All the brothers of the Night's Watch disarmed and entered the Red Keep under the guidance of the grey-robed guard who had informed them. However, they did not go to the Tower of the Hand as Aegor had expected. Instead, they stopped at a small square along the path toward Maegor's Holdfast—where Eddard Stark was already waiting.
As the Hand of the King, Eddard had many pressing duties that day. Stepping out personally was not beneath him if it saved time. He only hoped these Night's Watchmen, who claimed to have brought a "wight" before him, weren't playing a joke. Otherwise, Eddard Stark would not hesitate to show them that he too had a temper.
"My Lord Hand," the brothers of the Night's Watch greeted as the King's Hand came out to meet them personally.
Eddard nodded in acknowledgment but did not return the greeting. Instead, he walked straight to the reinforced wooden cage on the cart and examined the thing locked inside.
...
Wights did not tire, and without the guidance of the White Walkers, they had no sense of strategy... but they would always work together to lunge at the nearest living creature with body heat. Their snarls and ceaseless struggles caused the entire cart to rattle constantly. Fortunately, the cage was tightly secured with ropes, and the horse pulling the cart was a remarkably steady and calm old beast... otherwise, it would have overturned countless times on the road from Linhe Gate to the Red Keep.
"This is a wight?" Eddard was, after all, human, and one of the few in the Seven Kingdoms born to high nobility, with education, reason, and skepticism. He quickly developed the same suspicion Tyrion had voiced before: "It looks to me like a madman afflicted by some disease."
That doubt was easy enough to resolve. They only needed to repeat the "corpse inspection" demonstration they had done before entering. But the weapons of the Night's Watch had already been confiscated.
Fortunately, the guard who had seen the demonstration outside was still present. "My lord, the black brothers just showed us that this man... cannot be killed."
...
Eddard was a man of action. He wasted no words, reaching out to take the guard's sword. He held it in his hand and stared at the Night's Watchmen. "If I stab this man with my sword, and he dies…"
"We leave it to you, my lord."
(If the thing inside was still alive, then killing it would be a mercy.)
With that thought, Eddard Stark didn't hesitate. He found the position of the creature's heart through the bars of the cage and stabbed it cleanly.
The steel blade pierced in and out with ease, leaving only a greasy, translucent, sticky residue on the blade. It emitted a foul smell that no one could identify.
Eddard looked at the sword in his hand, then at the still-struggling figure in the cage. After waiting for half a minute, seeing no sign that the creature was dying, his face—already shadowed with suspicion and anger—grew darker. He stood still, silently brooding.
"Perhaps there are diseases in the world that allow someone to survive a sword through the chest, but wights have one trait no living man could ever possess," Elisha added. "My lord, you could try cutting off one of its limbs."
"Cut off an arm?"
"Anything works, even the head. It will keep moving without its body until it rots away," Alliser said. "But the arms are easiest. They're already sticking out of the cage. One for the Hand and one for King Robert."
Eddard said nothing. He raised the sword and struck the outstretched arms of the wight. The northerners, descendants of the First Men, believed that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. As Warden of the North, Eddard was well-practiced in executions. He lifted the sword and brought it down like an executioner delivering a sentence. One of the wight's arms dropped with a thud to the ground.
He handed the sword back to his guard, bent down, and picked up the severed limb. The arm seemed unaware that it had been detached and continued to flex its fingers, grasping at the air. The scene was grotesque.
Eddard had seen many severed limbs on battlefields. Some did twitch after separation, but it was always in weak, reflexive spasms—nothing like this. The arm he held moved with strength and purpose, as if it was still trying to grab something.
He had never handled something so eerily alive. As he held it, the arm latched onto his own. He tried shaking it off but failed. Alarmed, another guard quickly drew his dagger, pried open the corpse's fingers, and removed the limb from Eddard's arm.
It wasn't life-threatening, but Eddard Stark's face had turned deathly pale.
"This is a wight? There are tens of thousands of them beyond the Wall?" Eddard asked grimly. He immediately realized what his men were also thinking—the North was closest to the Wall and would face the brunt of this threat. "Why haven't the rangers of the Night's Watch discovered them during all these years of patrols?"
"They've only begun appearing in the past year, along with the White Walkers," Alliser answered solemnly. "The worst part is, large animals can also become wights. For every man, wolf, or bear that dies north of the Wall, another of these things is born."
Faced with such irrefutable evidence, Eddard no longer dared dismiss the threat. For the first time, he took it seriously. "Are these things truly unkillable? Haven't the Night's Watch found any way to fight them?"
"There is a way. It may be due to the corpse oil on the blade, but wights are extremely flammable. Once set alight, they burn quickly and die. Fire is the most effective weapon against them," Alliser explained. "But fire doesn't work on another enemy, the White Walkers. Aegor once reported killing one with a dragonglass dagger, which was later confirmed by the rangers who helped capture this wight. They also successfully used a dragonglass arrow to slay a White Walker. We later tried dragonglass against the wights. It does work, but the effect is minimal."
Eddard turned to Aegor, his gaze complex. Ever since this stranger had followed Benjen to Winterfell and claimed to have slain a White Walker, Eddard had thought of him as a cunning liar. Though he gradually came to see him as clever, capable, and manipulative... deep down, he still believed he was not to be trusted.
Was I wrong from the beginning? Is this man truly the "White Walker Slayer"?
...
"The effect is limited? What do you mean?" Aegor asked. "Can dragonglass really kill wights?"
"Yes, but only when it hits their vital spots... The problem is, we don't know where those vital spots are," Dommi added. He had faced wights beyond the Wall and had earned the right to speak. "In real combat, hitting the head or chest usually kills them. But the rangers at Castle Black reported that after giants or other large animals become wights, hitting the head or chest doesn't kill them quickly. Also, wights led by White Walkers are harder to kill than regular ones... On the other hand, fire arrows usually kill them with one hit. They are the most effective weapon against wights."
"But fire arrows can't be prepared in advance like dragonglass arrows. After lighting them, you have to wait for the torch to heat the tip. Otherwise, the arrow just burns out after it's shot… It's fine for defending a castle, but totally unrealistic for open-field battles," Alliser shrugged, then pulled a letter from his cloak. "This is a letter from Lord Commander Mormont to you and His Grace. He instructed me to deliver it after you'd seen the wights, since the maester wouldn't send it by raven—he didn't believe in the existence of wights or White Walkers."
Eddard took the letter and opened it, frowning as he read.
As he studied Mormont's message, Jaqen asked Eddard's guards for the still-moving severed arm. Holding it before him, he examined it with disbelief. Aegor remained deep in thought.
---
Dragonglass works on wights, but its killing power is limited? Aegor frowned. Because of what had happened the night before, he had gone straight to the Red Keep after joining the escort team this morning. He hadn't yet had time to speak with Alliser and the others, so he had just learned this information... He tried to recall his conversation with Melisandre on Dragonstone about the White Walkers.
The White Walkers' bodies were almost entirely composed of magic, making them immune to most physical attacks. Only a physical shell embedded with sufficient fire magic could harm them... but what about the wights?
Aegor had pondered this question long ago. Wights were not creations of the Night King per se, but rather resembled necromantic weapons—corpses animated and manipulated by traces of ice magic or necromancy. This connection to the White Walkers made them obedient subordinates.
Wights had no vital points. Yet the Night's Watch reported that hitting certain places with dragonglass could sometimes kill them. Unless the wights were faking death, it wasn't the physical damage that killed them, it had to be something else. After much thought, Aegor found only one explanation: it was the fire magic within the dragonglass that, upon striking the "vital spot," neutralized or dispersed the necromantic energy animating the corpse, severing its link to the White Walkers or the so-called "God of Cold." That caused the phenomenon of "dragonglass kills wights."
As for why larger wights or those led by White Walkers weren't as easily slain by dragonglass—it was likely because they held more ice magic within their bodies. Or perhaps wights near White Walkers received constant magical reinforcement, making the minor magic in the dragonglass insufficient.
This was all speculation. Perhaps only the Night King or even the "God of Cold" truly understood. But suddenly, Aegor had a new idea: If his hypothesis was correct, two critical questions emerged—first, would a captive wight, far from the Lands of Always Winter and the White Walkers, eventually run out of ice magic and revert to a corpse? Second, could wights that had "died" to dragonglass beyond the Wall be resurrected again by White Walkers?
As he pondered these thoughts, a strong voice called out from afar. Barristan approached with a worried expression. "Eddard, I've been looking for you. What are you doing here?"
(To be continued.)
***
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