Chapter 297: Construction of the Forts at the Wall
The Wall
POV of Domeric Bolton
Domeric stood on top of the Wall, his woolen scarf fluttering in the cold wind as he gazed down at the castle under the Wall.
"Don't go too close to the wall." He heard Tyrion say from behind him, "I've heard a fair share of stories from the brothers of the Watch about men falling to their death due to carelessness."
He looked back at Tyrion and smiled, "Do you think that something like a 200-meter fall would kill me?" he asked.
Tyrion paused, looked at his Valyrian features, and shrugged, "There was a time when I would have said yes. Now… I very much doubt it."
"Castle Stonedoor, Hoarfrost Hill, Icemark, and Nightfort." He recited from memory. "This is Nightfort then?" he asked as he observed the hundreds, if not thousands, of ant-sized men working below.
Tyrion also looked down, but he was more afraid and cautious about it. "Yes. The castle with haunted stories. A castle so cursed that even the brothers of the Night's Watch are afraid of coming here."
Domeric scoffed at it. "It was not abandoned because it was cursed." He said, "Castle Nightfort is the largest of the 18 Castles along the Wall. And the oldest. It was abandoned during the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen due to the high costs needed to maintain it. It was not the first castle to be abandoned. It was the 12th or 13th."
"To think that the Nights Watch once used to control all 18 castles on its own." Tyrion said and stepped back from the edge of the Wall, "I wonder what it must be like for the brothers back then. When the Night's Watch was actually an honorable institution and not a hovel where the Seven Kingdoms throw their worst men to freeze off their balls."
He chuckled, "It's almost ironic that the Night's Watch was built to protect against the White Walkers, but it forgot its reason for existence and fought for centuries against the Wildlings. And now that the real enemy has finally returned, the brothers have dwindled to such a large degree that they only hold three castles. Moreover, those castles are not all that well-maintained."
"Life does have the tendency to fuck you over," Tyrion said with a wise nod. "At least we still have the Wall. So that's something."
"Yeah. Fighting against the White Walkers in Long Night without the protection of the Wall would have been a downright bitch."
"You think the Wall will ever fall?" Tyrion asked, his tone a little serious this time.
He turned to the man and nodded, "It is a magical construct. Destroy the magic holding it, and it's collapse under its own weight."
Tyrion shivered at that. "You truly think the White Walkers can do something like that? Destroy the magic and bring down the Wall?"
"It is possible." He said with a nod, "But they'll have to cross the Wall even to attempt such a thing. So, we'd better make sure they don't do that."
Tyrion nodded, and he put a hand on his shoulder, and with an apparition, they were a kilometer away from Nightfort, looking at it from the top of a hill under camouflage.
He took out a telescope and started observing the castle once again.
"The Castle and its buildings have already been rebuilt." Tyrion said from beside him, "It could hold 4000-5000 men at this point. Will that be enough?"
"Perhaps. But to be on the cautious side, build more buildings outside the Wall. Double that number. If the men of the South truly do come to fight alongside us, then we'll need more space."
Tyrion nodded at him, "It'll take time."
"We have time." He replied, "Not a lot, but we have enough. This Summer should last 3-5 more years, and then Autumn should last 1-2 years before Winter starts. That's 4 years at worst and 7 years at best."
Tyrion nodded.
"I also want you to build two other elevators beside the main one." He said, "These will be magical in nature and should be much faster in sending supplies up to the Wall during a siege."
"A siege. How many wights do the White Walkers have?"
"As many corpses as they could have collected in the past thousands of years." He replied, "300,000 would be my lowest estimate. But that number could increase to 1,000,000. Perhaps even more."
Tyrion's jaw dropped, and he took out a wine bottle and took a swig from it.
"That's… how many men do the North have?" Tyrion asked.
"For now, 30,000-40,000." He said, "During the Winter, if we force conscription of the levies, then that number might increase to 100,000 men. Double that if the men from the South come to support us. The odds are not that bad, especially with the Wall. But it is not the wights I'm worried about. The White Walkers are the real danger here. Their power will only increase even more during Winter. And they just need to take over one castle. A single one. And the whole Wall will fall."
Tyrion nodded, taking another swig from the bottle. "What happens if the Wall falls?" he asked.
"I'll do my best to make sure that such a thing doesn't happen." He said, "But if the Wall does fall, then the wights will enter the North. No army will be able to stop them at that point. And that North has 5 million men, women, and children."
"That… I can see why you said that the whole of Westeros will be fucked if something happened to the Wall."
He shrugged, "At least we have the Wall. The first men didn't even have that, but they did succeed in chasing away the White Walkers."
"But if it does fall. What then?" Tyrion asked.
"If it does fall, then we'll have to mass-migrate to Essos and save as many people as we can. Then hope that the White Walkers don't learn how to cross the Narrow Sea."
Tyrion took another swig from the bottle and nodded, "I'll see to the construction of the buildings and the elevators. You see your side of the thing. And let's hope that the Wall stands till the end of the Long Night."
"For hope of a better future." He nodded.
"For hope." Tyrion nodded and finished the bottle in a single gulp.
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.298: Time Changes Everything
Ch.299: Wolf Becomes Sheep - I (+18)
Ch.300: Wolf Becomes Sheep - II (+18)