Chapter 65 Chapter 64: Jon

He dreamed he was back in the crypts of Winterfell, limping between the stone king's thrones.Kings gazed at him with gray granite eyes, and gray granite fingers gripped the hilts of long rusted swords lying flat on their knees.You are not a Stark, he heard kings growl through the thick granite, there is no place for you here, go away.He walked into deeper darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran Rickon?" There was no answer.A gust of cold wind swept over the back of the neck. "Uncle," he called, "Uncle Bunyan? Father? Please, Father, help me." A drum beat from above the vault.People are feasting in the hall, but I am not welcome.I am not a Stark, there is no place for me here.The cane slipped and he fell to his knees.The catacombs grew darker.A light appeared in the corner. "Ygritte?" he whispered, "forgive me, please." But it was just a direwolf, gray to white, bloody, with big golden eyes that gleamed in the dark with sadness...

A dark room with a hard bed underneath.He woke up in his own bed, which was the room belonging to the servants under the old Xiong's bedroom.He was supposed to be having a good dream, but despite the layers of fur, he still felt cold.On the way north, Bai Ling slept by his side, exuding warmth in the cold night; in the wilderness, he was accompanied by Ygritte.They are all gone.He personally cremated Ygritte, remembering that was her wish, where is Bai Ling... Where are you? Are you dead too, the bloody wolf in the tomb in the dream? But the wolf in the dream is Gray, not white.Grey, Bran's wolf.The Thenns hunted him near Houcrown? If so, Branco said the most precious thing in life was lost.

Jon was struggling to shake his thoughts when the horn sounded. The Horn of Winter, he thought, still in the chaos of his nightmare.Mance hadn't found Joman's horn, so it was impossible.The second trumpet followed, as long and high-pitched as the first.Gotta get up and climb the Wall right away, he realized, but it was so hard... Jon pushed back the fur and sat up, numb from the pain in his legs, he should be able to stand.He sleeps clothed against the cold, so now he only needs to wear shoes, leather armor and armor and a cloak.The horn blew again, and with two long calls, he hobbled down the stairs with his longclaws on his back and on crutches.

It was pitch black outside, and there was a biting chill under the gloomy sky.Brothers in black were swarming out of forts and towers, strapping on their sword belts as they made their way to the Wall.Jon searches for Pyp and Grenn, but in vain.Perhaps it was one of them who sounded the horn.Mance, he decided, Mance was here at last.Well, we'll have a fight with him and then we can rest easy.Regardless of life or death, you can rest in peace. The original staircase has been turned into a wide rubble field of scorched wood and broken ice under the Great Wall. People can only use winches to pull iron cages up the Great Wall.However, the cage can only hold ten people at a time, and Jon just went up when he arrived, and he must wait for it to come back.The others waited with him: Satin, Molly, boots, barrels, and Harris, a big blond man with rabbit teeth, called "Horse" because he had been a stableman in Moletown, and he too One of the few people in town who remained at Castle Black.The rest fled back to the fields and huts, to those underground brothels, and resigned themselves to fate.Only the horse dreams of wearing black, what a fool with the teeth of a rabbit.Ze the whore was there too, and she had used her crossbow well in the last fight.Noye also left behind three orphans whose father died defending the ladder.All three were small—nine, eight, and five—and no one cared about them.

While they waited, Clydas brought warm wine, and Threefinger Hob distributed large loaves of black bread.Jon took a piece and began to chew. "Is this Mance Rayder?" Satin asked nervously. "I hope so." There are more terrifying beings in the dark than wildlings.Jon recalled what the Wildling King had said in the snow on the Fist of the First Men: "Walls, stakes, and swords mean nothing when the dead are haunted. A man cannot fight the dead, Jon Snow. No, no one knows better than me."Just thinking about it made Jon feel the cold wind become more piercing.Fortunately, the cage clanged down to the ground at this moment, swinging at the end of the long iron chain, and everyone quietly squeezed in and closed the door.

Mully pulled the cord of the summoning bell three times.Soon the iron cage began to rise. It was bumpy at first, but soon became stable.No one spoke.When they got to the top, the cage shifted, people jumped out one by one, and the horse reached out to help Jon.The cold wind hit him like a heavy punch, making his teeth chatter involuntarily. On the top of the Great Wall, the brothers propped up a row of steel basins with poles taller than a person, and a raging fire was lit inside.The wind is like a sharp sword, poking at the flame seedlings, and the terrifying orange light keeps flickering.Bunch arrows, crossbows, spears and catapult arrows are at the ready.The rocks were piled ten feet high, and large wooden barrels of pitch and lamp oil were lined up beside them.Bowen Marsh had left Castle Black well supplied with everything but men.The wind whipped the black cloaks of the straw sentinels on the battlements, armed with spears. "Hope it wasn't one of them blowing the horn," Jon remarked, limping beside Donal Noye.

"Did you hear that?" Noye asked. Wind noises, horse neighing, and more. "A mammoth," said Jon, "that's a mammoth." The weapon master's big flat nose exhaled frost.To the north of the Wall it was dark and dark, like an ocean, but Jon could make out the red stars flickering and moving in the forest far away.It was Mance, as obvious as the rising sun.White Walkers don't light fires. "We can't see, how should we fight?" the horse asked. Donal Noye walked up to the two huge trebuchets that Bowen Marsh had restored. "Let it bring us light!" he growled.

Buckets of pitch were quickly stuffed into the catapult and then set aflame with torches.The wind moves the fire, and the arrogance is violent. "Let go!" Noy yelled.As the balance arm fell, the throwing arm hit the crossbar with a "bang", and the burning asphalt bucket rolled and flew out in the dark night, emitting a strange flickering light, illuminating the ground it passed by.Jon caught a glimpse of the heavy footsteps of the mammoths in the twilight.There were a dozen, maybe more.The barrel burst on the ground.A low-pitched trumpet came from the enemy camp, and a giant roared in an ancient language. His voice was like thunder from ancient times, and Jon's spine shuddered.

"Go on!" Noy called, and the trebuchet reloaded, and then two barrels of burning pitch crackled through the darkness into the enemy army.This time a bucket of pitch hit a dead tree and set it on fire.There were more than a dozen mammoths, Jon found, well a hundred. He slowly approached the edge of the city wall.Be careful, he reminded himself, it's too high up here.Sentinel Red Alyn blows his horn again: Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooThis time the Wildlings answered, not with one horn, but with a dozen at the same time, with many flutes and drums.We have come at last, they announced, and we will tear down your walls, loot your lands, and take your daughters.The wind howled and the trebuchet creaked and thumped, sending the barrel flying into the night sky.Behind the giant and the mammoth, Jon saw the wildlings rushing towards the Wall with axes and bows.Twenty? Two million? Twenty thousand? Nothing could be discerned in the darkness.It was a battle of blind men, the only difference being that Mance had a thousand times more men to sacrifice than us.

"The Gate!" Piper exclaimed. "Their goal is the Gate!" Theoretically, the Great Wall was too large to be conquered: it was so high that all ladders and siege towers would be impotent, and so thick that any battering ram would be awry.No trebuchet could hurl a wall-breaking boulder, and if a fire attack was attempted, melting snow would quickly extinguish the flames.Sure, you can climb over it, as the Raiders did near Greyguard, but only if the mover is strong, steady, and quick-witted, and even then you might end up with Jarl, falling and being caught by a tree. pierce.For a large group of people, there is no other way but to attack the city gate.

However, the so-called city gate is just a curved and narrow tunnel in the ice wall. It can be called the smallest gate in the Seven Kingdoms, and you can only dismount and march in single file.There are three iron bars blocking the way in the passage, each of which is locked and tied with iron chains, and there is a killing hole above the head to protect it.The outermost door was nine inches thick of old studded oak, equally impenetrable.But Mance had mammoths, he reminded himself, and giants. "It's cold down there," Noye said. "Give 'em a hot bath, boys?" A dozen lamp-oil jars were lining the wall, and Pyp ran up to them and lit them all with torches, and Owen the Nervous They were knocked down one by one.Spewing whirling tongues of pale flame, the jars fell through the air, and when the last one fell too, Grenn kicked the wooden wedges of the asphalt bucket, sending the pitch rumbling down the wall.The voice below turned into screams and hisses, but to them, it was a sweet melody. However, the sound of drums still came like waves, trebuchets vibrated and struck, and the sound of leather bagpipes echoed in the night sky, like the singing of flamingos.Brother Celeda was also singing hymns, but his voice was rough and trembling from drinking too much wine: Madonna of tenderness, source of mercy, Bless your son through the battle, Resist arrows, resist swords, let them see the beautiful... Donal Noye circled around him anxiously, "Whoever dares to put down his sword, I'll kick him off the Great Wall... Don't stop! Monk. Archer! Damn it, where is the archer?" "Here," said Satin. "And here," Mully replied, "but I can't find the target...it's as dark as a pig's stomach. Where is the enemy?" Noy pointed to the north, "Keep shooting arrows, maybe you can hit some by chance, at least to harass the opponent." He looked at the faces illuminated by the fire around him. "I need two archers and two spearmen to guard the tunnel together, in case they smash the city gate and break in." More than a dozen people stepped forward, and the weapon master picked out four. "Jon, the Wall is yours until I come back." For a long while, Jon thought he had heard wrong.Noy actually asked him to command the defenses on the Great Wall? "My lord?" "My lord? I'm just a blacksmith. As I said, the Great Wall is yours now." Here are men older than me, Jon argued, men better than me.I'm still as weak as summer grass, and I'm wounded and accused of desertion.With a bitter mouth, "Yes." He reluctantly agreed. Afterwards, Jon Snow felt as if he were in a dream.His archers stood among the straw sentinels, driving longbows and crossbows with half-rigid arms, and unleashed countless arrows on unseen enemies.From time to time a savage arrow shot up in response.He sent people to use smaller catapults to scatter jagged stones the size of a giant's fist into the air.Darkness swallowed them like a handful of dried fruit.The mammoth called sullenly, and the strange voice repeated the strange language.The voice of Sister Celedar praying for the dawn was so loud and drunk that Jon almost wanted to kick him off.Below, a mammoth groaned in death, while another was on fire and rampaging through the forest, trampling people and trees.As the wind became bitterer, Hob came up in a cage with cups of onion broth, which Owen and Clydas carried to the archers for a sip between arrow shots.Ze also took up the crossbow and joined the battle.Hour after hour of loading and firing caused the catapult on the right to begin to slack in its ropes, snapping the front balancing arm and knocking down the rear throwing arm, smashing it to pieces on the ground.The catapult on the left continued to fire, but the wildlings quickly learned how to avoid its killing range. We need twenty trebuchets, not just two, and they should be on pry boards and capstans for movement.This is useless delusion.It's better to add another thousand warriors, plus three dragons. Donal Noye didn't come back, and the few people who went down to defend the dark tunnel didn't come back.The Wall is mine now, Jon reminded himself when he was exhausted.He picked up a longbow himself, but his fingers felt numb and stiff, almost frozen.The high fever came back, my legs and feet trembled involuntarily, and the pain was like a white-hot dagger, piercing through my whole body.One more arrow and you can rest in peace, he told himself, telling himself no less than fifty times, one more arrow.But whenever he finished shooting an arrow, one of the three Mole's Village orphans would immediately come and hand him a new one.One more arrow, and you can rest in peace.Soon the dawn will come. But when dawn finally came, no one reacted.The world is still dark, slowly fading to gray, and some form looms faintly in the dark sky.Jon bent over to stare at the big chunks of heavy cloud in the eastern sky.Still dreaming? He saw the light under the clouds and hitched another arrow. At this time, the rising sun burst out through the clouds, and the light shone on the battlefield like a white spear.Jon couldn't help holding his breath when he saw the half-mile-long sand field between the Great Wall and the forest.In just half a night, this place became a wasteland full of scorched black grass stalks, scattered asphalt, crushed stones, and countless corpses.The charred carcass of the mammoth draws a flock of crows, and a fallen giant, but behind them... There was a groan from the left, and then Septon Seledar murmured, "Mother of Mercy, oh, oh, oh, oh, Mother of Mercy..." Beneath that forest, gathered wildlings from all over the world: cavalry and giants, wargs and skinchangers, barbarians from the mountains, sailors from the salt sea, cannibal tribes from the great glaciers, troggs with faces dyed in every color, Dog chariots from the Frozen Shore, Hornfoot men with soles like boiled leather... all these grotesque wildlings were gathered by Mance to attack the Wall.This is not your land, Jon wanted to shout at them, there is no place for you here, get out of here.He seemed to hear "Giant Buster" Tormund laughing. "You don't understand anything, Jon Snow," said Ygritte, too.He subconsciously bent his sword hand, opening and closing his five fingers, even though he was in a high place and couldn't use the sword at all. His body was frozen stiff, with a high fever inside, and the longbow in his hand suddenly felt extremely heavy.The fight with the Magnar was inconsequential, he understood, and last night's fight wasn't even inconsequential, just a reconnaissance, a dagger intended to strike in the dark.The real battle is just beginning now. "I didn't know there were so many of them," Satin said. Jon knew it, he had seen these wildlings, but not in the present state, not in a battle queue.On the march the band of wildlings spread out for leagues, like so many huge, bloated insects that never came together, and now... "Here they come." Someone yelled hoarsely. In the middle of the procession were the mammoths, hundreds of them, and on their backs were giants with clubs, mallets, or boulder axes.More giants ran beside, pushing a great tree trunk mounted on wooden wheels, the front of which was honed to a point.The ram, he thought grimly.If the gate below is still alive, a few touches with that thing will shatter it.On either side of the giants came waves of horsemen in boiled leather armor and fire-hardened lances, hordes of archers, and thousands of men wielding lances, slingshots, clubs, and leather shields. infantry.Bone chariots from the frozen coast roared and propelled on their wings, and the big white dog pulled them over rocks and roots.This is the fury of the North Wilderness, listening to the screaming of the leather bagpipes, the roaring of the wild dogs, the heavy nasal voice of the mammoth, the whistling and shouting of the free people, and the old language of the giants Roaring, Jon couldn't help but sigh with emotion.The enemy's war drums echoed in the ice wall, as if thunder were rolling inside. He could feel the desperation of those around him. "There must be a hundred thousand of them," Satin howled. "What do we do? How do we stop them?" "The Wall will stop them," Jon heard himself say.He turned to them, raising his voice, "The Wall will stop them, and the Wall will protect itself." Empty words, but he had to repeat them as much as he could, because that was what the brethren were dying to hear. "Mance is trying to scare us with numbers. Does he think we're all fools?" he yelled, forgetting his legs, and everyone listened. "Chariots, cavalry, and stupid people on foot... what's so scary to us on the Wall? Have you ever seen a mammoth that can climb a wall?" He laughed, and Pyp, Owen, and six or seven others He also laughed. "They're nothing but straw sentinels. They can't reach us, hurt us, scare us! Can they?" "Yes!" Grant shouted. "They're under the Wall, and we're on top of them," said Jon. "Hold the gates, and they won't get through. They'll never get through the Wall!!" The crowd chanted in unison, shouting the same words. , Responding to Jon, while waving the sharp blade and longbow in his hand, his cheeks flushed with excitement.Jon notices the horn hanging from Barrel's arm. "Brother," he told the barrel, "sound the signal for war." Barrel grinned, raised the horn to his lips, and blew two long horn blasts representing the attack of the wildlings.Other horns followed, until the Wall itself trembled, and the strong, muffled reverberation drowned out all sound. "Archers," Jon ordered, after the lingering sound faded, "aim at the giants pushing the rams, damn it, everyone take aim and shoot at my command, and never move first. Giants and their rams! Arrow rain, but first wait for the opponent to enter the range. Whoever wastes an arrow, I will climb down the city wall to pick it up, understand?" "Understood," shouted Goofy Owen, "I understand, Lord Snow." Jon laughed like a drunk, like a madman, but the men laughed with him.Now, the chariots on the two wings and the galloping cavalry began to protrude from the center, and the savages hadn't gone through a third of the half-mile, and the front line was in disarray. "Fill the catapult with caltrops," Jon said. "Owen, cask, turn the catapult to the center angle. The ballista is loaded with spears, ready to fire." He pointed to the boys in Mole's Village , "You, you, and you, hold the torch and wait." Wildling archers shot in and out, in a monotonous pattern, always dashing forward, stopping, firing, then dashing another ten yards.The number of flying arrows was so prodigious that the sky was completely enveloped by them, but sadly all fell harmlessly.What a waste, Jon thought, of their lack of experience and discipline.The freefolk's smaller horn and wood bows were far inferior to the tall yew longbows of the Night's Watch, and they were aimed at targets seven hundred feet overhead. "Let them come," Jon said. "Wait. Keep calm." The men's cloaks flapped behind them. "The wind is blowing head on, it will affect the range. Wait." Closer, closer.The leather bagpipes whistled, the drums sounded like thunder, and the wildlings' arrows "swished" across the air, and then fell. "Draw the bow." Jon raised his bow and drew the arrow to his ear.Satin did, and Grenn, Owen the Nervous, Dartboots, Black Jack Bulwey, Aron, and Emmonk.Ze also put the crossbow on his shoulders.Jon watched as the ram approached, the mammoths and giants lumbering alongside.From here, they were so small they could almost be crushed with one hand.It would be great if I had such big hands.They ran across the killing fields, rumbling over dead mammoths and starting hundreds of crows.Closer, closer, until... "put!!" The black feathered arrow hissed like a poisonous snake with wings, and flew down.Before Jon could check the result, he quickly took the second team. "Nock the arrow! Draw the bow! Let it go!" He hitched a third as fast as he could, "Nock the arrow! Draw the bow! Let it go!" one after the other.He yelled at the trebuchet, and heard the creak and thump as hundreds of caltrops scattered through the air. "Catapults," he called, "ballistas, archers, free fire." And then the wildlings' arrows struck the Wall, nailing them a hundred feet below their feet.Another giant staggered away.Nock the arrow, draw the bow, let it go.One of the mammoths turned and rammed its companions, knocking the giant off its back.Nock the arrow, draw the bow, let it go.He saw the ram fall, and the giant who pushed it was either dead or wounded. "With the rockets," he shouted, "burn the ram." The shrieks of the wounded mammoths and the roars of the giants were mingled with drums and pipes in a hideous movement, but his archers were unaffected. Interfering, aiming and firing without rest, seemed as deaf as dead Dick Follard.Yes, these people may have been the scum of the world, but now they are the men of the Night's Watch, that's enough.That's why they can never pass the Great Wall. A mammoth went berserk, knocking down countless savages and trampling several archers to death.Jon drew his longbow and fired an arrow into the beast's shaggy back to drive it away.On the east and west sides, the wildlings' flanks reached the Great Wall without hindrance, but the chariots could only circle around the city in a futile way, and the cavalry also aimlessly back and forth in front of the beautiful ice wall. "The city gate!" someone shouted, as if to save boots, "the mammoth rushes to the city gate!" "Fire," growled Jon, "Glenn, Pyp." Grenn broke his longbow and rolled a barrel of oil from the pile to the wall with all his strength. Pyp hammered open the sealing plug, stuffed it with a large strip of cloth, and lit it with a torch.Afterwards, they worked together to push the bucket down.The barrel fell about a hundred feet, hit the wall, and burst, filling the air with debris and fuel.Grenn rolled a second barrel, and the wooden barrel rolled a barrel, and Pyp lit them separately. "Hit!" Satin yelled, his head sticking out so far that Jon was almost sure he'd fall. "Hit, hit, hit!" came the howl of Flame from below.A giant in flames staggers into view, stumbles and rolls wildly. At this time, the mammoths suddenly began to flee collectively. They rushed out of the smoke and flames, and slammed into their compatriots behind them with panic, causing them to join the ranks of collapse, while the giants and wild men scrambled to escape.In less than half a heartbeat, the center of the line had completely disintegrated, and the cavalry on both wings fled after seeing being left behind, even though they hadn't shed a single drop of blood.The chariots also rumbled back, doing nothing but terror and noise.Once the queue is chaotic, the opponent will be overwhelmed, looking at the wildling Jon who is fleeing in all directions, he thought.The drums on the battlefield have all been silenced.Do you like the music, Mance? Do you like the taste of a Dornish wife? "Who's hurt?" he asked. "A damned guy shot me in the foot," Dash boots pulled out an arrow and waved it over his head, "but aimed at the wooden one!" Rude cheers rang out all around.Ze grabbed Owen, hugged him in circles, and gave him a long, moist kiss in front of everyone.She tried to kiss Jon too, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed away gently but firmly. "No," he said.I have kissed too much.At this moment, he felt too tired to stand up, and his thigh was in dizzy pain from knee to crotch, so he reached for the crutch, "Pip, help me to the cage. Grant, the Wall is yours now." "Mine?" Grant said. "His?" said Piper.It's hard to tell which of them is more startled. "But," Glenn stammered, "but—but what should I do if the wildlings attack again?" "Stop them," Jon told him. Piper took off his helmet and wiped his brow as he descended in the cage. "Frosted sweat, can there be anything dirtier than frosted sweat?" He smiled. "By gods, I'm so hungry I could swear I could have swallowed a whole cow! Do you think Hob would cook Glenn for us?" His smile froze when he saw Jon's face, "What? Your leg?" "Yes, my leg," Jon agreed.Simple answers made him feel exhausted. "No hurt? We did a good job." "Take me to the gate," Jon said sternly.I need a warm fire, a hot meal, a comfortable bed, and something to stop the pain, he thought.But first we had to go to the tunnel and check on Donal Noye and the others. After the battle with the Thenns, it took a whole day to clear the ice and wooden beams that had accumulated near the inner door.Artisans such as Pocket Pate and Wooden Barrel argued fiercely whether the wreckage should be kept as a defensive barrier.This meant giving up the defense of the tunnel, so Noy firmly refused.He decided that as long as the men were ambushed in the killing holes, and then the barricades were guarded by archers and spearmen, a small group of steadfast brothers in black would be enough to hold back a hundred times the wildlings and fill the tunnel with their corpses.He wasn't going to let Mance Rayder go through the ice easily, so with all kinds of shovels and picks and ropes the men finally moved the broken steps and dug out the inner door. Jon stood before the cold iron bars, waiting for Pip to ask Maester Aemon for the spare key. To his surprise, Maester Aemon returned with Pyp, and Clydas with the lantern. "Come with me right after the examination," the old man told Jon when Pyp opened the door. "I must change your bandages and put on new medicine. You need more sleeping wine for the pain, too." Jon nodded feebly.The door opened at last, and Pyp went in first, followed by Clydas and his lantern, and Jon could barely keep up with Maester Aemon.The ice walls pressed from all directions, the chill went straight to the bone marrow, and the entire huge Great Wall was just above their heads, and they seemed to be roaming in the esophagus of the ice dragon.The tunnel bends and bends.Pyp opened the second bar and went on, turned again, and there was light ahead, a pale gleam through the ice.Terrible, Jon realized immediately, terrible. Piper said, "There's blood on the ground." The last twenty feet of the tunnel are where the brothers fought and died.The old oak door on the outermost floor had been hacked through, its hinges snapped off, and a giant crawled into the debris.The somber red light of the lanterns illuminates the eerie battlefield.Pyp turned away and vomited, and Jon envied Maester Aemon, who was blind. Noye and his men waited inside, by the same heavy iron bars that Piper had just opened.Two crossbowmen fired a dozen arrows as the giant charged, and two spearmen thrust through the bars.Even so, he still couldn't stop the other party. He twisted Pocky Pate's head, grabbed the iron bar, and pulled it away with amazing strength.Links of broken chains are scattered here and there.a giant.All of this is done by one giant. "All sacrifices?" Maester Aemon asked softly. "Yes. Donna is the last one." Half of Noy's sword leg sank deep into the giant's throat.On weekdays, Jon often marveled at the height of the weapon master, but now he was like a child hugged by the giant's burly arms. "The giant crushed his back, and I don't know which of them died first." He took the lantern, and moved forward to observe it carefully. "Margo." I am the last giant.He could feel the sadness at last, but there was no time for it. "This is 'Mag the Mighty,' King of Giants." Now he longs for sunshine.The tunnel was dark and cold, suffocated by the stench of blood and death.Jon returned the lantern to Clydas, and stepped over the corpse, through the twisted bars, toward the shattered gate, to see the world beyond. The huge body of a dead mammoth blocked most of the way, and as he tried to squeeze through, the cloak was caught and torn by the giant's tusks.Three other giants lay dead outside, half charred under the stone, mud, and congealed asphalt.The traces of the flames melting the Great Wall are clearly visible, and the huge ice flakes fell off due to the high heat and smashed onto the scorched earth.Look up, look up, and you can see where the flames started.You are infinitely tall there, it seems that you can be gently crushed by reaching out your hand. Jon returned to the others, "Must repair the outer door as much as possible, and plug this tunnel, with gravel, ice, whatever, to seal the gap between the first and second bars anyway. .Sir Vinton will be in command. He's the last knight in town. Make haste. I think the giant will be back before we get a breather. We'll tell him..." "Tell him what you think," Maester Aemon said very softly, "and he'll smile, nod, and forget about it. Thirty years ago Ser Winton Stout was a strong candidate for Lord Commander, and perhaps Well done. He could have done it up to ten years ago. But not since. You know that as well as Donal, Jon." This is a fact. "Then you command," Jon told the maester. "You gave your life to the Wall, and the people will follow you. Let us mend the doors." "I am a maester sworn by the necklace, and it is my duty to serve, Jon. We maesters give advice, not orders." "Someone has to—" "You. You have to lead everyone." "No……" "Must, Jon. It won't be long until the garrison returns. Remember? Donar chose you, Qhorin Halfhand chose you, Lord Lord Mormont let you do his business Sir. You are a child of Winterfell, Benjen Stark's nephew, and none else. The Wall is yours, Jon Snow."