Chapter 170: Lights in the Forest

It was gold.

That was the first thing Encrid registered. A single burst of golden light, low among the trees, far to the north. It flared for less than a heartbeat and then was gone.

Everyone on the Fifth Bastion who had been looking north saw it.

Everyone who had not been looking north saw the others turn.

"What was that?" Ellis asked.

Nobody answered him.

Encrid was already at the parapet with the glass raised to his eye.

He could not see anything. Only the black line of the forest under the moonlight, and above it, the empty sky where the tusks had been standing when the sun went down.

He lowered the glass slightly.

Two miles past the treeline. A little less than three from the Wall.

That was where the Elder had lain down.

"Golden Star," Corr said quietly. He was leaning forward in his chair, his one hand gripping the edge of the parapet. "That was Commander Dane."

"Are you sure?"

"I’ve seen him fight a hundred times. Nobody else on the Wall burns the golden star that bright."

Encrid knew someone else who could do it but even that person was with the strike team so he said nothing.

Then it came again.

Not one flash this time. Several. Gold, then a second color beside it. Deep red, almost orange.

"Rael," Encrid said.

The red light did not flicker. It glowed, low and steady, for a long moment. Like a coal that someone was blowing on.

Then it went out.

And then the sound arrived.

It came after the light, the way thunder comes after lightning. It rolled across the forest and over the killing ground and up the face of the Wall. It was not a roar. It was too deep for that.

It was a groan.

A vast, slow sound, like an enormous tree being bent by the wind until it was ready to break. It went on and on. It went on so long that men on the parapet began to cover their ears, even though it was not loud.

It was simply deep.

Encrid felt it in his teeth. In his ribs. In the bandaged wound on his forearm.

When it finally stopped, the whole Wall was silent.

"It woke up," Gus whispered.

✧ ✧ ✧

For the next hour, the men on the Wall watched the forest.

They could not help it.

The horde was still out there on the killing ground. The Grinners were still scraping at the body ramps. The Talljacks were still testing the parapet. But on every section of the northern face, men kept stealing glances toward the north, toward the dark place beyond the treeline where the lights had come from.

Ellis Cavel stood beside Encrid, his arms wrapped around himself.

"Who is out there?" he asked quietly. "I heard someone say the Lord Commander."

"The Lord Commander," Encrid said. "Commander Dane of the First Watch. Captain Kass of the Far-Watch. And a mercenary named Rael."

"The one who burned the Gorehorns? There is talks about him everywhere."

"The same one."

Ellis looked north for a while.

"Four men," he said. "Against that."

Encrid didn’t reply to that.

A runner came up the stairs a few minutes later with a message from the ninth mile. It was written in a small, sharp hand that Encrid now recognized as Ilse’s.

The Gleaning is watching too. Nobody here is sleeping. Tell us the moment you know anything.

Encrid folded the note and put it in his coat.

He did not have anything to tell them.

And the lights kept coming.

Gold, again and again. Short bursts, like a hammer striking an anvil.

Red, from time to time. Sometimes low. Once, very high, as if someone had thrown something burning into the sky.

And once, only once, a third color.

It was white.

Not a flash. A line. A single thin line of white light, perfectly straight, that appeared in the darkness above the trees and stood there for the space of a breath.

Then it vanished.

"What was that one?" Ellis asked.

This time, Corr did not answer.

Encrid did not answer either. But he was fairly sure he knew.

Ulrich Vance had never let anyone on the Wall see his Star. Appraisal had shown Encrid nothing but question marks. In the Council chamber, men argued over whether the Lord Commander even had one, or whether forty-eight years on the stone had simply made him that strong.

The white line had not looked like a Star.

It had looked like a sword cut.

And the sound that followed it was not a groan.

It was a scream.

It came from the north. It was so loud that the men on the Fifth Bastion flinched and ducked as if something had been thrown at them. It rose higher and higher, a thin, tearing sound that did not seem possible from anything so large.

It was a sound of pain.

Then it broke off.

And after that, there was nothing.

No lights. No sounds.

Only the forest.

✧ ✧ ✧

Encrid stood at the parapet until dawn.

He did not remember the hours passing. He only remembered the cold, and the weight of the glass in his hand, and Corr’s breathing beside him.

Somewhere around the fifth hour, Ellis Cavel fell asleep sitting against the base of the ballista. Gus found a blanket and put it over him.

Somewhere around the sixth hour, Ysolde Marr came onto the Fifth Bastion.

She did not say anything. She walked to the parapet, a few paces from Encrid, and stood there looking north.

Encrid did not say anything either.

They stood there together, not speaking, while the sky slowly turned from black to grey.

The first light came up behind the clouds.

The killing ground appeared first, grey and trampled, covered with dead Roamers and the five dark mounds of the Ironbacks. Then the broken treeline. Then the forest beyond it, rolling away to the north.

Encrid raised the glass.

He looked for movement at the treeline. For four figures coming out between the trees. For three. For anyone.

There was no one.

He looked farther.

Two miles past the treeline, a little less than three from the Wall, something was rising above the canopy.

It rose slowly.

And paused.

And fell.

Beside him, Ysolde drew in a sharp breath.

Encrid kept the glass pressed to his eye. He made himself look carefully. He made himself count.

Then he lowered the glass and handed it to her without a word.

She looked for a long time.

When she lowered it, her face was pale.

"One," she said.

Encrid nodded.

Above the forest, rising and falling with that slow, heavy rhythm, there was only a single tusk.

The Elder had lost the other.

And it was still walking.

The Strike team had failed to stop the Elder!

✦ ✦ ✦