groove was carved, it solidified into a translucent ice channel, with extremely fine frost runes flowing inside, like a blood vessel frozen beneath the ice.

Under his will, the Ice Dragon slowly spread its wings. As the ice wings spread, they kicked up a freezing storm, whipping the accumulated snow on the Ice Cliff into a white mist. It lowered its head, allowing the Night King to step onto the back of its neck. A deep, resonant sound of ice crystals emitted from its throat—that sound was not produced by the throat itself, but was generated by the direct vibration of the air from within the rune-wrapped core layer in its throat. The frequency was extremely low, too low for human ears to hear, but it could be felt.

On the ruins of the Wall, the men of The Nights Watch felt an involuntary tightness in their chests, as if something extremely heavy was pressing down on their hearts.

That was the declaration of war from the White Walkers. No anger, no fear, only cold.

South of the Fist of the First Men. The Northern coalition camp. Afternoon.

The Northern winter had dyed the entire camp gray and white. The House Stark direwolf banner snapped in the cold wind—the fabric was frozen stiff, and every time the wind blew, it sounded like someone beating a taut drum.

Beneath it were the camps of the Northern vassals: the sunburst banner of House Karstark, the chainmail giant banner of House Umber, the bear banner of House Mormont, and the bronze rune banner of House Royce, who had come from the Vale. Campfires struggled in the cold wind, and Northern soldiers sat around them sharpening their swords; the rustling sound of whetstones on blades mixed with the sound of the wind.

Robb Stark stood outside his tent.

A gray wolf-pelt cloak wrapped around his increasingly broad shoulders—he was stronger than during the Battle of King's Landing; not fat, but muscle built up on his shoulders and arms from continuous marching in armor and gripping sword hilts.

His direwolf, Grey Wind, crouched at his feet, his yellow eyes scanning the edge of the camp vigilantly, his ears twitching from time to time to catch any unusual sounds in the wind.

He held a newly arrived raven scroll in his hand. The scroll tube was stamped with the three-headed dragon wax seal of Dragonstone—the wax had frozen brittle in the cold, with a few cracks along the edges.

Sansa stepped out from the tent. She was wearing a Highgarden wool cloak, the edge of the hood trimmed with fine silver sable fur. Her deep blue eyes swept across her brother's face, catching sight of the wax seal on the scroll. She reached out, and Robb handed the scroll to her.

Robb's voice was steady, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"A letter from the Mother of Dragons. Her black Dragon has flown toward the Wall. The fleet departs today. The grain from House Tyrell and the cavalry from House Tully are gathering. She also said—you gave her bread and salt last time on Dragonstone, and she hasn't forgotten."

He paused, his gray-blue eyes looking at his sister.

"Sansa—you never told me you offered her the rites of bread and salt on Dragonstone."

Sansa took the scroll and read it through. She folded it and tucked it into the inner pocket of her cloak. A faint arc appeared at the corner of her mouth—not a smile, but the subtle expression of a Stark caught in a private act of kindness, half-embarrassed and half-composed.

"You didn't ask. And that wasn't politics—it was my own affair. She saved me. Her Dragon helped me count dragonglass at the back door."

Robb didn't press her. He rubbed Grey Wind's ears and turned to the Northern lords behind him. He raised his voice half a tone, steady and clear, carrying far in the cold wind.

"My lords—the Mother of Dragons has dispatched her black Dragon to the Wall. Her fleet and the Dothraki Cavalry are already at sea. House Targaryen has not come to the North to conquer, but to fight alongside us. The Night King is waiting for us on the ruins of the Wall. The ancestors of House Stark have guarded the Wall for eight thousand years—today, it is our turn."

He drew the sword at his waist. It was a replica of the Ice sword that Eddard Stark had left him—forged from valyrian steel, with a direwolf head carved into the hilt. The blade rippled with dark silver under the gray-white light of the North.

"Pass the order—the entire army is to accelerate north. The cavalry will reach the Wall before dawn. The infantry will arrive tomorrow evening. The Dragon is waiting for us on the Wall."

The Northern lords raised their cups and sword hilts, saluting the direwolf banner. The beer in their cups had formed a thin layer of ice in the cold wind.

The ruins of the Wall. Eastwatch beach. Before dawn.

The Dragonstone fleet arrived silently in the waters off the Wall in the pre-dawn darkness. The three-headed dragon banners on the sails were frozen stiff in the cold wind, with a fine layer of white frost rimming the edges of the canvas.

The Unsullied transport ships were the first to dock, the ballast stones at the bottom of the ships scraping against the shallow water with a dull, grinding sound. The fast ships of the Dothraki Cavalry followed closely behind, the prows crowded with riders holding their warhorses. The warhorses had been snorting throughout the journey across the sea, and finally stepped onto solid ground upon reaching the shore.

White Mane was the first to jump off the landing craft. Her leather boots stepped into the icy seawater of the Eastwatch beach, bits of broken ice floating past her ankles. She waded through the water onto the black sand beach, her dragon-kiss sword already drawn, the blade reflecting a cold, ghostly silver light from the sea. A black silk scarf was tied around her left wrist—the red patch was splattered wet by the seawater, the red thread becoming darker, the color difference with the black silk scarf becoming even smaller. But it was still there.

Behind her, the Dothraki Cavalry led their warhorses one after another off the transport ships. Their hooves made dull splashing sounds in the shallow water, and the dragonglass spearheads glinted with a faint, cold light in the night. After stepping off the ships, the warhorses shook the seawater from their manes, blowing white mist in the cold wind of the beach.

White Mane saw the black Dragon silhouette crouching on the beacon tower. Its dark gold scales glowed with a warmth like a forging furnace under the reflection of the beacon fire. A steady, warm sensation came from the Brand on the back of her neck—it was the state unique to Drogon before battle: not calm, but focused to the extreme. The temperature of the Brand was neither high nor low, just a bit higher than the resting value, exactly the same temperature as before he practiced with her on the training field.

She didn't call out a greeting. She simply twirled the dragon-kiss sword in her hand, the blade tracing a silver circle in the air. She issued a brief command to the eight hundred cavalrymen behind her.

"Form up on the beach. Spears in front, sabers behind. Wait for the Dragon to lure the Ice Dragon away, then seal the breach in the Wall. No prisoners—the White Walkers take no prisoners."

The cavalrymen quickly formed ranks on the beach. Their hooves crushed the thin ice on the beach, the ice shards making a fine cracking sound on the black sand. The eight hundred warhorses lined up in three rows in the darkest moment before dawn, their dragonglass spearheads pointed forward in unison—from a distance, it looked like a black eye opening in the darkness.