บท 150: -Chapter 143-

-Chapter 143-

-2nd day of the 10th moon of the year 299 AC-

-POV Dalla-

"Give me that rabbit," said a Thenn to one of the hunters.

"Go fuck yourself, I'm the one who hunted it," said the hunter.

"Liar, you stole it from us, you damn Thenn," said the Thenn as he punched the hunter.

"How dare you insult me and hit me, if today I, Sigurd, do not kill, may the old gods curse me," he said as he drew a sword and attacked.

I turned away from these men who acted like immature children, letting out a sigh of annoyance.

Since the death of Jarl and the clash between the king of the kneelers and Mance, everything had completely changed.

Like the 4 days that preceded it, constant disputes erupted in the camp among the now allied but formerly enemy tribes.

The visit of the king of the kneelers had done enormous harm to the precarious unity that Mance was trying to build among us.

Mance was chosen for his strength, but not solely; he was primarily chosen for his intelligence, his cunning, and his vision of the future which surpassed us all.

I placed a hand on my stomach in thought then suddenly stood up and walked towards Mance who was still watching the fight with no intention of intervening, probably to avoid reigniting tensions between Styr and Tormund.

'If Mance hadn't intervened, one of them might have lost his life, leading to a civil war among us,' I thought.

"So, are you having fun watching them fight?" I said, seeing the sly smirk on his face as he watched the Thenn getting hit by the hunter.

"Fun? Hmm, I find watching these kids fight in the snow like this quite amusing," he said with a falsely serene tone to hide the nervousness he felt at the idea of having to face the king of the kneelers.

"Don't tell me the king of the kneelers scares you?" I half-joked to cheer him up.

But what I didn't expect was that he would say nothing and his sly smirk disappeared and was replaced by a solemn air.

"You really are afraid of him," I said, looking at my husband who was a fearless man who had managed to unite all the peoples of the true north.

"You don't know the kneelers," he said, bristling slightly at my accusation.

"The kneelers were ruled by the house of the dragon, House Targaryen, and before House Targaryen took the continent, it was divided into 7 kingdoms, I learned from Maester Aemon, who was himself a Targaryen, that when the Targaryens landed on the continent of Westeros, they had only 3,000 soldiers, 3,000 soldiers and 3 dragons."

I frowned and then said: "Is that the big beast we saw?"

"That beast could do us a lot of harm."

"The giants could handle it."

"If it were that simple, he wouldn't have brought his dragon."

"It's not his dragon that scares you?"

"Not only, I also think about the 10,000 horsemen who have arrived and the 10,000 soldiers defending the wall."

He let out a small sigh and then said, "The kneelers are weaker than us, so they have developed tactics that allow them to win more easily and cavalry is one of them; a cavalry unit can face 3, 5, even 10 times the same number of enemies against armies untrained to face this kind of combat."

"Maybe he underestimates us," I said, trying to rekindle the flame that was gradually dying in my husband's eyes.

"He knew we were coming, he had time to study us and time to prepare for our arrival, he has only mobilized 20,000 soldiers because he knows he won't need more than that," said Mance.

"Or he thinks, he is arrogant, he thinks he is better than everyone," I said, thinking back to the murderer of Jarl, my sister's lover.

Mance smiled, knowing I didn't like the king of the kneelers, and then he shook his head and said:

"I was surprised by the magic he showed but I am certain that either he will use the 10,000 horsemen to try to destroy us before we attack the wall, or once we pass the wall IF we actually make it, he will order his cavalry to kill us all."

"If you sound the Horn, the wall will fall, there will only be 10,000 horsemen, we will then be ten times more than them," I said.

"Dalla, please don't pretend you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you, you know perfectly well that more than half of this army are not fighters," said Mance.

"They will fight for you if you ask them," I said fervently.

"I know and that's the reason why I can't ask them to fight if I'm absolutely certain that we will lose, I can't take that risk," said Mance.

"You've already given up," I said, frowning.

He didn't respond and then I suddenly said, "I'm pregnant, if we pass the wall and we kneel, they will treat us like their slaves, is that what you want for our son?"

I saw the flame in Mance's eyes that was about to go out suddenly rekindle before wavering when he said, "It's still better than being dead."

"I'd rather die than kneel and let my son become a slave to the southern folk."

"What if they wanted to live in peace with us?" he said hopefully.

"If they really wanted to live in peace with us, they wouldn't have asked us to kneel, they want to make us kneelers, they want us to abandon our traditions," I said, looking at my husband.

*DRAGON ROAR*

We exchanged a look once we heard the familiar sound of the beast of the king of the kneelers and then I said, "The choice is yours, whatever you decide, I will trust you."