Chapter 31 Chapter 30 Jon

When the wild men led their horses out of the cave, Bai Ling had disappeared.Could he find Castle Black?Jon breathed in the crisp morning air, leaving himself with a glimmer of hope.The eastern sky is pink at the horizon, fading to light gray above.The Sword of Dawn is still hanging in the south, the bright white star on the hilt shines like a diamond at dawn, and the dark gray forest below slowly presents green, golden, red, brown and other colors.Above the soldier pine and oak and ash and sentinel and weirwood rose the Wall, and beneath the motes of dust and grime a gleaming white wall of ice.

Magnar sent a dozen men on horseback to the east and a dozen to the west, climbing to the highest point they could find, to see if there were any rangers hiding in the woods and on the high walls.Once the Night's Watch is spotted, the Thenns sound their bronze-inlaid warhorns in warning.The rest of the wildlings follow Jarl, including Jon and Ygritte.This will be a moment of glory for the young Raiders. It is often said that the Wall is seven hundred feet high, but Jarl's site was both high and low.In front of them, the ice wall rose straight from the forest, like an endless cliff, with wind-eroded battlements on top, and it seemed to be eight or even nine hundred feet from the top of the head.As he got closer, Jon realized the deception: Brandon, the builder of the city, set the huge foundation stone against the mountain, and he could put it wherever he could, and the mountains here are undulating and of different heights.

Uncle Bunyan said the Wall is a sword east of Castle Black and a snake west of it.That's right.I saw a wall of ice skimming a huge mountain peak, then sinking to the bottom of a valley, then climbing a dagger-sharp granite cliff that stretched for a league, followed the jagged summit, then sank into a deeper valley, and then Climbing again, as far as the eye can see, it can be seen that it jumped from one mountain to another, deep into the western hinterland. Jarl attempted to attack a section of ice wall along the ridge.Here, although the top of the wall is high, eight hundred feet from the forest, more than a third of it is earth rock rather than ice and snow, and the slope is too steep for horses, harder to climb than the Fist of the First Men, but relatively vertical It is relatively easy for people to climb on the wall.Moreover, the ridge is covered with trees, providing good shelter.In the past, the black-clothed brothers went out with axes every day to cut down the trees that crossed the border, and never let the forest extend to half a mile north of the Great Wall, but now there is a shortage of manpower, and the trees here grow straight to the bottom of the ice wall.

Today is going to be a wet and cold day, and it will be even wetter and colder under the tons of solid ice on the Great Wall.The closer they got, the more hesitant the Thenns in the team became.They had never seen the Wall, not even the Magnar, and Jon realized that its size frightened them.In the Seven Kingdoms, it is said that the Wall is the end of the world.Why not for them?It just depends on the location. And me?Where am I?Jon didn't know.If you want to stay with Ygritte, you have to be a savage wholeheartedly; if you leave her alone and continue to perform your duties, it may cause the other party to be heartbroken by Magnar; and if you take her away...assuming she is willing to go, this point It was far from certain...nor would it be possible to bring him back to Castle Black and live with his brethren.Deserters and wildlings are not welcome anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms.If I had known we would have gone to Gendel's descendants.But they are more likely to eat us...

The Great Wall did nothing to intimidate Jael's men.Each of them has crossed the Great Wall with their own hands.Everyone dismounted at the bottom of the ridge, and after Jael called several names, eleven people came out and gathered around.They were all young, the oldest not more than twenty-five, and two even younger than Jon.But all of them were lean and strong, and their strong appearance reminded him of stone snakes. When Rattleshirt was chasing him, Halfhand sent him away on foot. I don't know where this brother is now? In the shadow of the Wall, the wildlings readied themselves, wrapping a coil of hemp rope around one shoulder, slung across the chest, and strapping on strange soft moccasin boots with protruding spikes at the top - Jarr Those of the other two were iron, some copper, but most were jagged bones.A small stone hammer is hung between the hips, a leather bag full of iron nails, bone nails and even animal horn nails is hung on the other side, and the ice ax is held in the hand, which is a sharpened antler tied to a wooden handle with animal hide production.The eleven climbers were divided into three groups of four, and Jare himself went into battle himself, making a total of twelve. "Mance promised a new sword to each of the first group up the climb," he told them, breath frosting in the cold air, "that's a steel sword forged in a Southerner's castle. He'll also put your names on Into the ballad. What more can a freeman ask for? Come, climb up, and let the White Walkers take the last of the cowards!"

Let the White Walkers take you all, Jon thought.He watched them climb the steep slope at the top of the ridge and disappear under the trees.This wasn't the first time Savage had scaled the Great Wall, not even the hundred and one time.Two or three times a year, patrols inadvertently run into climbers, and it's even more common to find fallen mutilated bodies.Along the east coast, raiders built small boats and sneaked past East Watch and into Seal Bay.In the Western Mountains, they dived into the shadowy depths of the Great Canyon, skirting the Shadow Tower.But in the middle, the only way to cross the Wall was to climb over it, as many raiders have done.Few come back alive, he thought with a tinge of dark pride.Raiders must leave their mounts behind before the climb, and many of their inexperienced rookies snatch the horses as soon as they pass, causing disputes, and word gets out that the Night's Watch often returns before they have time to return with their trophies and stolen women. Before that, he was arrested and hanged for execution.Jarl wouldn't make that kind of mistake, Jon knew, but Styr couldn't be sure.The Magnar is the sovereign, not the raider.He doesn't understand the rules of the game.

"Look, there they are," said Ygritte.Jon looked up to see the first climber appear above the treetops.It's Jarl.He found a sentinel tree leaning against the Great Wall, and led his team up.A good start.We shouldn't let the tree extend this far.They had climbed three hundred feet and hadn't touched the ice wall at all. He watched the dapper wildling move cautiously from the top of the tree to the wall, chop a short, powerful hand with the ice ax, and swing through.The rope around his waist was attached to the second man, who was still slowly climbing to the top of the tree.Gael stepped forward step by step, and when he couldn't find a foothold, he kicked one out with his spiked boots.When he was ten feet above the sentinel tree, he stopped on a narrow ledge of ice, slung the ax to his belt, took out the hammer, and drove an iron nail into a crack.The second man also moved to the wall, and at the same time, the third man was climbing to the top of the tree.

The other two groups had no well-placed trees to aid them, and the impatient Thenns soon became suspicious that they were lost.Jael's group had climbed eighty feet when their leader came into view.The groups are separated by twenty yards.Jarl's group of four was in the center, the group on the right led by Greg the goat, easily recognizable by his long blond braids, and the group on the left led by a very thin man named Erok. "It's too slow," Magnar complained loudly as he watched them slowly climb up. "Has he forgotten the crows? Climb faster, or we'll be found."

Jon forced himself to remain silent.He still has fresh memories of Fengsheng Gorge, and the experience of climbing with the stone snake under the moonlight still haunts him.That night, his heart was in his throat several times. In the end, his hands and legs ached and his fingers were almost frozen.That's still rock, not ice.Stone is solid, and ice cannot be trusted.Today's Great Wall is "crying", maybe the heat from the climbers' hands is enough to melt the ice wall.The inside of the huge ice block may be as frozen as a stone, but the surface is slippery, with silky streams dripping down, and the cold wind blows out countless small holes.Whatever else the wildlings may be, they are brave.

But he secretly hoped that Si Di was right to worry.A patrol just passing by could, if the gods be merciful, stop it all. "No wall is as strong as a safe house," his father had taught him once, when he walked on Winterfell. A few missed arrows, a barrel of stones, and the attack would be over. But the guards did not appear, let alone four, not even one.The sun climbed to the sky, and the wild men climbed to the wall.By noon, Jarr's group was still far ahead, but they hit a patch of bad ice.Jarl looped the rope around the wind-eroded ledge, using it to support the weight, when the whole ledge collapsed, taking him down with him.A block of ice the size of a human head fell on the three people below, and they clung to it desperately, and the nails also held up.Jarl paused in midair, dangling from the end of the rope.

By the time they recovered from the disaster, Grieg the goat had almost caught up.Ellok's four men were still far behind.The part they climbed looked smooth and free of impurities, covered with a layer of melted ice, and the sun shone wetly everywhere.The part of Grieg looks darker and has more obvious texture; when the ice overlaps with each other, if the joint is not perfect, it will produce long and narrow platforms, and various cracks. The straight pipes have been eroded by Feng Shui, and the space inside is large enough to hide a person. Jarl quickly moved his men on, he and Greg's group nearly abreast, Erlock's group fifty feet behind.Under the slash of the staghorn axe, sparkling waterfalls of ice crystals poured down into the woods below.Stone hammers drove iron nails deep into the ice to serve as anchors for the rope, but before halfway up the climb, the iron nails were used up, and brads and sharpened bones were used instead.Again and again men kicked the hard, firm ice with their spiked boots to carve out footholds.By the fourth hour, Jon reckoned their legs were numb.How long can it last?Like the Magnar, he watched anxiously and listened anxiously for the sound of the Thenns' horns in the distance.The Horn remained silent, and there was no sign of the Night's Watch. Climbing to the sixth hour, Jar passed ahead of Grig the goat again, and his men were opening the gap. "Mance's pet can't wait for the sword," Magnar said, covering his eyes.The sun was high in the sky, and when viewed from below, the upper third of the ice wall was a crystal-like blue, reflecting so brilliantly that it hurt the eyes.Jarl and Grieg's eight men were all in the blinding light, and only Erok's group remained in the shadows.They no longer climbed up at a height of five hundred feet, but moved sideways bit by bit, moving towards a vertical pipe.Just as Jon was watching them move slowly, there was a sudden sound-like the sky falling apart, as if the ice wall was shaking, and then there was a cry of surprise.The air was full of ice crystals, screams, and falling bodies. A piece of ice one foot thick and fifty feet square fell off the wall, tumbling, cracking, and roaring all the way, obliterating everything in front of it, and falling straight to the foot of the mountain.The ice swirled through the trees and rolled down the hillside.Jon quickly grabbed Ygritte, pulled her down, and used his body to cover.A Thenn was hit in the face by a block of ice and broke his nose. When they looked up again, Jael's group had disappeared.No man, no rope, no nails, nothing more than six hundred feet.Just where the climbers had attached moments before, there was a scar on the wall, the inner layer of ice smooth and white, glistening in the sun like polished marble.Far below, there is a faint red stain, which is a broken person. The Wall will protect itself, Jon thought, pulling Ygritte to her feet. They found Jarl in a tree, impaled by a broken branch, and still connected by ropes to three others—all shattered, lying beneath him.One of them is still alive, but its legs, spine and most of its ribs are useless. "Mercy," he said, seeing them.A Thenn smashed his head flat with a boulder hammer.Magnar gave the order, and his men began building the pyre. By the time Grigg the Goat reached the top of the wall, the dead had begun to burn.When Erok and the others joined them, only bones and ashes were left of Jael and his crew. By this time the sun had begun to descend, and the climbers wasted no time.They untied the long twines that were wrapped around their chests, tied them together, and dropped the ends.The thought of climbing five hundred feet on the rope filled Jon with dread, but Mance had planned well.The raiders left behind by Jarl took out a giant ladder, rungs of hemp rope as thick as an arm, and tied the ladder to the rope dropped by the climber, Ellok, Greg, and their men groaned. He pulled it up hard, fixed it to the top of the wall, then lowered the rope again, and pulled up the second ladder.There are five in total. When the ladders were all in place, the Magnar gave an order roughly in the old saying, and the five Thenns set off at the same time.Climbing is not easy, even with a ladder.Ygritte watched them struggle for a long time. "I hate the Great Wall," she whispered in an angry tone, "can you feel how cold it is?" "It's made of ice," Jon pointed out. "You know nothing, Jon Snow, and this wall was built with blood." It doesn't drink enough.At sunset, two Thenns fell to their deaths from the ladder, the last victims of the day.It was nearly midnight when Jon reached the top of the wall, the stars were out again, and Ygritte was shaking. "I almost fell," she said with tears in her eyes, "two or three times... the ice wall tried to throw me off, I could feel it." A teardrop welled up and flowed slowly down her cheek. "It's all right, it's all right," Jon sounded confident. "Don't be afraid." He put an arm around her. Ygritte hit him hard on the chest with the heel of her palm, and he still felt the pain through the mail, boiled leather, and layers of wool. "I am not afraid! You know nothing, Jon Snow." "Then why are you crying?" "Not because of fear!" She kicked violently, prying out a piece of ice. "I'm crying because we didn't find the Horn of Winter. We opened dozens of tombs and released countless shadows into the underworld, but we didn't find Joman's horn that can only make this cold thing collapse!"