Great Ranging

Jeor Mormont mustered two hundred men from Castle Black and another hundred who came down from the Shadow Tower: no ranging party that size had ever set out before. They rode north with three open questions — why the free folk's villages stood empty, what was known of Mance Rayder, and what had become of Benjen Stark, Waymar Royce and the missing rangers, along with the bodies of Jafer Flowers and Othor, which had risen again after death.

The column found seven abandoned villages along the way. In the fourth, Whitetree, they came upon a weirwood larger than any of them had ever seen, its face cut with a mouth like a ragged hollow where someone had buried two burned skulls among the ashes.

Mormont led the column further north and camped by Craster's Keep, the wildling who lived apart from his own people and tolerated the Watch as long as no one asked too many questions. Craster told them why the villages were empty: Mance Rayder was gathering all his people at the Frostfangs, mustering strength to throw against the Wall, just as other wildling chieftains had done generations before.

Further north, Mormont ordered camp made at the Fist of the First Men, an old circular stone rampart, to wait there for Qhorin Halfhand and the men from the Shadow Tower. Digging in the earth, Jon Snow uncovered a hidden cache: dragonglass arrowheads and daggers together with an old horn and a black cloak of the Watch.

Qhorin was delayed because his patrol had run into a band of wildling scouts led by Alfyn Crowkiller, sent by Mance to watch the Wall. The brothers beat them and killed Alfyn, though it cost four of their own dead and a dozen wounded against far heavier losses on the other side. Of the prisoners taken, one soon died of his wounds; the other was questioned so roughly that he died before telling them everything, though he confirmed that Mance was gathering his people at the Frostfangs in search of a power that could breach the Wall.

With that half answer in hand, Mormont met with his officers and decided to send out fifteen men split into three small parties to learn how large Mance's host was and what power he was seeking. Thoren Smallwood followed the Milkwater upstream; Jarman Buckwell climbed toward the top of the Giant's Stair; Qhorin Halfhand took the way of the Skirling Pass, with Jon Snow riding among his scouts.

Years of filling its ranks from the dungeons of the Seven Kingdoms had left the Watch with unreliable men, and many of them were now marching on this expedition against their will. In the camp at the Fist, with morale already broken after the retreat from Craster's Keep, Chett schemed with thirteen other brothers — among them Dirk, Ollo Lophand, Karl Tanner and Lark of the Sisters — to desert, first killing anyone who might chase them down or give them away: Mormont himself, the officer commanding the Shadow Tower men, the men on watch, the trackers who could follow their trail, and Samwell Tarly, who kept the ravens.

Hours before the plan was set to begin it started snowing, and the conspirators realized fresh snow would leave a trail no one could hide, so they called it off. Chett still meant to have his revenge on Samwell for taking away his duties and went looking for him with that in mind — but at that very moment the alarm horn sounded: the Others were attacking.

Not long after Thoren Smallwood's party returned to camp, the Others fell upon the Fist together with wights, among them a dead bear they brought with them. Ser Ottyn Wythers was trampled to death under a bolting horse, and the bear tore Thoren Smallwood's head off; torches and fire arrows, the only defense they knew, were not enough against an enemy none of them had ever fought before.

Mormont ordered the ring broken on horseback, in a wedge that rode down at a gallop along the one slope gentle enough to try. The riders cut through the wights with axe and sword without the dead giving ground; many fell, but sixty-four brothers, most of them wounded, made it down with Dywen and the pack horses carrying food, oil and torches. Those who could not form up with Mormont were left behind.

In the retreat that followed, with the horses spent, the wounded rode while the rest walked alongside carrying lit torches. Samwell Tarly, Small Paul and Grenn found themselves among the most exposed stragglers, and it was there that Samwell, cornered, drove one of the obsidian daggers Jon Snow had given him into an Other: the creature dissolved on the spot, and for the first time the Watch confirmed with its own eyes what weapon could kill them.

Of the three hundred who had set out, forty-four reached Craster's Keep alive, twelve of them badly wounded, and three more would die there in the days that followed. Craster had food stored away and refused to share it, and among the brothers a suspicion began to spread that the wildling was hiding more than he let on.

During the farewell feast before setting out back to Castle Black, the resentment built up over the whole expedition broke into mutiny: Dirk killed Craster, and when Mormont tried to stop the uprising, Ollo Lophand killed him in turn. About a dozen loyal brothers chose to flee the keep and make their own way back to the Wall; among those who also managed to escape were Samwell Tarly and Gilly, one of Craster's daughters.