Chapter 2: The Patrol
By law, a deserter from the Night's Watch is a common criminal. All lords of the Seven Kingdoms are obligated to hunt them down and execute them—especially the Starks of the North, whose relationship with the Watch is the closest. The Starks and their bannermen show no mercy toward deserters. Unless one flees north to join the wildlings, the consequences of a direct desertion are easily imagined. But Egger's desire to shed his black cloak was driven by a need to stay as far away from the enemies of humanity as possible; how could he possibly run further north?
As for heading south... if he truly intended to escape, he had to be prepared. First, he needed a good horse, enough rations, a change of clothes to replace the black, and the perfect timing to flee the Watch's sphere of influence quickly while avoiding all villages and inhabited areas along the way. If he could successfully cross the Neck and leave the North behind, his escape plan would be nearly half-complete. From there, he would head straight for the warm and safe South. The further south he went, the less the lords and nobles cared about the Night's Watch. He only needed to reach the fertile Riverlands or the Reach, find a place that would accept him without questioning his identity, and he could begin his new life in another world.
The plan was clear and simple. The problem was that in this feudal era with poor transportation and extremely low mobility of people, achieving a smooth escape with his distinct foreign appearance and lack of legal status was...
Incredibly difficult.
Shaking his head, Egger tossed these thoughts from his mind. Now was not the time for contemplation. As the horses' hooves made a series of light, muffled thuds in the snow, the tree trunks and branches soon blocked out the sunlight. They had truly entered this vast, subarctic forest situated north of the North.
"Those damned wildlings," Gared cursed. "The weather's getting colder, yet they won't stay quiet."
"If they stayed quiet, they wouldn't be wildlings," Egger replied casually, brushing a few snowflakes off his sleeve. Due to the shortage of manpower and supplies, and to keep the wildlings from figuring out their patterns, the Night's Watch had abandoned regular patrols in favor of a random and more targeted schedule. Two nights ago, brothers on sentry duty atop the Wall reported seeing firelight a few miles to the north. This was the direct reason the Lord Commander and the First Ranger arranged this patrol. Had this not happened, the four of them would likely have finished their morning drills by now and be comfortably warming themselves by a fire indoors.
"Stop the chatter. Spread out and advance side-by-side. Don't miss a single suspicious trace," Waymar commanded coldly, cutting off the small talk among the three soldiers without even looking back.
Hearing their officer's demand, Will and Gared both shrugged and made faces at the man's back. Ranked by age from oldest to youngest, the group consisted of Gared, Will, Egger, and finally Waymar. That the youngest was the officer was bound to cause some friction among the other three. This young noble from the Vale was the third son of the Bronze Yohn, Lord of Runestone. Because his chances of inheriting a title were slim, he chose to join the Night's Watch, escorted to the Wall by his father personally along with a full wagon of luggage. This fact was often mocked by other brothers over drinks—the great Ser Waymar Royce looked less like he was coming to serve and more like he was on a holiday vacation.
Despite the claim that every man of the Night's Watch was a brother, having a young, inexperienced "green boy" leapfrog over them to lead was hard to swallow. This was actually Waymar Royce's first time leading a patrol. To be honest, how could the other men be expected to respect or trust him?
Resentment aside, discipline remained. The three spread out as ordered, forming a line to begin their investigation.
Soon, they found signs of human activity near the area where the sentry had spotted the light. It hadn't snowed the day before, so the footprints of the moving wildlings and the ash piles from their fires were clearly preserved.
"They're gone," Gared said, looking at Waymar, hesitating as if he wanted to say more.
The Night's Watch was born after the Long Night. During that generation-long winter, the White Walkers swept south across the realms of the First Men, nearly driving humanity to extinction. After the disaster ended, the Wall and the Sworn Brotherhood were established to stand against the White Walkers and protect mankind. One can imagine that joining this force was once the highest honor on the continent; even with extremely high entry requirements, volunteers were endless. But as the White Walkers retreated to the Land of Always Winter and faded into myth, and the generation that experienced the Long Night died out, the importance and treatment of the night's watch were destined to decline.
That said, the Wall did effectively block wildling incursions for the Seven Kingdoms for a long time, maintaining its relevance. However, a major historical event eventually dealt the Night's Watch a fatal blow: Aegon's Conquest and the establishment of the Targaryen dynasty.
The Dragon Kings didn't mistreat the Watch, but their founder brought dragons from Valyria. During a subsequent large-scale wildling invasion, the ruler of the kingdom simply rode a dragon north to roast the invaders. While this quickly drove off the attackers, it objectively accelerated the decline of the Night's Watch. When you have a weapon that can sweep away your enemies, the role and influence of the Watch drop sharply. After all, if those crude wildlings came again, why not just notify the Dragonrider King?
Nobles and knights were no longer willing to dedicate their lives to a meaningless vigil. The Night's Watch gradually lost its source of recruits and had to lower its standards repeatedly. After centuries of evolution, the Watch eventually became the shadow it was today.
"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."
When people feel their blood boil upon hearing this oath—stacked with grand promises and titles—how many can guess that it wasn't always this way? And behind each revision, how much bitterness and desperation was hidden?
The dragons and dragonriders of the Targaryen dynasty have long since vanished, but the decline of the Night's Watch is irreversible. Today, the Black Brotherhood is less a first line of defense against wildlings and more a team of security guards maintaining the Wall. Its fewer than one thousand members can generally be divided into three categories:
The first category, which Egger belonged to, consisted of prisoners who chose the Wall to avoid punishment: thieves, poachers, rapists, and the like. These men, who once wouldn't have been fit to shine a Night's Watchman's boots, were now the main force of the black-clothed men, destined to live and die here with no way out but desertion.
The second category consisted of those forced by circumstance: fallen officials or nobles who lost power in political struggles, farmers who lost their land, bankrupt merchants, and bastards. These people were nominally encouraged to join and could technically leave before taking their vows, but in reality, they had nowhere else to go. Most of the Watch's "builders" and "stewards" came from this group.
The third and rarest category consisted of men like Ser Waymar Royce—volunteers who joined out of a sense of honor and duty, or self-exiles who wished to avoid family power struggles by stepping aside for brothers or sons. They had other choices but left the stage of power in the Seven Kingdoms for the Wall. Over time, such people became increasingly rare; Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, First Ranger Benjen Stark, and even the blind Maester Aemon Targaryen—who gave up the rule of the Seven Kingdoms—belonged to this group. They were usually appointed directly as officers and leadership. This seemingly unfair rule was actually easy to understand: at the northernmost edge of the kingdom, if you let a bunch of scum, criminals, or peasants command an army that answers to no lord, there's no telling what the "guardians" of the Wall would become.
No hero remains after a long freeze at the Wall. No matter how much ambition a young noble brought when joining, once they discovered that the legendary Night's Watch was nothing like they imagined and the environment was so harsh, their hot blood quickly turned to ice.
Waymar Royce was no exception; he was currently regretting his decision deeply. No one had forced him to come, but he had been inspired by the oath and wanted to show his beloved older brother that he had no intention of fighting for the family inheritance. Now, the word was out and the vow was taken. Even if he were shameless enough to crawl back home, his family would never publicly welcome him.
His only strategy now was to quickly earn some merit. Then, when he applied for a leave to visit home, no one would question whether he ran away because he couldn't handle the hardship.
The young Ranger leader circled the former wildling campsite on his horse, thought for a moment, and quickly made a decision: "There aren't many of them. Follow the tracks. We pursue."
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