The Long Night

Metaphysical / Paranormal event

It is said the Long Night comes to Westeros, and a great hero-- Robb Stark --rises to extinguish it. The Wall vanishes overnight and the Night's Watch is disbanded.

It was 300 AC when winter came to Westeros. Autumn had been swift, and many smallfolk attributed this fast-moving cold front to their Winter Queen, Lyanna Stark, who had become the public face of the Queenship with Elia Martell’s frailty following her son’s death. She was not unpopular, but she was still remembered as the maiden a war had been fought for, and thus had some ill connotations associated with her name. Still, the North loved her, and she gave them that love, at least, in return.   That love was tested when, overnight, the Wall vanished.   How this came to be is the first hotly contested fact. Last Hearth, seat of House Umber, was geographically closest to the incident so Robb Stark, the young Lord of Winterfell, sent riders to the keep to ascertain what they knew of the reports he had received of the Wall’s disappearance and sent ravens to his father Eddard Stark, who was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Fleeing smallfolk who had lingered near the New Gift reported that they had heard a sound more deafening than thunder, as if a million mountains had split in two, and a thousand storms churned on while it happened, then a cold even worse than the winter chills. The riders sent to Last Hearth never returned, and the ravens sent to House Umber and Castle Black went unanswered.   Robb Stark would only get his answers when the Greatjon arrived to Winterfell in the dead of night, wounded, braying like a donkey. When Maester Luwin treated the man and Robb questioned him at first the Umber screamed from the pain of his wounds. Then he wept, recounting the horrors he had seen. Creatures of ice had swarmed his ancestral home, he’d said, butchering the men and women, even the children, low or highborn. When they died they would then rise, mindless creatures that sought only to end the living. The Greatjon had escaped with his life, but not before seeing his family lost to the onslaught entirely.   The report was troubling, to say the least. Luwin questioned the man’s state of mind but relented in knowing of the Greatjon’s reputation, which did not indicate the man was a liar. Robb too was inclined to believe the man, recounting the stories of the Others. With the Wall gone, it seemed that their last defense had fallen, and that dark magicks now swarmed the North. When Robb wrote to his aunt, the Queen, the letters did not come with reply or promises of aid. He did not expect them to -- The story was outlandish, and the distance to cover too great before this supernatural threat encroached on Winterfell. The Stark called a war council of the North, then, ordering every able-bodied lord to bring men to Winterfell, and, failing that, to defend their homes to the end.   And then, the sun did not rise.   This is arguably the most conflicting part of the reports on the Northern catastrophe. Many southerners would claim that the sun had shone brightly while the North suffered in darkness, and the North would insist it was magic that kept them in eternal night, and if they had fallen, the south would have lived in shadow, too. In the end it was merely another detail for the parties to argue over.   Stark’s lords began to arrive when his outriders returned. Their reports-- Those who had lived, at least --seemed to indicate whatever supernatural host, manifesting itself as a vicious blizzard, was beginning to disseminate across the North, and that the seat of House Umber was now a castle buried in snow so high one could cross over the walls on hills of flakes. Luwin’s readings into the oldest scrolls of Winterfell were not proving resourceful on how to defeat the Others, if this is what they really were, though there was one suggestion he could offer to the gathering lords, who had been made to believe with the story of the Greatjon.   “Fire, my lords,” Luwin had muttered as he looked over a scroll, “We must burn them.”   So the men of the North would wield torch and sword in the defense of their lands, and success was reported from all over. Details of the numerous incursions across the North during this period are few and far between. The Manderlys could not reach Winterfell in time and their host suffered defeat just outside White Harbour, and the city barely held against its own undead forces turning on itself. House Manderly and the majority population only escaped with their lives by using the Manderly fleet, and setting fire to their own city to burn the invaders within whilst safely at sea.   The Dreadfort repelled its own attack, allegedly by lighting the corpses of their dead aflame and using them as projectiles to ignite the host come to destroy them. How effective this tactic actually is, is only known to those who executed it, as even with the battle ‘won’ the Bolton forces would escape to Winterfell to join the last stand growing there.   Bear Island and Skagos had been safe from invasion due to their isolation, but found themselves faced with a different threat; Wildlings fleeing the same cataclysm began to appear on their shores, throwing themselves to the mercy of Lords Mormont and Magnar. Their lives were spared as they did not come with intent to harm the Northmen. Instead they brought news, terrible news of what had happened beyond the Wall to trigger the horrors now afflicting the North.   “It was the Horn of Joramund.” An old man had said to Lord Jorah Mormont, soberingly, and that is where the tale began. Whether the Wildlings had blown the horn and destroyed the Wall or the Others had done it, they could not say, just that it had been done and it could not be undone now.   The Others, or whatever beastly names you might call them, did not reach the Neck, either. Whether they won or lost their fights with the great Northern houses, they were drawn back to Winterfell, intent on ending the line of Winter Kings. Those houses who had managed to escape to the Stark castle had worked with Robb to reinforce their fortress against their enemies, informing Stark of what they had gleaned in their battles with the creatures. Luwin’s scrolls were running dry of information, and there was nothing else to do but gird their loins for battle.   Unexpected allies came in the dead of the night, though, before the Other came. A handful of battered men in black robes, pulling themselves through the bitter cold to reach Winterfell. The Night's Watch had been believed dead, but what remained of it had arrived at the doorstep of Robb Stark, led by his own father, Lord Commander Eddard Stark. Father and son had long been estranged, thanks to Eddard taking the black when Robb had been a babe at his Tully mother's breast, but in the still of night before the fight for life itself, the two reconciled. Many in the North still remembered Ned Stark, the little brother of Brandon and who had marshaled them to rebellion. For one perfect night father and son ruled in the hall of Winterfell, together, feasting and raising the spirits of their men.   Then the cold winds came, and the men of the North prepared to kill that which was already dead.   Fires turned the unending night into a spectacle that could only match the sun, and the Battle for Winterfell began. The night was chaotic and the only objective record of it-- Those lords who lived would not speak of it --comes from Maester Luwin himself, who scrawled details of the legendary battle as he hid in the maester’s tower.   As he writes it, the battle began slow, first just a chill in the air, then fresh-falling snow, then the howling of the wind so fierce it was said to sweep a man away if he did not ground himself adequately. When the creatures came they were met with fire and steel and horseflesh, but it soon became evident that the traditional open field techniques of the Westerosi would not be so effective against the Others.   Robb would order flaming arrows that would light ptch cast over the battlefield hours earlier, sending many dead men to their second dooms within an instant, and he led the vanguard himself. The evening before he had given the ancestral blade Ice-- his since he had assumed lordship --to his father, who would ride beside him. It was his, Robb had explained, at least, for tonight. So, armed with Valyrian Steel, the Lord Commander soon discovered their next advantage over their enemies when the blade felled an Other.   “Valyrian steel,” Came the cry, “Muster your Valyrian steel!” And so the old lords of the North joined the battle with their ancestral blades, the steel of dragonlords proving the bane of the monsters   Dawn only came when the Lord of Winterfell met what he could not later explain, but those around him said it was a king, surely a king, a king of the others and the night and of winter itself. Robb and Eddard had been side by side, but when confronted with the mysterious leader, it was Ned who fell in the defense of his son. He died with a smile on his face and a sword through his heart, all the while knowing he had met and loved and cherished his child for one evening.   Robb would take up the sword of his fathers and forefathers, and he slew the creature in single combat in his vengeful rage. Only then did the Others melt away like an unpleasant dream, and the sun kissed the North once more. The day belonged to the living, and Robb would bury his father beneath Winterfell where he belonged.   House Umber was completely decimated by the Other invasion, and the Greatjon died childless in the battle to avenge his family. Last Hearth was left in ruin as a memorial to the Long Night, and what it had taken from the North. Other houses such as Manderly, Bolton, Ryswell and Karstark also suffered heavy casualties, often being reduced to one or two members apiece.   Those beyond the North were stunned to hear of what had occurred. The Wall gone? Preposterous. An ancient line ended? Unbelievable. But it was true. Even with winter over, melting into spring, many houses in the North had been damaged. Rhaegar was disbelieving of it, and Lyanna in shock. She would send her own jewels to help her nephew rebuild, and it quickly became clear that their letters, pleas for help, had not even reached the Winter Queen’s ears, “Elsewise,” She’d proclaimed in her own note to Robb, which accompanied the gift, “The dragon would have awoken.”   But it had not, and it slumbered on. And so Robb Stark was hailed the Hero of the North, the Last Hero, even by his detractors, a living legend to Northmen and a god to the Wildlings, who now safely settled on Bear Island, Skagos, and the Gift with the blessing of the Starks. Southern doubt was widespread when the Northmen told their tales, but they did not care for nonbelievers.