The Mountain of Ice and Fire

The Titan banner fluttered in the wind and snow, its emblem a giant with his feet planted on two islands, several large ships passing between his legs into and out of a harbor.

The Titan was a mountain of a giant, the symbol of the city-state of Braavos, and one of the nine wonders of the world, on par with the Wall. The Titan was also a colossal merchant ship.

This ship came from Braavos, and its captain was also from Braavos.

The large ship slowly sailed in through the wind and snow, greeted by two Night's Watch warships, which looked rather small in comparison to the Titan.

The Titan had several decks and a massive hull, a truly rare behemoth.

What supplies did such a large freighter bring to the Wall?

The ship cut through the wind and snow, heading towards the harbor.

Ever since the Titan entered the northern waters, even wearing several layers of thick clothing, Lord Gawen Westerling could feel the cold like little knives, stabbing at his toes.

Experienced captains say that feeling the cold in cold places is a good thing. If you can't feel the cold, your life is in danger. If you feel warmth in a place that is clearly cold, you are not far from freezing to death.

When it gets extremely cold, the cold will turn into warmth.

Gawen Westerling had never been to this frigid land before. Dragonstone was still warm as spring, scorching hot at midday, but as soon as he entered the northern waters, the temperature became shockingly cold. And after entering the Bay of Seals, the cold turned into a sharp sword that could pierce through leather armor.

On the high deck, Gawen Westerling wore thick clothes, covered with sable fur, his entire face wrapped up tightly, with only his eyes showing.

He looked up at the majestic Wall, his eyes filled with awe.

The world actually had such a magnificent and imposing ice wall, with no end in sight. The closer he got to it, the more he felt its overwhelming and incomparable power.

The ship suddenly jolted, shaking Gawen Westerling out of his reverie. He had been so amazed by the greatness of the Wall that he had completely forgotten the cold when the ship entered the harbor.

The ship docked.

Clack, clack, clack, clack!

The long wooden ladder slowly lowered under the pull of the ropes. On the deck, beside Westerling, were hundreds of Westerlands soldiers, all from House Westerling. They all looked up at the Wall, everyone awestruck.

Like southerners, people from the Westerlands would never come to the Wall in their entire lives.

Accustomed to living in warm places, they were bound to feel uncomfortable entering this frigid land.

But the beauty of the Wall seemed to possess a magical power, sweeping away the Westerlands soldiers' fatigue and fear of the cold.

On the Titan, most of the sailors were also seeing the Wall for the first time. The thousand-mile ice wall, one of the nine wonders of the world, stunned everyone who saw it for the first time.

Eddard Stark and the others also looked up at the colossal merchant ship, which most of them had never seen before either.

"Such a large ship, how many supplies did the Mountain send us!" Carter Pike of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea exclaimed expectantly.

He was a fearless man!

Two years ago, in 298 AC, Will, the Night's Watchman who was beheaded by Eddard Stark as a deserter in the Winterfell execution grounds, was his friend. Before becoming a Night's Watchman, Will was a thief. In the rangers, stealth and reconnaissance were his specialties. He was the first Night's Watchman to see the Others. He fled the Wall but fell into the hands of the northern free riders and was then executed by Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell as a deserter.

Now Eddard Stark finally knew that what Will had told him before his death was true: Winter is coming, and the Others are attacking!

*

Gawen Westerling walked down the high wooden ladder, noticing that his boots were as cold as ice.

"Lord Eddard," Gawen said on the ladder. He took off the fur that covered his mouth and nose, and his breath turned into a cloud of white mist at his nose.

It was simply too cold.

"Lord Gawen!" Eddard Stark replied.

"Yes, Lord." Gawen replied.

Northerners were used to this level of wind and snow, but for Gawen Westerling from the Westerlands, it was a challenge. He needed time to adapt.

Behind him, family knights and guards continued to descend, all wrapped up tightly, looking much fatter. These people all needed a process of adapting to the extreme cold.

"Let's go to the castle first," Eddard Stark gave Lord Gawen a noble embrace.

"Good, let's go to the castle first," Lord Gawen said. In this long summer, Gawen had spent eleven years in warm places and had forgotten the cold feeling of the last winter. He still needed time.

Even in winter, for nobles, their homes were actually as warm as spring.

Although the Eastwatch-by-the-Sea military fortress was small, it had all kinds of functions: blacksmith shop, maester's tower, command tower, training ground, armory, storage room, meeting hall, zigzag stairs leading directly to the top of the wall...

Lord Gawen was welcomed into the warm hall. There were two roaring fireplaces in the hall, and thick curtains blocked the wind, snow, and light. Red candles were lit in the hall, and torches were lit on the torch stands on the walls.

Steaming bacon soup and warm beer were brought up, followed by warm bread, golden honey, sizzling roasted wolf and bear meat, and ham and sausages made from wild boar...

Lord Gawen was a little dumbfounded!

He didn't know that the Night's Watchmen usually couldn't eat such delicacies. Getting a few mutton chunks in their carrot soup was already a great treat.

This was the wine and meat that Eddard Stark had brought from Castle Black. After all, Lord Gawen was the first nobleman from the south (Northerners collectively called all places south of the North as the south) to send supplies. Eddard Stark was a generous and courteous man.

"Lord Eddard, I heard that the Night's Watch is short on supplies..."

"You're right, Lord. We are indeed short on supplies. We lack both food and cloth. This is the food and drink that Lord Eddard brought from Castle Black, specially to welcome you," Commander Carter Pike said.

"Lord, our warriors get excited for half a day if they can get a few pieces of meat in their hot soup," Davos Seaworth said.

Lord Gawen noticed Davos's sigil. He recognized the sigil: a small black ship with an onion sail on a gray background. He also noticed that the first knuckle of the other four fingers on this lord's left hand had been cut off, except for his thumb.

"Ser Davos Seaworth?"

"I am, Lord," Davos said politely.

"The Hand, he is the Hand! Haha, Davos is the Hand!" Carter Pike laughed sarcastically.

Davos Seaworth's face was slightly embarrassed by the ridicule, but there was a firm glint in his eyes.

Eddard Stark poured wine for Lord Gawen, and Lord Gawen took it and drank it all in one gulp. Drinking some wine could warm up the body.

Gawen put down his glass and tore off a piece of steaming roast meat: "I brought this for the Night's Watch and the garrison of the Wall."

He reached into his arms and took out a black short blade with a yellow grass rope wrapped around the hilt. He drew it from its sheath, revealing a black and shiny dagger.

The dagger was very sharp, the blade gleaming with cold light: "Lords, this is obsidian dagger, sharper than swords, and as hard as steel, but it has a weakness: it is glass, a kind of black glass, so it will shatter when it collides with steel."

"Obsidian dagger," Eddard Stark whispered, his voice full of surprise.

"Does Lord know about this dagger?"

"Yes, we already know that this is dragonglass, scientifically known as obsidian. It is the bane of the Others. Last year, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont gathered three hundred Night's Watch warriors to search for my missing brother Benjen Stark in the haunted forest. The team came to the Fist of the First Men, where Jon Snow picked up a bag of such daggers at the foot of the Fist of the First Men. He didn't know that these daggers were made of obsidian at the time.

"He tested the sharpness of the daggers and found that they were sharper than swords. Then, next to the buried obsidian daggers, he found a second bag of obsidian weapons: obsidian arrowheads. In the bag containing the arrowheads, there was also a horn engraved with the image of a ranger.

"Jon was attracted by these sharp weapons that exuded black light, so he took both bags of weapons back. He returned to the Fist of the First Men camp and distributed the obsidian daggers and arrowheads to his brothers as a kind of playful souvenir.

"Samwell also got such a dagger. That night, the Others raided the Fist of the First Men, and the expeditionary force was defeated and fled in all directions. During the retreat, the survivors came to Craster's Keep, and some of the survivors launched a mutiny and killed Lord Commander Jeor Mormont. In the chaos, Samwell fled with one of Craster's daughters, Gilly. They encountered an Other, and Samwell drew out the obsidian dagger in a panic and stabbed it blindly, stabbing the Other's body. The invincible Other immediately fell to the ground and quickly turned into a pile of ice shards."

"Samwell returned to the Wall with Gilly. From Archmaester Aemon, he learned that this weapon that could kill the Others was an obsidian dagger, commonly known as dragonglass.

"Obsidian weapons are sharper and harder than steel, but they are fragile. They are the bane of the Others. No matter how powerful an Other is, as long as they are scratched by an obsidian weapon, they will immediately fall down, their bodies will shatter, and they will turn into a pile of ice shards."

Lord Gawen forgot to eat as he listened. His accompanying knights and guards were all silent.

"How many dragonglass weapons does the Wall have in reserve?" Gawen asked.

"Only Samwell's obsidian dagger," Eddard Stark said with regret.

"Lord, your Titan, isn't it all such weapons?" Commander Carter asked.

"Very few living supplies, but there are many obsidian daggers and arrowheads, enough to arm three thousand elites."

Eddard, Carter, and Davos were all overjoyed after a moment of astonishment.

*

Half an hour later. In the hold of the Titan.

Eddard Stark, Davos Seaworth, the Hound, Carter Pike, and others were almost stunned.

The hold was full of black weapons shining with light.

Basket after basket of black daggers, crate after crate of black arrowheads, bundle after bundle of black spearheads...

The three types of weapons were piled up in the hold, silently shining.

In Castle Black, even one obsidian dagger was a luxury.

Here, there were thousands of obsidian daggers, thousands of obsidian arrowheads, and thousands of obsidian spearheads.

"The Mountain is truly an incomprehensible demon!" Carter Pike muttered, "Where did he get so much dragonglass? And why does he know that dragonglass is the bane of the Others? How much time did it take to secretly manufacture so many obsidian weapons? Can the Mountain foresee the future? Or is he a skinchanger? Or does he have a sorceress like Melisandre by his side? Isn't that guy a bloodthirsty devil who only does bad things? How could he suddenly do such a great thing this time? This is truly unbelievable! That damn son of a bitch!"

"Carter, watch your mouth!" The Hound bumped his shoulder, causing Commander Carter to stagger and almost fall into the obsidian daggers.

Obsidian daggers were extremely sharp, even sharper than swords.

Carter put a hand on the edge of the basket to steady himself.

If he had pressed into the obsidian daggers, a hand would have been cut into several pieces.

Carter Pike was furious. Behind him, several rangers drew their weapons with a whoosh, but the Hound didn't move, just turned his head to look at the rangers, expressionless, as if nothing had happened.

Carter Pike got up, furious, and drew his longsword from his waist with a whoosh. Davos and Eddard stared at him coldly. Eddard had been elected by the Night's Watch and the Wall garrison as the supreme commander of the allied forces.

There was absolutely no support for Carter in Eddard's gaze.

"Commander Carter, put down your sword!" Eddard said.

Carter Pike was annoyed, but he had to sheathe his longsword. He spat at the Hound fiercely: "Hound, I will duel you sooner or later."

"Boy, let's fight the Others first!" the Hound said coldly, "If you and I haven't died after defeating the Others, I'll cut off your balls and stuff them down your throat at any time," the Hound said calmly, as if it was already destined.

He was even more arrogant than the arrogant Commander Carter!

Carter's face turned green!

Lord Gawen Westerling came out to smooth things over. To be honest, Gawen was very comfortable with the Hound's all-round suppression of the fierce Carter.

Gawen was still a little surprised that the Hound had acted because Carter had disrespected the Mountain in his words. Gawen was the Mountain's father-in-law, and Lord Gawen was not happy that Carter had spoken so carelessly in front of Gawen.

"Commander Carter, you don't understand the Mountain, so don't say that the Mountain is a demon! The Mountain is my son-in-law, and also the leader of the military, whom I trust and respect the most. Lord Eddard, there are thousands of pounds of obsidian in the hold. Blacksmiths can directly forge them into weapons for use."

Eddard reached out and grasped Gawen's hand: "Lord Gawen, the Night's Watch and the Northerners are very grateful to you and Lord Gregor Clegane. You are the first southerners to help us. The Stark family, the Night's Watch, and tens of thousands of Northerners will remember this assistance, which is worth more than gold and jade. I assure you that the maesters of Winterfell and the maesters of the Night's Watch will record this assistance from Lord Gregor in the annals of the Stark family and the annals of the Night's Watch, never to be forgotten."

Wooo wooo wooo!

The horns blared, and from Eastsea Watch Castle, the Night Watch rangers, functionaries, and new recruits mobilized, jogging in formation to the harbor. They climbed aboard the Titan, and began to transport obsidian weapons and ore.