Before the sky darkened completely, the tide of ghouls finally receded.

At least in the area around Castle Black, these monsters that crawled out of their graves were either burned to ashes or chopped to pieces and scattered in the snow.

But in other parts of the Great Wall of Desperation, has it been broken through by the army of ghouls······ This is a question that Eddard Stark, the commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch who has just experienced a fierce battle, dare not think about.

Dragging his tired body, he commanded his men to clean up the battlefield and rescue the wounded.

The white dragon swooped down from the sky and landed in front of him.

The fiery aura emanating from his body formed a warm shield within a radius of several hundred meters, blocking out the cold winter wind.

"Your Majesty." Seeing the king leap from the dragon's back, Ed leaned down and saluted.

"You fought very bravely in this battle, and the Night's Watch is indeed the shield that protects the kingdom." Samwell was not hesitant to praise.

"What about us?" A crisp voice interjected abruptly.

"The savage warriors are also very heroic." Samwell smiled as he looked at Var, who was walking over with a spear. Var nodded in satisfaction, but then sighed and became sorrowful:

"It's a pity, we just defended the Black Castle, the Great Wall of Despair is so long, I don't know how the other places are······"

Hearing this, everyone's hearts became heavy.

"Maybe it's not that bad." Sir Dennis pretended to be relaxed and said, "The Great Wall has just collapsed, and those monsters are probably not prepared, and the attack on the Black Castle may be the largest wave, and there may be only a few ghouls in other places running south." ”

"Are you southerners so good at deceiving yourselves?" Var sneered unceremoniously, "Or do you think that wave just now is all the strength of the ghouls?"

Sir Dennis replied stiffly:

"We southerners at least don't run to someone's house like a beggar to ask for shelter and still put on the posture of a master."

"Alright, stop arguing." Ed stepped forward to play a round game, "However, I'm afraid there are fifty or sixty thousand ghouls we killed just now, so it should be regarded as a wave of main forces." ”

"Then you're underestimating the monsters that crawl out of the grave." "The wave just now is at most a small forward. The real army of ghouls is not yet there······ Oh no, maybe it was from somewhere else, after all, the Great Wall is so long. ”

"Don't scare people out there." Dennis said, "Those monsters haven't been able to make it to the Great Wall before, how big can they be?" Or are you savages dead in the hundredth thousands? ”

"There are indeed hundreds of thousands of living savages." The corners of Wa's mouth turned up slightly, "But what about the dead?" Do you know how many people have died in the Land of Eternal Winter over the millennia? Now, they have all crawled out of their graves under the summons of the strangers. ”

These words directly silenced the night watchman.

They shudder at the thought of the number of wild men who have died in the Land of Eternal Winter for thousands of years.

Samwell shook his head with a smile and said:

"You shouldn't underestimate the enemy, but there's no need to scare people like that. How can a dead person from thousands of years ago crawl out of a grave when he has long since turned to ashes? Even if you consider the weakening of the rate of decay by the cold climate, at most the corpses in the last two or three hundred years need to be worried. ”

Only then did everyone breathe a sigh of relief.

Var chuckled:

"Caesar is still smart, no wonder he can be king. The other guys are so easy to fool. ”

This caused the Night's Watch to glare at the Savage Princess, but could not find a rebuttal.

"Of course, even so, we can't take it lightly." Samwell continued, "The number of ghouls should be in the millions, and the one just now is really not the main force. Moreover, have you noticed that there are only ghouls in the enemy team just now, but not a single strange ghost? ”

Ed nodded lightly and asked:

"Your Majesty, do you think the strange ghosts have not been dispatched? Or did you deliberately avoid Castle Black? ”

"I guess I deliberately avoided Castle Black." She looked at Caesar with her big bright eyes, "They're afraid of you." ”

Samwell nodded, but he was not proud, but his face was extremely solemn:

"Strangers are intelligent creatures, and I believe everyone should understand this. Compared to the ghouls, they are the real source of this catastrophe. It is also the most terrible enemy that we humans have to face.

The Battle of Castle Black, they did not appear, presumably through other means to go south.

In order to prevent more people from being harmed, and to prevent the army of ghouls from snowballing, two things are imperative. ”

"Your Majesty, please speak."

"First of all, the people of the North must move south." Samwell said in a deep voice, "The closer you live to the Great Wall of Desperation, the faster you have to be. I will personally go south and urge the lords along the way to organize the migration of their people. ”

Ed nodded:

"I remember that you advised the Northerners to move south a long time ago, but by that time the Great Wall of Desperation had not yet fallen, and most people did not see the Wraiths as a real threat."

"Not anymore. The move south was previously voluntary, but now it is mandatory. "As for the second thing, we have to re-establish a new line of defense against the strangers and ghouls. ”

"Your Majesty, where do you think it is appropriate to set up a new line of defense?"

"Do you have any suggestions?" Samwell asked rhetorically.

"Sue may be able to stop the ghosts." Someone suggested.

Ed shook his head and retorted:

"The end of the winter must be frozen, and there is no way to stop the strange ghosts. In fact, the entire northern territory is vast and sparsely populated, and there are no dangerous places blocked by large rivers and high mountains, so if you want to build a new defense line that can block the defense line of the strange ghosts, I am afraid that ······ You can only go to Neck. ”

As he said this, the Night's Watchman's eyes filled with unconcealable pain.

Because it is the dividing line between the north and the south, it is also the most important barrier for the north to rely on for independence.

At that time, the Andals crossed the sea, relied on more advanced smelting technology, defeated the ancestors, and occupied most of the territory of Westeros, but failed to conquer the north.

The reason for this is because of the neck.

It's like the neck of Westeros, narrow and treacherous, covered in quicksand and swamps, making it extremely difficult to navigate.

For thousands of years, the Northerners only needed a few hundred elite archers in Carlin Bay to stop tens of thousands of southern armies from moving north.

If it weren't for the dragon's ability to fly and ignore the treacherous terrain on land, the Targaryens would not have been able to bring the Northerners to their knees.

Strange ghosts can't fly, and ghouls can't either, so the neck is indeed an excellent place to arm.

What's more, Neck's location in the southernmost part of the North makes it easy for King's Landing to send a large army to support.

Samwell had not been able to send a large army north to the Great Wall because the supply line from King's Landing to the Great Wall was too long, so long that it was desperately long.

With Westeros' level of agriculture and the effects of winter, if it really had to maintain an army of 200,000 to garrison the Great Wall, it would probably be longer for the people in the south to starve to death than to die at the hands of the strangers.

And if the defense is deployed in the neck, then the pressure on logistics will be greatly reduced immediately.

The biggest problem with this strategy, however, is that the North has been completely abandoned.

This is also the reason why Samwell did not take the initiative to propose this plan, but he didn't expect that Eddard Stark would be the first to help him say it.

The North is the foundation of the Stark family, and it is Eddard's favorite homeland.

Samwell couldn't imagine how much he had to go through when he said those words.

However, as a rational monarch, he knows that at some point, he will have to make difficult choices.

"Eddard is right." Samwell said, "Building a defensive line in Neck is really the best option. Of course, this also means that the plan for the northerners to move south must be completed as soon as possible. ”

Ed suppressed the grief in his heart and said:

"Your Majesty, I've arranged for Jon Snow to organize the northerners to move south, but I'm worried that he won't be fast enough, so, if you can, please go to Winterfell in person, and let my son Rickon officially issue an order to move south in the name of the Duke of Winterfell."

"Good. I'll go. ”

Samwell was about to leave, but Ed stopped him again:

"Your Majesty, there is one more thing ·····."" You said. ”

"Please come with me."

Ed walked towards the castle. Samwell followed.

The two went up the spiral staircase to the third floor.

Exiting the stairs, Ed stopped in front of the door of the second room on the left.

Samwell saw his hand on the doorknob, but he didn't push it, like there was something terrible behind the door.

"Eddard, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. Here's my ······ The room of the illegitimate son Jon Snow. With that, he finally pushed the door open.

Samwell walked in with a hint of confusion, and the first thing he felt was a chill in his face.

It's as if this is the source of winter.

The wooden floor of the room was littered with countless pieces of fine ice, and Eddard Stark froze in place when he saw them.

Samwell also saw a black cloak spread out at the head of the bed, on which were placed some dark weapons, with spear tips, arrowheads, and daggers······

He stepped forward to take out a piece to check, only to find that they were indeed dragon crystal weapons. 33

"Your Majesty," Eddard finally spoke, his tone bitter and hoarse, "Jon Snow told me that he once found some relics at Anthelm Mormont that appeared to be relics of the former Night's Watch at Fist of the Ancestors, including dragon crystal weapons and a horn ······"

As he spoke, Ed took a dark horn from his bosom and handed it to the king.

Samwell took it, the horn tentacles were cold, I don't know what material it was made of, the edges were inlaid with bronze, full of quaint temperament.

But other than that, there's nothing supernatural about it.

It's like an ordinary old horn.

"Jon said," Eddard continued, "on the day the Wall of Desperation fell, Robb returned to Castle Black from the south, and without saying a word, went into his room, found the horn, and blew the ······ Then the Great Wall fell. ”

"So this is the real Winter's Horn?" Samwell gave a thoughtful expression.

"Yes." Ed nodded, forcibly taking his gaze away from the broken ice on the ground, "If what Jon said is true, if it was Robb who blew down the Wall...

"I believe Robb didn't mean it." Samwell Road.

Ed nodded:

Jon also said that Robb behaved very strangely that night, as if he was ······ Completely changed a person. ”

"Strange spirits have the ability to manipulate corpses, but they may not be able to manipulate living people." Samwell said, but his heart inexplicably remembered the tombs in the underground crypts of Winterfell, where the former Winter King was buried.

There are also long-vanished legends that can suppress the long swords of the heroic spirits in the tombs.

"Your Majesty, your magnanimity scares me." "But there's no disputing that the Starks have made a big mistake. And, Robb's incident reminded me that my other son, Bran, was ······ Since he returned from outside the Saiwai, he seems to have changed as a different person. ”

Sam Wilmo scratched the surface of the trumpet of winter, wondering how to explain it to the poor old father. Ed took the initiative to say:

"Your Majesty, in fact, if you think about it carefully, Bran can't get rid of this matter. He was the one who helped you find the so-called Winter Horn and make you think the real threat was lifted·····

"He didn't necessarily mean to deceive." Although Samwell was also suspicious of Bran in his heart, he still comforted, "Bran may have been deceived by Mance Red, thinking that the other party's hand is the real Winter Trumpet." At this point, in fact, all of us have been deceived by Mance. ”

To be honest, compared to Mance's huge and oppressive horn, the real guy in front of him seemed unremarkable, even if he was thrown in the snow, no one would look at it more.

"I'm sure Your Majesty, you'll have your own judgment." Ed didn't have much to say.

After all, this matter involves his two sons. No matter what they do, they are always his most beloved children.

Samwell put away the Winter Horn, stepped forward and patted Eddard Stark on the shoulder, saying:

"Lord Eddard, I have never doubted the loyalty of your country, nor the honor of the Starks, the Great Wall has fallen, humanity is facing an unprecedented crisis, and at a time like this, the Seven Kingdoms are in need of warriors like you.

So, you don't have to blame yourself too much, and you can't be discouraged because of this, my trust in you remains strong.

You are the Commander-in-Chief of the Night's Watch, and I hope you will continue to lead this army on the front lines.

As for the collapse of the Great Wall, you don't have to worry about it anymore. I'll look into everything. ”

"Thank you for your trust, Your Majesty." Ed said in a deep voice, feeling a little better inside.

After hesitating for a moment, he still spoke:

"I know it's a bit selfish to say that. But I hope you will leave Winterfell with my wife and children······"

"I will." Samwell promised, "The White Dragons are still spacious on their backs, and I'll take them with me to King's Landing." ”

With that, he patted Ed on the shoulder again and strode away.

Some people died, but not completely......