"Oi?"
After talking for quite a while without hearing any response from his companion, the young maester—having just finished struggling to take off his shoes—instinctively raised his head to look over.
Then he saw the most horrifying scene he would ever witness in his life.
The corpse that had moments ago been lying on the wooden board, allowing them to handle it freely and conduct the examination, had somehow stood up.
Even though its internal organs had long since been removed and soaked in a specially prepared solution, and portions of its muscles and skin had been cut open by them.
Even so, the chest that had been split apart by a hand axe was now gaping hollowly, bloody and raw, right before his eyes.
The ruptured chest cavity lay exposed, empty and dark within.
Pale ribs jutted out starkly, while stiff, shattered flesh hung in uneven strips.
The maester was struck by the sight and froze, his mouth gaping open, his throat feeling as though it had been cinched tight by a dog leash—unable to force out even the slightest sound.
Faced with the hollow chest where the organs had been removed, he instinctively lifted his gaze further upward.
The neck and throat, dissected along with the chest, were likewise wide open, the charred, brittle skin split and flared to either side.
The dead body's tongue—still in its mouth because it had not been cut away, yet lacking any muscular support—hung long and limp outside.
Looking higher still, those blue, sapphire-like eyes stared straight at him, seeming to glow.
A hammer that had just been used to help split open the corpse's chest was now gripped in the corpse's hand.
When he finally comprehended everything before him, cold sweat poured down in an instant, soaking the maester's back.
The sight, so far beyond all understanding, caused his mind to seize up—he even forgot how to breathe.
Only when the hammer was slowly raised, and the shadow of death fell over him, did his instinct for survival finally wrench his reason back.
He instinctively looked toward his companion, wanting to call out for help.
However, when he forced his stiff neck to turn and looked over, he realized that beside his companion stood another corpse as well—its skull pried open halfway, its brain exposed, with nearly half of the brain matter scooped out.
The corpse's only remaining hand was gripping a crescent-shaped hand axe—except that the axe was now in a place where it should never have been.
It had been driven horizontally into his companion's neck.
Fresh blood streamed out in a steady gush from the neck, the head already tilting to one side from lack of support, splashing across the bed in front of him.
That was the last scene he ever saw.
"Ah—!"
A panicked cry rang out beyond the window. In the candlelight, the shadow of an arm raised high with a hammer fell downward, scattering specks of shadow.
...
"What kind of monster is that?!"
"Help! Help!"
"They're killing people—they're killing people!"
In the Black Castle, which moments before had been so quiet that only the cold wind howled, a cascade of alarmed shouts erupted.
Pain-filled screams, terrified cries for help, and furious roars mixed together into utter chaos.
The sudden turmoil jolted those who had been sleeping awake.
But when they hastily threw on their outer garments, grabbed their weapons, and rushed outside, all they saw on the snow-covered ground in the darkness were more than a dozen figures chasing and fighting one another.
At a glance, they all seemed to be their own people.
Some were shouting curses, some were begging for mercy, crying out for help.
Some were already lying motionless on the ground, while others were trembling, writhing, and crawling.
And of course, there were still those fleeing for their lives.
Staring at everything before them, the newly awakened people had no idea what was happening; they could only look on in confusion at the inexplicable scene.
Until a shout rang out from within the chaos.
"They've come back to life—the corpses from the daytime have come back to life! They're wights, servants of the Others!"
"They've come to claim the lives of the living!"
"Kill them—we have to kill them!"
The soldiers from the Westerlands had no idea what was going on, the jumble of chaotic shouts from all sides throwing their judgment into disarray.
Instinctively, they felt this must be a rebellion, yet the words about Others mixed into the shouting only left them confused and unsure of what to do.
Only a very small number of the original Night's Watchmen, upon hearing the name of the Others, realized what they were facing.
But confronted with an unknown terror that had vanished thousands of years ago, something confined to stories, how many people could truly muster the courage to face it.
So those pairs of conspicuous blue eyes in the darkness of the night continued to take lives one after another.
Yet those who fell, after a period of time, would tremble and struggle as they climbed back up from the snow once more.
Then they joined the attacks against their former companions, staring at them with eyes that had likewise turned a vivid blue.
Greater chaos began.
In the night, not many people could awaken at the same time, come out, see this scene, and understand what was happening.
Coupled with the dim darkness, it was simply not enough for these southern soldiers to react immediately.
Some were wounded and fleeing, some were falling.
For a time, only three or four dozen people dared to rush forward to fight, but when facing more than twenty former companions who had turned into wights, they were utterly unable to form any effective fighting strength.
And so the chaos inevitably spread.
The commotion in the otherwise quiet night awakened Tywin Lannister from his sleep. He frowned and opened his eyes, his expression tinged with confusion as to why it was so noisy outside.
He first instinctively glanced at the sky outside the window—it was still pitch-black.
But the sounds of killing only grew louder.
Then, immediately after, his door suddenly rang out with a violent impact.
It sounded as though someone was charging straight at his door and crashing into it without the slightest hesitation.
The sudden crash in the night startled Tywin Lannister, who had still been wondering what was happening.
But he had no time to think further. In an instant, he leapt up from the bed and, in one smooth motion, grabbed the "Longclaw" placed beside him and moved to the door.
The Valyrian steel sword slipped soundlessly from its leather scabbard. Tywin pressed himself to the side of the door, gripping the hilt one-handed, the sword tip aimed squarely at the doorway.
The sudden battering at the door, combined with the chaotic sounds of killing outside, made Tywin immediately realize that someone was trying to kill him.
He did not know what was happening, but he knew that the first thing he had to deal with was the person who had come to end his life.
He was not foolish enough to ask who was outside; the mere act of smashing into the door was enough to tell him that the visitor meant ill.
And sure enough, after the earlier impact, as he stood silently against the wall listening to the sounds outside.
He then heard, from beyond the door in the study, the sound of something scraping as it climbed back up again, followed by footsteps.
Realizing what was about to happen next, Tywin Lannister's attention sharpened to its peak.
Listening to the faint footsteps outside as they retreated, his left hand—pressed to the wall and free—quietly reached out and gently slid back the iron bolt that barred the door.
At that very instant, the footsteps outside, which had been faint, suddenly grew loud, each step quicker than the last.
Until, with another bang, the door was struck again.
But unlike before, when the door had only given a slight shake, this time the figure battering it—after crashing into the door—lost balance and tumbled inside, because the door no longer had the support it had had a moment ago.
The figure flashed past before him.
Tywin Lannister did not move to deal with him at once.
Instead, contrary to his usual manner, he ducked and lunged straight out through the doorway, fleeing his not-very-spacious bedchamber.
Yet just as he seized on the sudden opening to catch them off guard—brandishing the longsword in his hand and guarding against the enemy he expected beyond the door—the study outside was empty.
No—it was not empty.
Looking from the study's doorway farther out, he could see that the guard who should have been keeping watch for him had, at some point, fallen face-down onto the floor.
With no enemy as expected, Tywin instinctively froze for a beat.
But he reacted quickly, realizing at once that this was not some enemy force that had struck in from elsewhere; in that case, the most likely explanation for the situation before him was a mutiny by the Night's Watchmen who still held fast.
Seeing that matters were not as bad as he had imagined, Tywin Lannister let out a quiet breath of relief.
He lowered the Valyrian steel longsword in his hand slightly, steadied his breathing, and only then turned back into his room.
But the moment he stepped over the threshold, he discovered that the man who had fallen inside still had the strength to rise to his feet.
As he looked at that back, under the room's faint candlelight and the glow of the brazier, Tywin felt, for no clear reason, that it seemed familiar.
And strangely, this enemy who had come to kill him had nothing at all in either hand.
No—
Looking more closely, Tywin saw that the man's hands were black, and his whole body carried an extremely eerie sense.
Before Tywin could fully make sense of what he was seeing, the figure that had climbed up from the floor turned around as well.
However, as the figure turned around, Tywin Lannister's eyes widened.
Because he now knew why the person before him had felt familiar.
Because the one standing in front of him was none other than one of the corpses he had seen in the daytime.
Looking at the dense wounds on the corpse before him, packed like a rash and spreading from the throat all the way down to the lower body, Tywin felt a chill run through him.
In an instant, he overturned the notion of a Night's Watch mutiny, and recalled the tales from eight thousand years ago—tales of the Night's Watch, and of the Wall.
Staring into those blue eyes in the night, greedy and brimming with killing intent as they fixed on him, all Tywin could do was raise Longclaw in his hand.
Then, without warning, the wight lunged at Tywin Lannister.
Without hesitation—whatever this ghostly thing truly was—Tywin Lannister could only swing his longsword.
As one of the most powerful lords in Westeros, Tywin Lannister had received the education of an elite from childhood; so even though he was now advanced in years, he had not let his martial skill fall away.
Facing a mere wight, in the instant the two crossed, Longclaw in his hand swept across the wight's throat.
When he turned back around with sword in hand, the wight that had come to kill him was standing stiffly in place.
Then its mouth—its gums exposed by the wounds—worked open and shut, and a head simply dropped from its neck.
Yet before that head could hit the ground, it turned into a clump of black ash, like embers burned out, and shattered the instant it struck the floor.
And the headless corpse that had frozen in place followed a heartbeat later, collapsing into ash as well, piling up on the ground.
The clothes that had been on the corpse also fell with it, draping over the heap of embers.
Granting it its last scrap of dignity.
With the danger dealt with, Tywin stared at everything before him, stunned in place.
From the moment it began to now, he still did not know what had happened.
And this thing that had come to kill him, like the wights of legend, had actually turned to ash after he cut off its head.
Any one of these things alone was enough to challenge Tywin Lannister's understanding.
With a hard swallow, even Tywin Lannister could not help feeling a faint chill of dread and tension.
He looked at the ash on the floor, then at the Valyrian steel longsword in his hand. Though he still did not fully understand what was happening, he nevertheless realized that this most likely had something to do with what he was holding.
At that moment, a cold wind blew in through the wide-open doorway, scattering the ash across the floor.
Tywin shuddered in the chill and snapped back to himself. Seeing the thin nightclothes on his body, he quickly turned around, grabbed the clothes he had taken off before sleeping, and pulled them on, not even bothering to throw on a cloak.
He shoved his feet into his boots, picked up Longclaw once more, and hurried outside.
In such a short span of time, the commotion outside had grown even louder than before.
But just as he stepped into the corridor beyond the door, he was forced to halt again.
Because the dead guard who should have been keeping watch for him was now beginning to writhe, as if trying to crawl back to his feet. Seeing this, Tywin instinctively started forward—but the moment those deep blue eyes locked onto him, carrying the same greed and killing intent, Tywin Lannister withdrew the hand he had reached out and instead brought up Longclaw.
Before the wight that the guard had become could launch an attack, Tywin's sword had already pierced straight through its chest.
In the next instant, the familiar yet fantastical scene appeared once more.
The wight whose heart he had pierced turned into a heap of embers and scattered on the wind, like wood that had been completely burned by fire.
This made Tywin tighten his grip on the sword in his hand.
He had already realized that his weapon was indeed no ordinary blade.
Yet just as he was silently considering whether Valyrian steel weapons were meant to deal with such things, a series of hurried footsteps rang out again from the stairwell.
With his nerves stretched taut, Tywin Lannister could not afford any distraction and could only raise Longclaw once more.
"Brother?!"
"Kevan?!"
"It's me—I saw someone come your way!"
"Are you all right?"
Kevan asked urgently.
Kevan was holding a longsword as well, his face full of anxiety, breathing hard.
Only after he saw that his elder brother Tywin was safe and sound did he finally let out a breath of relief.
"We may have run into those damned things—"
Hearing Kevan ask him what was going on, Tywin Lannister deliberately glanced at his brother's eyes. After confirming that they were still green, he finally let out a breath of relief.
Then he looked at the ash on the floor, his tone filled with complexity and disbelief.
"Ah—what happened?"
Kevan Lannister still had no idea what was going on. When the chaos broke out, his first instinct had been to go out and take a look.
But before he could make sense of what was happening, his sharp eyes noticed that someone seemed to be heading toward the Lord Commander's Tower.
Afraid that something might happen to his elder brother, he did not bother dealing with the chaotic situation and hurried over instinctively.
"The corpses we saw during the day were very likely not the work of the wildlings. They should be the Others—no, more precisely, wights."
After arriving at the Wall, aside from knowing that the Night's Watch's enemies were the wildlings beyond it, Tywin Lannister was naturally not ignorant of the Night's Watch's history.
And after personally encountering something so extraordinary—and having now cut down two of them with his own hand—how could Tywin fail to understand what he was facing?
"The Others?"
Tywin's words left Kevan Lannister momentarily stunned. He had thought that the Night's Watch had fallen into internal strife, that someone was taking advantage of the chaos to try to kill his brother Tywin Lannister and set things right afterward.
Who would have imagined that when he rushed over, his brother would tell him that the attack they had suffered came from those terrifying creatures of storybooks?
"Yes. Those things are not legends."
Facing Kevan's bewilderment, Tywin said calmly after steadying himself.
As he spoke, he glanced once at Longclaw in his hand, then again at the ash on the ground.
"We have to put an end to this chaos as quickly as possible. Anyone killed by those things will turn into one of them."
With that, Tywin did not wait for Kevan Lannister to ask anything further. Carrying his longsword, he left the area at once.
And at this moment, within the Black Castle, after the initial confusion had passed, the Lannister soldiers—rising up in fury to fight back—had also come to realize that their enemy was not human.
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