Missing Sandor Clegane and Brienne of Tarth, and the group would be complete. This thought uncontrollably popped into Aegor's mind.
Calling Qyburn by name, without his assistant, and bringing Beric and Thoros along, plus the blacksmith Tobho and his royal bastard apprentice whose existence Aegor had almost forgotten, he successfully left the King's Gate before King's Landing closed, as planned, and boarded a ship from the Industrial Park's dock to begin the northbound voyage.
He had originally come for nitrate, but factoring in the sailors and the newly joined people brought back, including people, equipment, tools, and luggage, the living people on the ship actually weighed more than the cargo. The Blackbird was originally a small sailboat. To make space for the eight new passengers, Aegor had to put in a lot of effort arranging the duty roster and allocating accommodation, and also threw away more than half of the ballast, to ensure the ship was not overloaded and everyone had a bed to sleep in. They managed to set sail just before sunset. To avoid slighting the Earl of Black Harbour and the invited master blacksmith, he even shared the Commander's cabin with Beric and Tobho.
Fortunately, on the return journey, he did not have to rack his brain writing half a book of a magically altered Prince, and although it was so cramped there was no environment for any work, enduring it would be fine.
Both fleets of Stannis and Daenerys, which were patrolling Blackwater Bay separately, readily allowed the Blackbird to pass. He saw the sea before dark. The northbound return was not as easy as the journey here. Due to weather conditions, the Blackbird stopped and anchored for two nights and did not sail overnight. However, compared to the average weather standards of the Narrow Sea in winter, this was already as smooth as if the Seven had blessed them, and no one had any complaints to make. Finally, after another week of sailing, Aegor, who had been away from the Wall for half a month, completed this eventful but safe absence within the expected timeframe and returned to the dock at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
The port was empty with no other ships in sight, but fortunately, the workers and soldiers going back and forth on shore still clearly looked like living people. This truly made Aegor, who had not received any news from the Gift for over ten days, breathe a sigh of relief. As soon as he disembarked, the eight guests brought back from King's Landing were still looking up in amazement at the Ice Wall, while Aegor had already started asking Cotter Pyke, his former election rival who was now the obedient and settled Commander of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, about the latest situation at the Wall.
"There have been constant situations at Shadow Tower and Great Gorge. A few days ago, we could receive raven messages daily, roughly concerning military intelligence like 'the dead have appeared within sight of the Rangers on the south side of the Great Gorge, urgent need for support.' But later, because the messages were too frequent and there were not enough ravens, I stopped receiving news from the west side of the Wall. I can only rely on intelligence exchanged between Rangers on top of the Wall to confirm that no fortresses have fallen yet."
Aegor nodded. Communication methods were backward and capacity was limited. He could not expect to understand the situation of the entire Gift from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. As long as the Wall had not fallen, there was no need to panic. "Alright, send someone to prepare carts and horses. I need to return to Crown Town immediately with the guests and some special cargo."
"Yes, Lord Commander." When he lost the election for Commander and was forced to swear allegiance, Cotter Pyke was almost certain that the Night's Watch would be buried in Aegor's hands, but now time had proven the conservatives' worries were unfounded. Although he still felt dissatisfied, he no longer had any thought of making meaningless provocations against the Commander's authority. "Also, Lord Commander, there is a situation at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea that needs to be reported immediately. The weather at the Bay of Seals is so cold that it is constantly freezing even during the day. You can see, there are no ships in the harbor because both the Storm Crow and the Claw, as well as the newly commissioned Bear Old and Maester Aemon donated by White Harbor, are performing ice-breaking tasks around the clock. When the ice is not thick, breaking it is not difficult, but the difficulty is preventing the broken but unfrozen thin ice from overlapping and forming thick ice. Even if this problem is solved, we have to dispatch ships to intercept or find ways to remove ice floes drifting from other places. As soon as the Blackbird's cargo is unloaded, I will send her out as well. But this is already operating at full capacity. If the temperature continues to drop, the freezing situation will soon become too severe for manpower to fight against, and once the Bay of Seals freezes over, it will be much easier for the White Walkers to walk over the ice than to cross the Great Gorge!"
Ultimately, the subtext was one sentence. Although the situation in the Great Gorge was urgent, Eastwatch-by-the-Sea also needed support.
"Let the Blackbird join the ice removal effort to hold on for a while. If there are still merchant ships coming from Essos or the South later, I will forcibly requisition ships and personnel in my name to assist in breaking the ice." Aegor nodded, not giving a direct answer. He just needed a little more time. Once the Dragon Crystal Bombs were successfully mass-produced, he could not wait for the White Walkers to come and die. "As for troop allocation, I will give you a reply as soon as possible after understanding the situation along the entire length of the Wall."
There were not enough ships, but there were plenty of people. The unloading of nitrate was completed quickly, filling two carts with whole barrels. There were not enough remaining horses for Rangers to ride if they wanted to save some for backup, so Aegor could only cram the guests who had traveled a long way into a Gift public horse-drawn carriage to achieve the goal of returning to Crown Town all in one trip.
The capital of the Gift still stood properly beside the King's Road, and was even a bit more lively than usual. After the town area outside the core fortress was fully completed last month, Aegor had let the permanent residents move out of tents and into simple but at least wind and rain-proof cabins. But now, as the fully loaded convoy approached Crown Town along the road almost covered by snow, everyone could see dense tents had been set up outside the high walls of Crown Town again, and many New Gift People wrapped in worn furs were moving among the tents, curiously staring at the convoy consisting of three large carts approaching from a distance.
"Crown Town is bigger than I heard," Beric Dondarrion said in surprise, but then asked more strangely, "But I thought there was no distinction between nobles and commoners in the Gift. How can such a large town not accommodate all residents, forcing these people to pitch tents at the foot of the city wall?"
"There were none of these tents when I left, but I had already decided to issue a medium-level warning in advance on the day I went to King's Landing," Aegor naturally understood where the crowd in front of him came from. "According to the plan, all Gift residents whose homes are more than a day's journey from the nearest fortress are to pack their things and consolidate into the pre-arranged fortresses. These people currently living outside the walls are mostly those who rushed here from the area around Crown Town after the warning was issued. Because they were slow and arrived late, there was no time to arrange accommodation for them, and to avoid disrupting the order within the walls, they can only temporarily stay outside the city."
Beric nodded and continued to ask with interest, "You mentioned a medium-level warning, so I presume there are also high and low levels? If it is not confidential, could you briefly explain what conditions trigger each of these three levels of warning, and what the corresponding plans are?"
"The low level goes without saying. Because there have long been anomalies within the Haunted Forest beyond the Wall, the Gift has been on low alert ever since I became Commander. Adult males undergo regular basic military training, snow on important roads is cleared at all times, ground and Wall-top patrols are never interrupted, every inhabited village must have soldiers on night watch, and so on. As the guards of the northernmost frontier, even in peacetime, this is the minimum level of vigilance. As for the medium level, when a large enemy force is detected appearing in the area near the Wall and the Commander feels the enemy has offensive intent, they can announce entry into this state. All activities are consolidated around defensible fortresses, and patrol strength is increased to maximum." Aegor carefully surveyed the tent dwellers at the foot of the wall and casually introduced, "As for the high level, that is the final moment. When the White Walkers lead the dead to officially attack the defense line and signal fires are lit everywhere. At that time, not only these temporary residents under the city wall, but the entire Gift plus the area along the Wall, a total of about forty-five thousand soldiers and civilians, will all be evacuated without exception into the nineteen plus one, twenty fortresses along the Wall, Crown Town, and the Bay of Seals..." Saying this, Aegor also remembered that the existence of Ice Canyon Port was currently a military secret of the North, and quickly stopped. "Open the armories and distribute all kinds of Dragon Crystal and burning weapons to every person capable of fighting, stop all production activities, and either wait for the good news of 'the front-line defenders repelling the enemy at the gates' to lift the alert, or face the final decisive battle."
"This is truly being fully prepared, I am impressed." Beric sincerely praised, realizing that the rumors he had heard these days about the earth-shattering changes in the Night's Watch's combat power under the new Commander were not exaggerated at all. He had also led soldiers and had some vague concept of what fighting was like. These three states, high, medium, and low, coupled with corresponding specific policies and measures, even without considering the equipment level, just the ability to execute this set of plans properly would make them an army with astonishing combat power even if they were only armed with wooden sticks.
Fortunately, the Gift has few people, otherwise, under the leadership of such a Commander, there would be absolutely no problem even if they rebelled to seize the Iron Throne.
Amidst the creaking sound of turning wheels, the convoy entered the outer city gate of Crown Town and crossed through the neatly planned streets. Aegor quickly found that there seemed to be many more people in the town than expected, far exceeding the number of people who should be here seeking refuge under a medium-level warning. The situation seemed somewhat different from what he had imagined.
Each with their own thoughts, the group finally arrived at the inner fort. Before even walking out of the gate, Aegor first heard the clear shouting coming from the training ground nearby, which was clearly Arya's voice.
(To be continued.)