บท 385: Chapter 385: Unbelievable News
"Kill!"
The earth-shattering battle cry gradually faded, flames soared into the sky, and the thick smell of gunpowder lingered over this grand port city standing at the mouth of the White Knife River.
"Darkness will not last, light will come!"
"May future generations remember our names!"
Accompanied by the resounding roar of despair.
Thump——
Thump——
One by one, the allied soldiers, clad in tattered armor of various houses, teared up, shouting their names towards the sea, hoping that the sea would remember, then jumped into the icy water to meet their end.
As another major stronghold of the allied defense line, White Harbor was the first to face the fierce attack of the White Walkers.
The allied forces stationed in White Harbor and the soldiers of House Manderly did not surrender, but fought back against the onslaught of the army of the dead.
But in the end, despite their best efforts, they were unable to resist the surging army of the dead.
After holding out for several days without the arrival of reinforcements, White Harbor eventually fell.
Due to the lack of warships and limited carrying capacity, a large number of allied soldiers chose to fight a desperate battle, eventually being forced to jump into the sea.
They would rather drown in the icy water than become wights and continue to harm their own kind.
This tragic and heroic story is just a small part of humanity's tenacious resistance against the White Walkers, later widely sung by wandering poets.
However, the fall of White Harbor was not the end of the world, and humanity still held hope at the third line of defense.
A few days later.
On the eve of the fall of White Harbor, Lord Wyman Manderly, who had escaped by boat, finally led his remaining soldiers to the front line of Karhold, while his family had been sent to King's Landing.
He brought an unbelievable piece of news.
Lord 'Eel' Manderly claimed to have seen the former Warden of the North, Lord Rickard Stark, and his eldest son Brandon Stark, on the battlefield of White Harbor.
"They have become White Walkers, their eyes burning with icy blue flames. Lord Rickard seemed to be wearing the armor he wore when he was burned alive by the Mad King, only now it was covered in frost."
"Brandon was the first to climb the walls of White Harbor, no soldier could stop him, and he even killed my eldest son Wylis with a single stroke."
The soldiers on the battlefield of White Harbor resisted fiercely, blocking the army of the dead for three days, then the White Walkers in the rear took action, and the resistance of the allied soldiers came to nothing.
The intense street fighting lasted for several days, and in the end, without the arrival of reinforcements from the main camp at Karhold, the allied forces stationed in White Harbor were wiped out, except for those who escaped by ship.
The news brought by 'Lord Eel' was shocking, but not many believed it, especially Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell, whose hair had turned somewhat gray in his middle age, seemed to have aged a lot overnight.
He didn't want to believe that his father and brother had become White Walkers.
But Lord Manderly was an old servant of his father's time, and he was very old, friendly, and well-liked. No one believed that Lord Manderly would maliciously mock the Stark family.
Eddard just thought the old man was confused, or perhaps he was scared by the situation at the time and saw some illusions. After all, according to the guards, the old man was almost killed by the White Walkers, and witnessed the death of his eldest son Wylis, which was a great shock. He was forcibly taken down by the guards.
But whether those two White Walkers were Rickard Stark and Brandon Stark, the guards who witnessed it couldn't say for sure, because they had never seen these two lords, so the matter was dropped.
However, not long after the news of the fall of White Harbor came back.
At the front line of Karhold.
The army of the dead finally arrived late. They swept away all the obstacles in the North, leaving only the final passage through the Neck to bring death and cold to all of Westeros and the world.
Karhold was built by the First Men ten thousand years ago. At that time, Karhold was a majestic fortress, with twenty towers and walls of basalt as high as Winterfell.
It was once the key to defending the North, repelling countless invasions by the Andals.
But now, the tall walls have disappeared for the most part, and the wooden towers have rotted away a thousand years ago, leaving only three of the twenty towers.
However, after the allied forces retreated to Karhold, they gathered all their strength, just like when they repaired the Wall, and painstakingly renovated this abandoned ancient castle.
Twenty towers stood on the newly built tall walls, blocking the front of the Neck, and in the distance on the Kingsroad, the figures of the army of the dead gradually emerged.
The crowd of heads was so dense that it was impossible to see the end. The soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms on the wall swallowed hard. Although many of them were survivors of one or two wars, they still felt their scalps tingle.
And among the allied forces, there were even more new soldiers who had never seen White Walkers. They were all new reinforcements sent to support Karhold from the South, and many of them were just newly conscripted strong men.
During the great exodus of the North, millions of people crossed the Neck to the South, and these people came to the South with no homes, no livelihoods, and could only rely on the relief of the local nobles, otherwise they would freeze or starve to death. The strong ones even started to loot villages and towns to bring back some food for their families.
And the nobles of the Riverlands were troubled by this, because these refugees were mainly concentrated on their land, they could only spend money and food to support them, otherwise it would cause bigger problems.
During the great exodus, the ruling class of the feudal dynasty only thought of encouraging the people to flee to the South. Their original intention may have been good, not wanting the people to die at the hands of the White Walkers, and even less wanting to supply the White Walkers with blood.
Otherwise, after the complete fall of the North, millions of dead would flood the South, and even if the Seven Gods descended, they would not be able to stop it.
However, they only encouraged the people to flee, but did not think about how to settle these people. The weakness of grassroots governance was exposed, causing the current chaos.
But fortunately, it is now a time of need for manpower, and King Robert has a crude way of governing.
He first borrowed money and food from the Iron Bank, and now Westeros is completely under the control of the Faceless Men of Braavos, who may not be able to escape.
Then he spent a lot of money to recruit a large number of Northerners into the army. These people didn't need to be paid, they just needed to be fed.
The number of allied forces expanded rapidly to over a hundred thousand. However, the subsequent problem was the lack of armor and weapons, but there was no
way, they just had to grit their teeth and go on.
The number of allied forces reached an unprecedented number, united in their fight against the White Walkers.
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