Chapter 521 Stark’s Fate

The sky was gray and the earth was covered in white.

 A cavalry squad walked hard in the wind and snow, their breath condensing into white frost.

 Ed felt a little uneasy when he felt the war horse under his seat suddenly became restless.

"Lord Ed!" The cavalryman returning from the front looked a bit off, "There are traces of the army passing by in the south."

"A large army?" Ed was horrified, "Or a group of civilians moving south?"

"It's hard to say. The wind and snow have covered up a lot of things. It may be the lord's army going south, or civilians...or...the army of corpses."

 The team was suddenly quiet for a moment.

"It may indeed be wights," Eddard said. "If they go south from the King's Road, they should reach Winterfell faster than us."

The rangers looked at the commander-in-chief and exchanged glances with each other, but did not dare to say what they were thinking.

 When they evacuated Castle Black, there was a debate about the route south.

The fastest way is of course to take the King's Road, but the section of King's Road north of Winterfell runs through the Wolf Wood and is inaccessible.

Therefore, some people proposed to take another route that would pass through more villages and towns, that is, the line between Last Hearth City, Kahor City, and Dreadfort, in order to take away as many northerners as possible.

Of course, this route will also slow down the march.

 In the end, Ed Stark made his own decision and chose the latter path.

“I just want to go back and take a look, you don’t need to follow...”

“My lord, hurry up,” said a Night’s Watch Ranger. “If you go any slower it will be dark.”

Ed slowly scanned everyone's faces and saw that they showed no intention of retreating, so he took the lead and continued forward.

 Darkness came faster than expected.

 Fortunately, the wind and snow stopped, and the bright moon and stars cast a hazy light, preventing travelers from losing their way.

“My lord, is Winterfell ahead of us?”

"Yes." Ed looked at the shadow outline in front of him that was different from what he remembered, and an ominous premonition arose in his heart.

 But he didn't say anything, he just speeded up silently.

Under the cold moonlight, they saw a half-collapsed city wall, and a spiral staircase rising from the snow, but it suddenly broke in mid-air.

 Behind the gap, broken spires, toppled statues, and rubble and broken walls could be seen faintly.

 Winterfell is destroyed!

Looking at all this, Ed felt like the blood in his body was frozen.

Countless terrifying thoughts were spinning in his mind, which only made him want to rush into the city desperately.

“Sir, maybe the people in the city have already evacuated.” A ranger comforted.

“Yeah, if you haven’t seen the corpses and blood, you probably haven’t experienced a battle.” Another person advised.

"Maybe it's covered in heavy snow..." someone said loudly, which immediately attracted the angry glares of his companions.

 “Let’s go in and have a look.” Ed said.

 While moving forward, he tried hard to find traces of the battle among the ruins.

What made him feel a little relieved was that no body was indeed found.

Of course, corpses may also be resurrected by white ghosts into corpses, but they cannot erase traces of battles such as blood, mutilated limbs, etc., and these are rare in the city.

"They should have evacuated in advance." Ed regained his composure, "But how did the White Walkers destroy Winterfell? Do they have such terrifying power?"

“Perhaps they have something similar to the horn of winter.” Someone speculated, “Blowing it can make a strong castle collapse.”

“Can the earth still crack?” someone pointed at the terrifying cracks on the ground.

 Ed also discovered these cracks in the ground. He quickly got off his horse and carefully walked to the edge to check.

 The cracks are fragmented and scattered like spider webs among the ruins of the castle.

 Some are wide and some are narrow, some are long and some are short, but the only thing they have in common is that they are bottomless.

“Lord Ed, come and look! There is a huge footprint here!”

Hearing the call, Ed abandoned the bottomless abyss again and ran over following the sound.

 Then he saw footprints larger than his entire body appearing in the snow.

 There is more than one, it is a series of footprints, extending northward until outside the city.

 “Are these the footprints of giants?” someone asked.

 “You mean those giants outside the wall? They are not that big.”

 “Perhaps a real giant.”

Ed thought of all kinds of strange legends and stories he heard from the old nanny when he was a child.

 One of them is about the giants.

Legend has it that they were once driven by a Stark to build several man-made wonders on the continent of Westeros.

 This includes Winterfell.

There are also rumors that blowing the horn of winter can awaken the sleeping giant underground...

Thinking of this, and looking back at the bottomless cracks in the ground, Ed seemed to understand how Winterfell became such a ruined place today.

The sleeping giant underground may have really woken up.

Although this sounds like a fantasy, since the legendary White Walkers have appeared, it seems that the awakening of the giants is not so difficult to accept.

 It’s just not clear whether they are enemies or friends?

Ed looked at the huge footprints disappearing into the darkness of the north, silently praying that the giants had gone to deal with the White Walkers.

He originally wanted to take a look at the tomb, but found that it was where the cracks in the ground were most concentrated. If the underground giant really woke up, then it probably crawled out from near the tomb.

Hence, Ed temporarily put away his chaotic thoughts and ordered:

“Okay, let’s rest here tonight and continue south tomorrow morning.”

 “Yes, my lord.”

A few people found a relatively intact tower, blocked the leaky doors and windows with things, lit a bonfire, ate some food, and then fell asleep one after another.

In his sleep, Eddard found himself walking among the crypts beneath Winterfell, just as he had done thousands of times before.

The statues of the long-dead Winter Kings looked at him passing by with cold eyes.

The direwolf statue at their feet twisted its stone head and howled at Eddard.

 Finally, he came to the resting place of his father, Duke Rickard.

 Buried on both sides are his brother Brandon and sister Lyanna.

“Eddard, promise me,” the statue of Lyanna whispered.

 She wore a garland of blue winter snow roses on her head, and her eyes were weeping with blood.

The next moment, the tombs of the kings of the north suddenly exploded one after another, and the kings who once ruled this land struggled to climb out of the graves.

They pulled out the rusty iron swords on the statue, and with a touch of their hands, they turned into swords of ice that sparkled with crystal luster.

Their eyes were dancing with ice-blue flames, and they let out soul-shaking roars towards Ed Stark.

Ed suddenly woke up and sat up.

The soldier on guard at night whispered:

 “Sir, are you okay?”

"I'm fine." Ed casually made an excuse, "I'm just a little thirsty."

 “I still have wine here.”

Ed did not refuse the other party's kindness. He took the wine bag and was about to drink it when he suddenly stopped:

“Did you hear anything?” The night watch soldier was stunned for a moment, but then his expression changed drastically:

 “There’s someone outside!”

 “It may not be a human being,” Ed said, and then hurriedly woke up the rest of the Night's Watch soldiers.

At this time, the movement outside the tower became louder and louder. The messy footsteps were accompanied by creepy roars, and the fishy smell filled the air in the cold wind. They immediately understood that a corpse had appeared!

Ed looked out through the crack in the door and said:

“There are not many corpses, about thirty or forty. Remember, don’t get entangled and rush out as soon as possible!”

 “Yes, my lord.”

Seeing that everyone was ready, Ed rushed out immediately.

The corpses surrounding the tower immediately let out ear-piercing howls and rushed towards the group of human soldiers.

To these monsters crawling out of the grave, the breath of living people is like the most attractive thing in the world. Their bodies have long been dead and their minds have been lost, but they only charge blindly towards living people.

This is the darkest moment before dawn. In the dark environment, the living and the dead are fighting together.

 A Night's Watch soldier dodged the attack of a wight and chopped off the opponent's head with a backhand sword.

However, the headless corpse is still twisting wildly, grabbing and kicking, and rushing towards the living people.

 Until Eddard personally pierced the Stark family's inherited greatsword [Ice] into the chest of the wight.

This corpse immediately froze on the spot, and then fell limply into the snow as if all its strength had been drained away.

 “Use dragon crystal weapons!” Ed reminded.

Only then did the Night Watch soldier remember the strange, dark and translucent dagger that the Commander-in-Chief had given him before taking action, and quickly took it out from his belt.

Just as another ghoul rushed over, he inserted the dagger into the opponent's eye socket with his backhand.

Sure enough, the effect of this dragon crystal weapon was quite obvious. The corpse screamed shrilly, its body stiffened, and it emitted bursts of icy mist, and finally disappeared completely between heaven and earth.

 “Don’t be obsessed with fighting! Get out of the city quickly!” Ed ordered his men while waving his giant sword.

The rangers naturally understood this truth, and for fear of attracting more corpses, or even white ghosts, they mounted their war horses one after another.

“Follow me!” Ed shouted and rode south, running quickly among the ruins with a familiarity.

 “Go for it!”

 The rangers clapped their horses and followed.

 The ghouls were knocked over by the war horses and trampled by the horses' hooves. However, even if they fell, they still grabbed the horses' legs and belly.

Trees suddenly appeared around him, Ed ran through a frozen stream, and the sound of fighting gradually grew smaller behind him until it disappeared.

Adler stopped his horse and looked back, only to see that none of his companions had followed him.

Furthermore, the group of corpse ghosts also mysteriously disappeared.

 “Glen!” he shouted, “Erica! Mousse!”

 Still no response.

 It seemed like he was the only one left in the whole world.

Broken gargoyles were scattered in front of him. He recognized the half-collapsed building in front of him as the Stark family castle, where he spent more than forty years.

The cold wind sighed among the ruins, blowing fine snow particles into his face.

Ed felt cold, unbearable cold.

The war horse also began to tremble, and pale gasps spurted out of its mouth, freezing into ice.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 by 　　　　

On the twisted weirwood, a crow neighed and spread its black wings.

The crescent moon has disappeared, and the stars have also gone into hiding.

 A horse's head emerged from the darkness. Its whole body was covered with a layer of white frost, like frozen sweat, with black, dead intestines dragging down from its split belly. On its back, sat a rider as pale as black ice.

Ed's heart froze, and he immediately understood that in front of him was not a corpse, but an even more terrifying White Walker!

 The White Walker on the opposite side dismounted gracefully and stood upright in the snow. It was as slender as a sword and as white as milk, its armor changing color as it moved.

 It walked across the snow without leaving any traces.

 Wights move clumsily and slowly, but White Walkers are as light as snowflakes in the wind.

However, this strange ghost seemed to have no intention of attacking. It approached slowly with graceful steps.

Ed clenched the giant sword in his hand, ready to slash out at any time.

When the two sides were about ten steps apart, the White Walker stopped and actually raised his hand to uncover his black ice mask.

Ed was confused when he saw clearly the face under the White Walker's visor, a face he was once very familiar with.

 “Brandon?” Ed’s voice contained various complex emotions such as disbelief, fear, surprise, anger, etc.

"No! This is impossible!" His body began to tremble, unable to accept that the white ghost in front of him had the same face as his brother Brandon Stark.

“You have died a long time ago.” Ed said, “You died in the hands of the mad king. I buried you in the tomb with my own hands, together with your father and sister...”

 At this time, two more ghosts came out of the darkness.

 Mist swirled around them, and shadows followed closely behind them.

 They also took off their Xuanbing masks, revealing their pale faces.

Those were the same two faces that terrified Ed.

"No! This is impossible!" Eddard could barely hold the sword in his hand. "Father, Lyanna...you, how could...how could this happen?"

More and more figures came out of the darkness. They surrounded Ed Stark and took off his helmet.

 At this moment, the nightmare became a reality.

The long-dead kings of winter actually crawled out of their graves, wearing black ice armor and bringing the aura of death.

"Gods...save me...save the Starks..." Eddard slipped from his horse and fell to his knees in the snow, tears frozen on his face.

This northern man, as tenacious as ice, finally collapsed.

 He couldn't imagine what this scene meant.

Is the Stark family the source of this catastrophe?

 The evil he has been fighting against is actually his own family?

While in a daze, Eddard saw his sister Lyanna walking over and extending her right hand to him.

 Just like it was on the blood bed in the Tower of Bliss.

Her face was the same as before, and even her eyes were as they were when she died in his arms, full of expectation and sadness.

 “Promise me, Ed. Promise me…”

 He seemed to hear his sister's voice echoing in his ears.

 But in fact, when the White Walkers opened their mouths, they only made a sound like ice breaking.

Ed held the hands, which were as hard as rock and cold as black ice.

 She pulled him up and took out a crown made of ice.

 Ed's eyes gradually became blurred, and his gray pupils turned into ice blue.

 He no longer resisted and allowed his sister to put the Ice Crown on his head.

Countless crows took off screaming and the wind and snow roared over the ruins of Winterfell.

 (End of this chapter)