RoWE - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: An Encounter Outside the Plot

Aeg was a bit stunned. He didn't remember Benjen Stark encountering any attacks on his way back to the Wall from Winterfell, either in the novels or the TV series. Could it be aimed at him, sent by Jaime and Cersei to silence him, or by the Starks to capture him for lying?

It shouldn't be.

After a second of stunned silence, his soldier's instinct kicked in. He drew his steel sword with a clang and, before Tyrion's two guards could react, positioned himself in front of them. This little Lannister was his hope for leaving the Wall, "My lord, hide quickly!"

"Lord Benjen, come out, I'll cover you!" One of the rapist recruits was unlucky enough to be hit in the shoulder by an arrow and was rolling on the ground, screaming in pain. Yoren shoved the skinning knife into the other recruit's hand and shouted at him, "If you don't want to die, stay by my side!"

The tent flap opened, and the chief ranger came out with his weapon in hand. Figures were charging out of the darkness from all directions, shouting as they rushed towards the camp. From the sparse arrows and flying stones, he quickly analyzed the identity of the attackers, "It's wildlings! Mount up. damn it, too late. Everyone retreat to the stone wall, prepare for battle!"

The two Lannister guards should have obeyed Tyrion's orders, but in their master's panic, they instinctively followed Stark's command. The group of nine huddled together with their backs to each other against the old stone wall where the tents were leaning, with an injured man and a Lannister in the middle, their expressions serious and tense as they prepared to face the enemy.

"Aren't the wildlings north of the Wall?" Tyrion, lacking noble demeanor, ducked his head and hid behind Aeg and Jon, the two tall men, unable to see what was happening outside. Aeg relaxed once he identified the enemy, while the bastard was thrilled at the opportunity to showcase his skills so soon. In contrast, only one of the Lannister guards, despite being fully armored, acted like a soldier, "No one told me the North was this dangerous!"

"Occasionally, small groups of wildlings cross the Wall, but they rarely venture this far into the wolf woods."

"Can I have something for a weapon? I have nothing to defend myself with!"

"There's no time, they're here!"

Without heralds, banners, drums, or horns blowing, and even without the glint of steel, the wildlings charging at them were mostly armed with sticks and stone spears. Aeg didn't even see a decent weapon. He only heard the twang of a bowstring as one of Tyrion's guards loosed an arrow, and a shadow screamed, clutching a wound and staggering out of the charging ranks.

Such a ragtag group of wildlings, even with numerical advantage, shouldn't have been bold enough to attack a group of nine, including Night's Watchmen. What made them do it?

There was no time to think. The enemy was upon them. The wildlings were ragged and emaciated, wearing a hodgepodge of hard leather or ill-fitting, tattered armor, and not one had a helmet.

The Night's Watchmen prepared for a bloody battle, but Aeg sensed something was off as soon as they engaged. The dozen or so wildlings who rushed over to surround them didn't actually come close to fight but stood two meters away, shouting and waving their various weapons, defending more than attacking, showing no intention of taking their lives. Moreover, several wildling women followed the men, deftly beginning to loot their belongings, not even sparing the squirrel Yoren hadn't finished skinning.

If they were just after their possessions, since the group wasn't escorting anything important, there was no need to fight to the death. They could just let them take what they wanted.

With this in mind, their weapons clashed and probed each other, and they stood in a stalemate for only a few seconds before Yoren realized something was amiss, "Their target is the horses!"

Benjen turned around in alarm and indeed saw several figures sneaking up on the horses they had tied up nearby, cutting the ropes one by one.

Were they here to steal horses? Stark suddenly understood, his face darkening with anger. In the declining state of the Night's Watch, horses were a more scarce resource than men. No longer worried about his subordinates' lives, he swung his steel sword, "Stop them!"

Aeg and Yoren, as Night's Watch soldiers and Benjen's subordinates, were the first to respond, charging towards the enemy and tearing through their loose formation. Jon and Jack, the Lannister guard, followed. The tide of battle turned instantly. The group that had been forced to huddle together now surged forward at Benjen's command. With Aeg's assistance, Benjen cleanly cut down one of the wildlings with his sword, and the once-menacing wildlings scattered like a disturbed beehive, some even throwing away their weapons and makeshift shields, fleeing into the darkness without looking back.

The scene was eerily familiar. The "battles" Aeg had participated in since joining the Night's Watch, aside from the genuinely harrowing fight against the White Walker, were all about driving away wildlings who had gotten too close to the Wall. The pursued residents beyond the Wall would flee in this manner, and countless bloody facts proved that none who dared to turn and fight could escape the standard steel swords.

The chief ranger's command rang out, "Don't chase the defeated, protect the horses first!"

The two Night's Watch soldiers followed their leader with their weapons, reaching the trees where they had tied their horses in just a few seconds. The wildlings outside the perimeter had taken advantage of the group being surrounded to cut many of the horse's ropes, driving or riding away with several of them.

Most of these horses were assets gifted to the Night's Watch by the Northern lords. As members of the black-clad army, Aeg and Yoren might have a chance to ride them in the future. Naturally, they were eager to protect them. As the three fully armed Night's Watchmen in black approached, the nearest horse thief shouted a warning to his companions and fled into the forest with the loot he had already secured, abandoning the remaining horses.

The others weren't as disciplined. The recruits and Tyrion cautiously stayed put, while Jon and Jack, the Lannister guard, shouted and chased after the enemy, cutting down two before stopping their pursuit at Benjen's repeated calls, returning to the campsite reluctantly.

The freshly cooked meat soup had leaked all over the ground because the iron pot was punctured, and the aroma filled the air as their temporary camp was in disarray. Several loaves of bread that had been taken out and placed on the table for sharing had vanished, a dead squirrel had been taken by a wildling woman, and a piece of clothing and the iron spoon that had been in the pot were missing. along with more trivial, insignificant items.

If not for the horses, they had almost no losses.

"Why would they take my book? Gods, are there literate wildlings?" Tyrion exclaimed, "Everything else is fine, but that book was borrowed from Winterfell's library!"

"I doubt they even know what a book is. They probably just saw it was square and couldn't resist taking it." Aeg expressed regret, "Chances are it'll be used as kindling to start a fire, or the pages will be torn out to wipe their backsides."

"Should we pursue them?" Yoren's face was grim, making him look even more fierce, "We're missing eight horses."

"That means we still have fourteen left." Benjen frowned, considering. The enemy had at least twenty men and women showing their faces. To pursue or exterminate them, three Night's Watchmen would not be enough. There could be more ambushes in the woods, and he ultimately shook his head, rejecting the raven's suggestion.

The inexplicable attack ended just like that. It was Aeg's fourth encounter with wildlings and the first time he was passively attacked, but like the previous three times, there were no Night's Watch casualties.

The gap in combat effectiveness and quality between professional soldiers and farmers was so vast, like that between wolves and sheep. In theory, a flock of sheep could kill a wolf if they united, but in reality, no sheep would dare to slow down for such a fleeting possibility. As long as they didn't panic, even with the initial advantage, the wildlings could only withdraw from the battlefield in disarray after leaving behind three bodies. If not for Benjen's urgency to protect the remaining horses, the outcome might have been even more devastating.

Only one new recruit, who hadn't officially joined yet, was unlucky enough to be hit in the first round of sparse arrow fire. Fortunately, the wildlings didn't have strong bows, and the quality of their arrows was poor, they even used stone arrowheads without barbs. All that was needed was to pull out the arrow and disinfect the wound, which was only a flesh wound.

For Jon, Tyrion, and his two guards, who had never participated in a real war, repelling an ambush with zero casualties and three enemy dead was undoubtedly a great victory. For Aeg, his own safety was more important than anything else. But Benjen Stark felt immense shame. The military horses at Castle Black were already few, and now nearly a tenth had been stolen by a group of wildlings who had crossed the Wall. Since he joined the Night's Watch, he had never suffered such a loss.

More important than the loss of the horses was what the attack implied: the wildlings were accelerating their southward flight, and the situation north of the Wall was obviously deteriorating. They needed to organize the next patrol as soon as possible to determine the situation.