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Chapter 159: White Walkers and Wights
🕑 Added 2025-02-19 12:05:40 +0000 UTCLynd had seen the show before, and in his mind, the image of a White Walker was that of an ugly, inhuman monster. But now that he had seen one emerge from the woods, he realized just how far off that image had been from reality.
Handsome—that was his first impression of the White Walker. This one had an exceptionally striking face, so much so that even the Kingslayer's famed looks paled in comparison.
His skin was as pale as snow, his silver-blue hair drifted in the air like flickering flames, and his eyes gleamed the same silver-blue hue. His pointed ears, reminiscent of a Child of the Forest, gave him the ethereal appearance of an ice elf.
He was roughly the same height as Lynd, with a lean build. He wore intricately crafted ice armor, and behind him trailed a thin, nearly transparent ice cloak. In his hand, he held an ice spear, and as snowflakes landed on its surface, they ignited into bursts of silver-blue flame.
It was clear that the White Walker before him was not only different from those in the series but also distinct from the kind slain by Samwell Tarly in the books. As for why, Lynd couldn’t say for now, nor did he have time to dwell on it.
He watched the White Walker approach, placing a hand on the greatsword of the Banished Knight—only to hesitate. After a moment’s thought, he withdrew his hand from the hilt and instead walked forward, unarmed.
The White Walker’s face briefly betrayed a look of confusion and surprise at Lynd’s unexpected action. It was evident that this situation was unfamiliar to him—and that he was, in fact, capable of emotion.
But the moment passed. His expression returned to an icy blankness, and in an instant, his stance shifted from composed to aggressive. He lunged, thrusting his ice spear toward Lynd with incredible speed—far too fast for an ordinary person to dodge.
However, for Lynd, this level of speed was nothing extraordinary.
He sidestepped the thrust with ease, invoking the power of the Storm Dragon rune to amplify his movement speed severalfold. The White Walker followed up with a sweeping attack, but Lynd moved like the wind, evading effortlessly and closing the distance in an instant. Raising a fist, he struck a solid blow to the White Walker’s head, sending him hurtling through the air. The pale blue blood that spattered onto the snow froze the ground solid upon contact.
As expected, the punch had dealt severe damage, knocking the White Walker down. But Lynd felt no satisfaction. His gauntlet—the Banished Knight’s steel—had completely shattered from the impact, leaving his fingers exposed. Ice had already begun creeping over his skin, burrowing into his flesh like a venomous curse.
There was no doubt now—the White Walker’s body carried a potent magic. The moment the steel gauntlets had touched it, the metal had been utterly destroyed. This might explain why steel weapons are ineffective against them. The way the destruction spread through the material reminded him of how Dragon Runes eroded steel from within.
The White Walker, who had been thrown through the air, slowly rose to his feet, turning to look at Lynd.
Lynd had used his full strength in that punch. Even though the steel gauntlets had disintegrated upon contact, the force behind the strike had not diminished. It had struck the White Walker's head directly, causing half of his beautiful face to shatter and cave inward, revealing shards of crystal-like bone beneath—a grotesque yet strangely mesmerizing sight.
Yet despite the damage, the White Walker remained eerily calm, as if pain meant nothing to him. Only his remaining eye betrayed a glint of surprise—perhaps astonishment at Lynd’s strength.
Lynd flexed his hand, feeling the lingering sting of the White Walker’s magic eating away at his flesh. With one gauntlet destroyed, he saw no reason to continue testing the limits of the White Walker with his bare hands. He drew the greatsword of the Banished Knight.
The moment the sword was unsheathed, the White Walker reacted. Whether he sensed the power within the weapon or simply recognized Valyrian steel, his expression changed—his composure wavered. Fear flickered across his face. He took a slow step backward, as if contemplating retreat.
But as he did, a mass of wights emerged from the trees.
They came in all forms—humans and beasts alike, twisted and unnatural. Yet what truly caught Lynd’s attention was the presence of three additional White Walkers among them.
Unlike the first, these three wore human-made leather armor, now layered with ice crystals. Though they wielded ice-forged swords, the hilts were unmistakably those of human long swords. Most notably, they bore fully human features—nothing like the striking, ice-elf visage of the first White Walker.
Lynd had no time to dwell on the implications. The wights wasted no time charging at him in a frenzy.
He raised the Banished Knight’s greatsword and activated the Storm and Lightning runes. Instantly, his body became a whirlwind of destruction, lightning streaking through the air as he cut down the undead. Every wight that touched him was torn apart, losing the magic that animated them and collapsing into lifeless corpses.
The three human-like White Walkers managed to perceive his attack trajectory, reacting just in time—but it wasn’t enough. Against Lynd, who had fully unleashed the power of the Dragon Runes, their movements were far too slow. They barely had time to lift their ice-forged swords before the Banished Knight’s greatsword cleaved them in half.
The effects of Valyrian steel were immediate. The moment the greatsword split their bodies, their forms shattered into countless fragments of ice, cascading to the ground like broken glass before dissolving into pools of frigid liquid in mere moments.
As the three White Walkers perished, many of the surrounding wights collapsed along with them. However, some remained animated, continuing their assault on Lynd.
However, the wights’ attacks were futile. In mere moments, they all fell before Lynd.
Craster, who had previously died at the hands of Glory, had now been resurrected by the magic of the White Walkers. He was attempting to rise and attack Lynd alongside the remaining White Walkers when Glory, having charged out of the woods once again, attacked him without hesitation.
Glory pinned Craster to the ground, and at Lynd’s command, tore off all his limbs, leaving behind only his torso and head, which bobbed grotesquely on the snow.
With the wights and the human White Walkers dealt with, the elf-like White Walker had vanished completely into the depths of the forest. Even with his special vision, Lynd could detect no traces of magic lingering in the woods—it seemed that the White Walker had truly fled.
Lynd scanned the surroundings before finally sheathing the greatsword in his hands. Only then did he have the time to reflect on the thoughts that had just crossed his mind.
There was clearly a hierarchy among the White Walkers. The elf-like one was far superior in both physical strength and magical traces compared to the human White Walkers, and the latter had clearly followed his command.
From this perspective, the White Walkers could not have been created solely by the Children of the Forest’s curse, as had been claimed in the series. They seemed more like an ancient supernatural race inhabiting the extreme cold. Not only did they wield ice magic and the ability to resurrect the dead into wights, but they also possessed the knowledge to transform humans into White Walkers. It was evident that the human White Walkers he had just fought were once the sacrificed infants.
Furthermore, Lynd had discovered that Valyrian steel was only effective against White Walkers. When used against wights, it had no special effect beyond what an ordinary weapon could achieve. What truly severed the wights' connection to magic was the power of the Dragonruned Seal. This contradicted the show’s portrayal, where Dragonglass was said to kill wights as well.
As these thoughts ran through his mind, the infant on the altar let out a piercing cry, pulling Lynd back to the present.
He stepped toward the altar, extinguished the four ritual candles, and collected them, tucking them into his pocket. He would take them and the stone tablet back to Malora for further research. Then, he picked up the baby, hoisted the stone tablet onto his shoulder, and turned toward Craster’s Keep.
Glory followed, carrying the tattered remains of Craster’s wight along with him, leaving behind a sacrificial ground strewn with corpses.
Not long after they had departed, the elf-like White Walker reappeared at the site of the ritual. His face had returned to its original form. Standing at the edge of the sacrificial ground, he gazed in the direction where Lynd had gone before silently retreating into the forest, disappearing without a trace.
Lynd returned to Craster’s Keep, walking straight into the house with Glory at his side.
The women inside had not yet gone to sleep. Even the one who had previously fainted from weeping now sat among the others. They were huddled together, heads bowed, murmuring softly as if offering prayers to some unknown deity.
The deerskin curtain lifted as Lynd stepped inside, allowing the cold wind to sweep through the dimly lit space. The women looked up instinctively, their eyes searching for the one who had entered. But when they saw that it was not Craster, but Lynd—carrying a stone tablet on his back and holding a baby in his arms—their expressions shifted to stunned disbelief.
The moment Glory entered, dragging the remains of wight-Craster with him, the women erupted into horrified screams. Their shrieks were so sharp and piercing that they carried beyond the walls of the house, jolting the rangers outside from their rest.
Benjen and the others, thinking something had gone wrong, immediately drew their weapons and rushed inside. However, when they saw Lynd standing by the fire and the massive Glory beside him, they exhaled in relief, assuming that the beast had merely startled the women.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” Benjen reassured them, sheathing his weapon. “This is Lord Lynd’s pet. It won’t harm you.”
At that moment, one of the women shakily raised a hand and pointed at the figure in Glory’s mouth. “Cra… Craster…”
Following her trembling finger, the rangers finally saw it—Craster, or rather, what was left of him. His limbless body hung in Glory’s jaws, little more than a torso and a grotesquely writhing head.
“Lord Lynd, what’s going on?” The group froze, and both Benjen and Mance spoke at the same time.
Lynd did not answer immediately. Instead, he set down the heavy stone tablet and approached the woman who had spoken, handing the baby to its mother.
The moment she received the child she had lost and thought gone forever, her terror vanished. Overwhelmed with relief and joy, she clutched the baby tightly, tears streaming down her face. She murmured words to Lynd in a dialect somewhat unfamiliar to him, but he could guess their meaning—words of gratitude.
Then, Lynd gestured to Glory, who released Craster’s remains onto the ground. The grotesque form squirmed in response to the life surrounding it, twisting like a worm. To the rangers, it seemed as though Craster was writhing in pain.
One of the rangers instinctively moved forward to assist him, but before he could, Lynd stepped in and pushed him back.
Confusion flickered across the rangers’ faces at Lynd’s unexpected action. However, Mance Rayder, ever observant, noticed something peculiar—Lynd’s steel gauntlet was damaged, the metal fractured in jagged shards. But the damage did not appear to have been caused by a physical blow—it looked as if the steel had been shattered from within, almost as though it had been frozen and broken apart.
Before anyone could voice their questions, Lynd reached for one of the rangers’ swords and, without hesitation, drove it straight through Craster’s back, pinning him to the ground.
“Lord Lynd, are you mad?!” Benjen’s voice was laced with disbelief. He could not fathom why Lynd would go so far, why he would be so cruel as to deny even a limbless man any mercy.
But Mance Rayder, ever perceptive, placed a hand on Benjen’s shoulder, his voice steady. “Calm down. Look at Craster.”
All eyes turned toward the motionless body—and then they widened in shock.
Craster should have been dead. There was no way a normal man, limbless and impaled, could still be moving. Yet the grotesque form nailed to the ground continued to twitch and writhe, utterly indifferent to the blade piercing his body.
A realization dawned in Mance’s mind, his voice barely above a whisper. “A wight… Craster has turned into a wight.”
The words sent a ripple of alarm through the group. Some gasped, others recoiled, as if fearing that the undead condition might somehow be contagious.
“Lord Lynd… what is going on?” Benjen repeated his question, though this time his voice carried more unease than outrage.
This time, Lynd did not evade the question. He recounted what had happened but deliberately altered one key detail—rather than admitting that he had known of Craster’s intentions in advance, he claimed that he had simply grown suspicious upon seeing Craster leave the house with the infant and had followed him.
When the rangers heard that Craster had sacrificed his own son to the White Walkers, fury blazed in their eyes. They turned their glares toward the limbless, undead figure writhing on the floor. Though some among them had committed terrible crimes—murderers, rapists, outlaws—Craster’s sin was something else entirely. In their eyes, his betrayal of his own kin and of humanity itself was beyond redemption. Even the gods would not forgive such an act.
As Lynd described his battle with the White Walkers and the wights, the room fell into an intense, breathless silence. Even Craster’s wives, who had lived in fear of their monstrous husband, now stared at Lynd with wide eyes.
And when he revealed that he had slain three human White Walkers, driven off the elf-like one, and single-handedly wiped out the wights, every gaze upon him shifted—no longer simply with awe, but with something closer to reverence.
None doubted his words. Lynd had already demonstrated his power at Castle Black, where he had single-handedly crushed a mutiny of hundreds without breaking a sweat, even without using his two magic swords.
To the rangers, his feat was extraordinary.
But to Craster’s wives, who had spent their lives in terror of the White Walkers, Lynd had done the unthinkable. The White Walkers had been akin to gods for generations, ruling over the dead and the living alike.
To the wildlings, the White Walkers had been like gods for countless years. But now, after Lynd had defeated them, he was no less than a god himself.
