Chapter 57

The Bay of Seals
A week later...

The next landing of the Army of the Dead was in such numbers that they dwarfed anything that the local defenders had ever faced before. Wights swarmed over the shore with a desperate urgency, and any lookouts who spied out the Night King’s ships would notice that none stayed aboard said vessels. The Night King no longer held onto any reserves. He had committed every wight and White Walker in his ranks. He was in for the conquest of the North.

The local militia commanded by Tormund Giantsbane and Sandor Clegane were aware that Yara Greyjoy, known as “Yara the Bottomless,” Queen of the Iron Islands, had departed for Skagos and Skane. They did not know that she had indeed swept those isles of all White Walkers and wights. This was the cause of this new, desperate push to conquer Westeros once and for all, gaining more wights as they pushed inland. The numbers involved were so great that the defenses, even with blazing fields, could not hold back the tide.

Jallen and Nardel were among the fallen now, respectively, with a new captain of the watch and sergeant-at-arms. These were Kyllan Moss as captain of the watch and Ando Ryser as sergeant-at-arms. Moss was originally from Mole’s Town, the son of a whore, his father almost certainly a senior brother of the Night’s Watch. Ryser was a sellsword who had joined the militia, but began in Gullstown in the Vale, the son of a Targaryen soldier from the Crownlands before the capture of that town during Robert’s Rebellion.

The massive wight horde was simply too much. It forced the large number of militia and watchmen (was there a difference?) and Free Folk defending the Bay of Seals to gradually retreat. Worse, the flaming arrows didn’t burn enough of the slain in the process to prevent them rising as wights. Far too many of them rose as such and thus increased the ranks of the Army of the Dead at the expense of the Westerosi force. Still, this was a fighting retreat, not a panicky rout, and the various warriors of the coastal force gave back as well as they could.

Things were very desperate indeed, even as more fresh troops finally joined the fray, as these were hardly enough just yet. They hadn’t tilted the balance in the favor of the men as one might hope, though those could still change things for the better. Riding in the van of these troops, which were the Lannister prisoners and the men of White Harbor, was Ser Marlon Manderly himself. He had been given command of these captive troops as well as the White Harbor bannermen when Yara the Bottomless turned over half of the former Lannister guards to Lady Wynafryd. The retreat of the coastal troops and the advance of Manderly’s detachments slowly, but steadily closed the distance between these forces.

“Finally here at the front, I see, good ser. Took you long enough. You said that they were ready about a week back, as I remember,” Tormund scolded Ser Marlon, even as Sandor Clegane, the Hound, was busy doing what a good deputy must do.

“Aye, but I had to deal with a stupid mutiny five days ago. Slowed things down. Caused, of all things, by word that any slain or fallen men would be burned rather than buried. I was called a faithless, godless man of the North. Then I burned those rebels alive to make my point and prayed for their souls to the Mother and the Stranger in the presence of the men, with the aid of a septon, no less.

“When they learned that I was a true knight and was indeed named in the Light of the Seven, they ceased all disquiet. They understood then that it wasn’t godless ignorance, but necessity, that forced my hand. The mutiny definitely created some troubles and delayed my arrival,” Manderly explained, indicating some religious controversy.