Ice and Fire: Reign of the Dragon.

Chapter 414: Lying dormant until corroded to the bone
The moment the roots of the weirwood pierced the corpse, the entire forest held its breath.

The tree roots drilled into Ranger Black Jack's frozen blood vessels like living snakes, and dark brown sap flowed in place of blood, making a sticky gurgling sound. His skin quickly turned from blue-gray to pale white, and finally emerged with strange blue-green veins, like the veins spreading on the huge leaves of the ancient trees in the southern broad-leaved forest.

The rangers that Bright Moon, the son of the forest, found by the frozen lake deep in the Haunted Forest died from the venom of the ice spider. His Seven Gods did not favor them, and his team unfortunately suddenly encountered hunting White Walker scouts.

So it was a tragedy.

"Open your eyes."

The voice of the Three-Eyed Raven did not come from the air, but vibrated directly in Black Jack's rotten skull, as if tens of millions of crows were screaming in his brain at the same time.

"Click"

Black Jack's jawbone suddenly tore apart, not by external force, but by some more ancient force reassembling his body. His eyelids suddenly popped up, revealing two eyeballs burning with dark green flames. The light was as cold as the ice blue of the White Walkers that the Children of the Forest desperately killed, and as green as emerald like a burning wildfire, like the evil witchcraft cast by the unrecorded wizard in the deepest part of the forest in ancient legends.

“Remember your mission.”

The crow's beak reached out from the shadows and pecked into Black Jack's forehead. It didn't bite, it carved. Each peck left a glowing rune of the Ancients on the skull of the living dead:
The stone wall-like lines symbolize the destination of the living dead, the desperate wall that separates civilization and barbarism. The hideous ice spiders and villains symbolize the enemy of all mortal races in the world.

Black Jack tried to scream, but only black tree pulp and the remaining venom of the ice spider flowed out of his throat, corroding hissing pits in the snow. His fingers twitched and grabbed the skinny humanoid creature in the twisted ancient tree, but froze before touching it.

"You belong to the Night's Watch."

A tear as red as blood flowed from the eyes of the huge raven on the weirwood and fell on the chest of "Black Jack".

"Now, go. Bring the news to the mortals within the walls."

The cold wind was like a knife, cutting through the dead silence of the snowfield in the land of eternal winter.

The resurrected ranger "Black Jack" dragged his stiff body forward. The soles of his boots had long since rotted away, revealing his white bones, but he was still able to break the ice and leave a trail of dark footprints on the snow. Those were stains of rotten meat and tree pulp mixed together, exuding the bitter scent of weirwood, and also symbolizing the magical protection of the chief green prophet. The animals in the haunted forest and the snowfield would not be able to harm the living dead, and the minions of the White Walkers would also lose their targets.

His throat was filled with snow and wind, and he could not speak, but the whisper of the Three-Eyed Raven echoed in his ears:
"Go south. Through the wall to warn them."

Black Jack's consciousness struggled between life and death. He remembered who he was, a ranger of the Night's Watch. During the Blackfyre Rebellion, he was a hired knight of Blackfyre. The knights of the Westerlands captured him. Because they could not pay the ransom, he was sold to the Black Crows brought by the Stark family. With his excellent riding skills, he served as a ranger as soon as he entered the Wall. He patrolled outside the Wall with his companions and laughed at the recruits' fear of the "Legend of the White Walkers". Until that night, they camped by the icy lake deep in the Haunted Forest, and the campfire reflected the cold blue light under the lake.

Memories pierce my mind like ice spikes:
Ser Dawyn was the first to fall, the ice spider's sharp feet piercing his eye sockets, bringing out a string of frozen blood beads;
The thief's scream came to an abrupt end as the White Walker's icy sword split him in half from shoulder to hip, his internal organs frozen before they hit the ground;
He turned to flee, but was tackled by a resurrected corpse shadow mountain cat. When the ice spider's fangs pierced his chest, he felt no pain, only endless cold, as if his soul was pulled out and he fell into eternal night.

And now, he is "alive", but it is more tragic than death.

Green fire burned in his eye sockets, and something like the roots of a weirwood squirmed in his blood vessels.

He stumbled over the ice hillock. In the distance, the dark shadow of the Great Wall stretched across the sky like a giant beast.

When "Black Jack" finally stumbled towards the Great Wall, his rotten hands touched the ice wall.

"boom!"

An invisible force pushed him back fiercely, as if something was flowing slowly but firmly on the surface of the ice wall, and ancient runes emerged and disappeared under the ice. This was the magic of Brandon the Builder, which rejected all blasphemy of the undead.

Black Jack knelt in the snow, screaming silently. His vocal cords had long since rotted, but his soul was still screaming:
"Let me through! I have to warn them!"

He pounced on the Great Wall again, scratching the ice with his broken finger bones, and the rotten flesh scraped against the magic barrier with a harsh sound. On the wall, a night watchman yawned and glanced at the snowy field below, but saw nothing.

Under the protection of the magic of the Wall, the dead awakened by the weirwood trees cannot be seen by the eyes of the living.

The green fire in Black Jack's eyes began to flicker. The power of the Three-Eyed Raven was fading, and the magic of the Great Wall was burning his existence like a furnace. He pounded the ice wall frantically until his finger bones broke, and dark brown sap oozed out of the wound and froze into ice. Before the last of his consciousness faded, he did one thing -

Using the broken bones, he carved three twisted symbols on the snow:

Ice. Sword. Spider.

Then he knelt down facing the Wall, and the green fire went out.

The morning breeze blew, and the snow powder buried the traces.

Deep in the heart of winter.

The three ice mage lords stood on the top of the glacier, their pale bone fingers stroking the ice crystal scepters. Deep in their pupils, a blue flame colder than the aurora danced, staring to the south, where the human kingdom was still bathed in the afterglow of the long summer.

"Fire Song is too powerful. This shouldn't be the case." The first lord's voice was like the crisp sound of ice cracking.

Dragon flame, wildfire, furnace, fireplace, warmth in the blood... Everything in the South is burning, and they have just awakened from a thousand years of ice.

"We were discovered too early," the second lord whispered, ice crystals condensing into frost in his breath. "Something has disrupted the rhythm of the great movement. The song of fire has not faded. It is not our time yet."

“Then continue to lie dormant.” The third lord raised his scepter, and the blue pupils of countless zombies under the ice went out and sank back into the frozen soil.

"Let men forget us till the evil summer consumes their vigilance."

The corpse mammoth, with half of its body exposed to white bones, slowly broke through the wind and snow. The third ice mage lord sat on the ice crystal throne on the back of the corpse mammoth and raised the scepter made of ice in his hand.

The wind and snow grew stronger, as if a deeper darkness was swallowing up everything on the snowfield.

The massacre site of the Thurn tribe was buried by a sudden blizzard. The remains of the ice spider sank into the glacier cracks, and the corpse mammoths ridden by the white walkers were broken into powder and scattered by the wind.

When the children of the forest returned to the battlefield, they only found half of the broken obsidian spear.

"They are hiding their whereabouts." Bright Moon clenched the broken obsidian spear, and the warning of the Three-Eyed Raven echoed in her ears. "The power of Ice Song has not yet accumulated to its peak. The newly revived White Walkers are unable to destroy the Wall, nor are they able to fight against the favorites of Fire Song. They should thank the Wall, which not only protects the mortals in the south, but also protects them."

Deep in the ice fields further north, the ice mage lords began to weave illusions, floating shadows in the aurora, fleeting footprints in the snow, and faint whimpers in the wind.
It makes all this seem like just another horror story of the savages.

Deep within the heart of Winter, the fourth Ice Mage Lord remains trapped in a pillar of ice.

But his fingers were already slightly bent.

Behind him, hundreds of White Walker lords, wizards, and knights are still in eternal sleep.

"Wait Until Firesong Fades"

"Wait until the infighting of humans consumes their strength"

"Wait till dragons fight each other"

"We will put an end to all singing."

The two ice mage lords who were casting spells murmured.

(End of this chapter)