Chapter 46

The North, facing the Bay of Seals ... ten days later...

“Here they come, men. Damn those wights to all Seven Hells!” Torrhen Snow, a bastard of House Umber, warned the other handpicked men of the small, but growing coastal watch.

He was captain of the watch, after all.

“Get the word to our commander, Tormund Giantsbane. Or failing him, to Sandor Clegane, the Hound,” he added, “now, you know our orders ... set everything ablaze as soon as they land. And pull back for now. We want to kill as many of them as we can. We don’t have lots of dragonglass or Valyrian steel on us, so that leaves fire, that most basic of weapons. We’re going to have to fight ice with fire. That’s just all there is to it. Remember the plan ... and follow orders to the bitter end. Burn everything. Burn them all!”

“Pull back ... pull back and light the tinder! Everyone, retreat and scorch the earth that we leave behind us! Burn it all ... burn them all! Burn everything and burn any and all stragglers!” the call came down the line of the coastal watch.

The fires soon filled the beach with smoke, heavy and oppressive, the heat so forceful that men sweated for leagues away. Everything combustible was set ablaze. No one dared to lag behind. The threat of being incinerated was more than enough to motivate them to keep up with the rest of their comrades.

“They’re walking right into the flames, boys ... wait for them as they fall! They’re too stupid to avoid the fire, but the Night King isn’t ... he’ll have to pull them back for now. Just wait for anyone to get through and pull back to archer’s range for volleys. Get ready to light the arrows!” Snow demanded of his men, and he was far from alone.

Along the shore, several of these companies of the coastal watch, the forward arm of the militia organized by Tormund Giantsbane and Sandor Clegane, did their ugly duty and lit up the sky with the pyres burning everything. Every last beach facing the invaders was a smoking heap of rubble, lumber, and other debris. It certainly slowed the wights and set more than a few of them ablaze, which was a setback that the Night King hadn’t planned for in the least.

Even so, everyone knew that the Night King and the Army of the Dead were in this to the bitter end, come victory or defeat. By now, the regular villagers had been evacuated and the coast was full of hearty Northern militia for the most part, ready to kill or be killed. This was a total war, fought to the finish, no quarter asked or given. No mercy was possible. The wights all had to die and they would need to burn, too, so why not combine these two actions into one?

“It’s gonna be a good while, you know. They’re not going to stop just because we repulsed them here and now. They will continue, and they have far more of them to spare than we do. Who knows how long this war will prove to be and who will actually prevail? I have no confidence in the outcome, whatsoever,” Torrhen Snow told Jallen Tarlor, his sergeant of the watch.

“Yes, sir, but I will take satisfaction in destroying as many as we can,” the archer told him, “and this is but the first real chance to bloody his nose. Time to fire a volley, sir?”

“Do it! Kill them with fire!” Snow grimaced as he ordered the archers to loose a rain of fiery arrows down upon the wights.