Bab 43: Battle for the Dawn Pt. 2
A/N: Just a reminder, new chapter here officially means new chapter over on the P atreon now, where my patrons are currently voting on the future direction of this story!
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In the time between seconds, Jon makes his choice and strikes with utter confidence and absolute surety. To the mortal eye, Jon's attack takes the form of a massive gout of dragonfire, even larger and longer in breadth then anything his dragons have managed in the battle so far.
Reaching all the way from the top of the Wall to the ground upon which the Night King and Corpse Queen stand below, Jon's dragonfire roars, consuming everything in its path, slaughtering undead and White Walkers alike wherever it finds them. It is, after all, the conceptual attack of a god. They never stood a chance.
However, while the non-divine eye might see an awe-inspiring gout of dragonfire, reaching out to blanket the Night King and Corpse Queen in its flames, the truth is much more than that. On a far higher level, the dragonfire is only one aspect of the whole… just as the Night King's own response is.
As soon as Jon commits to his attack, the Night King's head whips back around to face him, a rictus of an evil grin spreading across the monstrous entity's face. The God of Death and Darkness had prepared another trap for Jon, and the swirling shadows leap up to defend him and the Corpse Queen from the dragonfire. The flames buffet the shadowy shield-like defense, at least as far as anyone who is not divine would see.
But at the same time, there is so much more to both of their actions. They simply operate on a different level from the armies fighting all around them on their behalf. Even as shadows and flame struggle against one another, the fire eating up the shadows but in turn being eaten up BY the shadows in a never-ending vicious circle, the concepts of Death and Freedom go to war as well.
… Or so the Night King intended. Jon can see what the God of Death and Shadow THOUGHT his enemy would do. He can see how the shield of shadow is in turn backed up by a much greater defense of Death. He had seemingly ready Jon quite well, and thought he knew what the other god would do. He had planned to capture Jon's Domain of Freedom, and kill it, right then and there.
Truly, god-to-god combat was on a whole other level. If he'd chosen to strike at the Night King, Jon's divinity would have been torn asunder. Defeat would not have been assured, they would have still had the Wall, but victory would have become increasingly improbable, and nigh-impossible. If he had struck at the Night King, he would have lost a part of himself, the part that sung for Freedom for all, the part that had long influenced him, even before he'd gone to Old Valyria and discovered his origins.
Luckily, Jon was never aiming for the Night King. The God of Death and Darkness, it would seem, held an overwhelming contempt for his 'ally'… and hadn't even thought to include her in the occasion. A massive oversight, to be sure, a lesson that gods were far from infallible. Jon already knew that for himself of course, but it was nice, to be able to shove it right back in the Night King's face mere minutes after the other god had brought down Viserion.
In a fake out of his own, as the dragonfire gout buffets across the Night King's shadowy shield, a single lance of pure, golden energy shoots through it, aiming not for the Night King as the other god expects… but for his companion. Specifically, for the collar locked tight around the Goddess of Ice and Frost's neck.
The concept of Freedom reaches for that clear and visible symbol of her enslavement, and Jon feels that if it were anything else, even another divine concept, it would wash across the collar like so much water, having no effect. The collar was a divine artifact in its own right, after all, made who knew how long ago, and constantly reinforced and empowered over millennia.
Indeed, Jon comes to realize just how lucky he is to have the Wall of his ancestor, Brandon the Builder, beneath his feet. He realizes just how NEW to all of this he truly is, as his attack, while successful… causes the thinnest crack in the collar, rather than obliterating it outright.
There is a beat of dead silence, in which a dew drop could have been heard, as all three gods pause for what might have been an eternity, or the barest fraction of a second. Jon can't help but hesitate, in seeing the ineffectiveness of what was, by all rights, an incredibly successful attack. Meanwhile, the Night King's inhuman glowing blue eyes start to widen, as he in turn realizes he was faked out by the nascent divinity that had placed itself against him.
The Corpse Queen's brow furrows, and Jon likes to think that the Night King's aura turns to panic. Certainly, thinking about it later, he'll definitely come to that conclusion. In the moment, he can't say for sure… until quite suddenly, the collar around the Corpse Queen's neck frosts over near the single small crack Jon's attack managed to make in it… and a moment later, shatters off of her throat entirely.
The Night King whips around towards the Goddess of Ice and Frost once more, but this time it is not in the manner of a slave owner yanking his slave's chain… but a panicked hunter-gatherer, realizing quite suddenly that he has placed himself next to a prowling shadowcat. Of course, to liken the Corpse Queen's immediate and entirely expected attack to a shadowcat lashing out with its claws would be a… gross understatement.
Jon can only watch, a slow satisfied grin spreading across his face, as the Night King is forced to fling himself away, both physically and metaphysically, as a swirling vortex of icy, windy power explodes out from the Corpse Queen, expanding in all directions in a growing orb around her.
She is angry. She has always been angry. She is of Winter, and Winter is crisp and cool at the best of times, while raging and furious most others. And the Night King chose to shackle that. He chose to collar that. He chose to command, control, and attempt to TAME that. Now, Jon couldn't quite say how long the Corpse Queen existed under the Night King's control. How long the icy, blue-skinned female Goddess with her crown of icicles had been collared.
But certainly, not long enough to tame her. Nor did Jon think there was ANY true length of time, in which a Goddess like this could be actually tamed.
The tide of the battle turns in an instant, as the Corpse Queen gives chase and begins to harry the Night King, regardless of where he flees to. At the same time, the effects of her freeing make themselves known throughout the fight between the Army of the Living and the Army of the Dead as well. Nascent divinity that he is, Jon need only Look to See what there is to See.
He Looks and takes in how the Night King utilized the Corpse Queen's ice and frost to empower his White Walkers and his Undead. How the cold seeped into the bones of the Dead, increasing their power, their speed, their longevity. Its even worse, for the White Walkers. One might call them the children of the God and Goddess, so interwoven into their being the Corpse Queen's power is.
But if that's the case, then the White Walkers as a whole are beings born of rape. And the Corpse Queen, Aspect of Winter that she is, holds no love or tender affection in her cold, frozen heart for any of them. For the Night King's Undead, this means they slow down immensely. They still move forward, shambling over each other to try and assail the Wall all along its length. There are… millions of them, by Jon's estimate.
But they are now scrambling, near-toothless things, slowed to a crawl and decaying rapidly in some cases as the cold within them is turned against them by the freed Corpse Queen's fury.
For the White Walkers, it's even worse. Their very essence is made up of both their 'parents'. And suddenly, half of what makes them possible very much doesn't want anything to do with them anymore. By and large, the commanders of the Night King's Army, his officers… tear themselves apart in a frenzy of howling screams. Perhaps a handful prove strong enough to pull together in the aftermath of the… mm, breakup. But even they cannot do anything but charge and fight and die against the Wall and the Army of the Living that defends it.
And it's not like any of them can flee either. Not even the Night King, God of Death and Darkness that he is, can flee. Through every fault of his own, he's trapped himself and his Army between a rock and a hard place. The Wall is an unassailable defensive structure, even for Gods… and at the Night King's back is the True North. A place of undeniable cold and frost, ice and winter.
If Jon had to wonder who came first, the answer is made increasingly obvious. Whatever dark hole the Night King had crawled out of, wherever the God of Darkness and Death had come from, in THESE lands at least, the Corpse Queen had been there first. Perhaps she was like the Old Gods, until the Night King came along and shackled her concepts and domains into a living body. Perhaps she was just minding her own business, when he showed up and enslaved her for thousands upon thousands of years.
Either way, she's free now, and the True North answers to HER call, not his. With all of his power, all of his divine might, concentrated here at the Wall, it's almost too easy for the Corpse Queen to call upon the might of Winter, and bring it crashing down from the North, down upon the Army of the Dead and the Night King… and down upon the Wall, as well.
Even Jon very nearly stumbles, as the Wall shakes from the Corpse Queen's fury. A handful of mortal men fall to their deaths at pretty much every fully manned fort the Wall has. The attack isn't even truly an attack, but merely a byproduct of the blow the Corpse Queen is dealing to the Night King and his Army. It's enough to tell Jon what he had feared was indeed reality.
This was not suddenly a two on one battle in his favor now that he'd freed the Corpse Queen from the Night King's control. This was a free for all. Winter was still coming… and Jon and his forces had to hold the line.
"HOLD THE LINE! WINTER COMES! BUNKER DOWN AND WEATHER THE STORM!"
His divine voice echoes all along the Wall, buffeting the mortals who fight for him, but also sees many of them to safety. Plenty were beginning to over-extend, seeing how slowed down the Dead were becoming and rushing forward to engage and put an end to the fighting once and for all. It was why so many had fallen off the massive fortification when the Corpse Queen's power struck it.
Now, they pull back. This does not give the Army of the Dead any ground… they no longer have the strength to truly assail the Wall. Instead, they find themselves in a meat grinder, the storms of Winter itself pasting them against the ancient fortification until there's not even bone left behind. All is turned to ash, that in turn mixes into the snow and icy ground below.
Meanwhile, after seeing as many of the defenders to relative indoor safety as possible, with the Wall's magical defenses protecting them to the best of its abilities, Jon focuses his divine senses once more on the Night King and the Corpse Queen… just in time to see the Corpse Queen put her hand right through her former enslaver's chest and damn near lift the Night King's physical form off the ground as she reaches out and tears his head clean off with a triumphant roar that sounds fiercer than the fiercest Winter Winds Jon has ever experienced.
At the same time, on the conceptual level… the Corpse Queen tears apart the Night King's concepts. His Domains of Death and Darkness… for a moment, Jon is afraid that he truly has unleashed something worse, as he recognizes the possibility for the Corpse Queen to consume these concepts and bring the Night King's Power over to herself.
It was what anyone with a human mentality would probably do. The chance to double your power? Even Jon would be greatly tempted. But no… no, the Goddess of Winter does not add Death and Darkness to her divinity. She shreds them, shreds the Night King down to his basest being… and before Jon's divine eyes, kills a God outright.
This does not, of course, end the concepts of Death and Darkness. People will still die, just as surely as they will live. Shadow will still exist, and darkness will still fall as day turns to night and then back again. But the God who laid claim to those concepts is, quite suddenly, no more.
As the Corpse Queen tosses the Night King's headless body to one side, she holds his head aloft and using her ferocious icy winds, rends it down to just the skull, sanding away all the flesh and skin and the eyes and nose, until there's nothing left but a horned, inhuman skull in her grasp.
She admires it for a moment, reminding Jon that she too is incredibly inhuman. And then… she looks to him. Directly at him, staring up at him as he stands upon the Wall. Even now, her winter storm buffets the Wall. If it were any other fortification, like say, Winterfell, it would already be gone, ground down to nothing beneath the sheer power behind these icy winds. Such is the fury of a Goddess unshackled.
But the Wall is made of sterner stuff and holds for now. And Jon finds himself facing down another choice. He might be divine now, but he started life as a human. Somehow, he doubted the Corpse Queen had done the same. No, it was far more likely that the Night King had forced the concept of Winter itself to take on a corporeal form and shackled it for his purposes.
That said, trying to treat with the Corpse Queen might end badly. It would almost certainly be better if Jon simply held the line here at the Wall until the Goddess grew weary and finally left. After all, she had all of the True North as her Domain. With the Night King no longer ruling her, she was free to do as she wished.
But at the same time… there was something to be said about having good relations with one's neighbors, was there not? And Jon, as much as he was born of the meddling of Dragon Gods, as much as he had his foundation in Freedom, was also a Child of the North. Winter sung through his blood.
… This was probably his horndog nature acting up, wasn't it? He was self-aware enough to know he had one, that he ended up bedding most of the women he met. They always enjoyed themselves, to be fair, but still…
Perhaps now was one of those scant few times where it was better if he kept it in his pants? Even if it ended up feeling like a missed opportunity down the line…
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