In the last year of the longest summer in memory, rumors made their way south, telling
of strange happenings in the lands beyond The Wall.
The Wildling Clans, which for as long as the Wall had stood had sought to pillage and raid
the kingdoms it protected, began acting as one.
Following centuries of petty wars, the wildling Hornfoots, Nightrunners, the men of the Frozen
Shore, and the Ice-River clans now marched side by side.
This was the work of Mance Rayder, a turncloak who had abandoned his brothers in the Night’s
Watch to rule as the latest King Beyond the Wall.
While such Kings had occasionally united the Wildling clans and even breached the Wall
throughout history, Mance was driven by a strange desperation.
Entire Wildling villages were abandoned, and every man, woman, and child gathered beneath
the Frostfang mountains.
As winter slowly approached and word reached Mance that the Night’s Watch had lost many
of its best rangers on a disastrous expedition north, the time had finally arrived to fulfil
the most ambitious part of his plan: an attack on Castle Black.
The main stronghold of the Night’s Watch, Castle Black was situated at the base of the
Wall between Queensgate to the West and Oakenshield to the east.
It was one of only three fortresses still manned by the Night’s Watch, and accordingly,
maintained a tunnel that ran through the Wall’s base.
With the Wall unassailable by any conventional means, Mance’s objective was to seize Castle
Black and use this tunnel to transport his people south.
In a prelude to this main attack, Mance Rayder ordered a series of diversionary strikes further
to the west, hoping to draw out the few Rangers who remained at Castle Black.
The tactic succeeded.
Lord Steward Bowen Marsh pursued these raiders west, leaving behind only the old, the sick
and new recruits.
In his absence, the blacksmith Donal Noye assumed de facto leadership of the stronghold.
Mance had aimed to retain the element of surprise, but the arrival of Jon Snow dashed these hopes.
Jon had lived amongst the Wildlings as a spy, and after his escape, was able to warn Castle
Black of Mance’s plans.
When the battle began, Mance Rayder commanded a host numbering well into the tens of thousands
with perhaps as many as a hundred thousand.
While larger than any of the armies mustered within the Seven Kingdoms at the time, the
force was comprised mainly of raiders who lacked any experience in proper formation
fighting, much less siege warfare.
A protracted engagement against an entrenched foe was vastly different from their typical
hit and run tactics and their mastery of the local terrain was rendered moot.
The core of the Wildling forces were the Thenns and other hardened raiders, as well as several
hundred giants, many of which were mounted on enormous mammoths.
The Night’s Watch, by contrast, numbered only 34.
While these men had access to castle forged steel and counted amongst their ranks trained
fighting men, the majority were stewards or builders who had never ranged for any length
of time.
Their greatest advantage was instead the Wall.
Too high to be attacked by arrows or slings and too strong for any siege weaponry to breach,
any attacking force would need to either climb its face or break through the gate.
The former was dangerous even when the Wall was undefended, while the latter offset the
Wildling’s numerical superiority.
The Watch had also tended to the Haunted Forest, preventing it from encroaching too close to
the Wall.
An attack would have to be made across open ground in clear view and without any form
of cover.
Aware of these disadvantages, Mance’s opening strike did not come from beyond the Wall,
but instead from behind it.
Roughly 120 experienced raiders, who had climbed the Wall in preparation for the attack, attempted
to storm Castle Black from the rear where its fortifications were almost non-existent.
Warned of their approach by Jon Snow, the attack was repulsed, but not before heavy
fighting spread to the Castle’s courtyard and much of the Wall’s stairway was destroyed.
With this initial attack thwarted, the main Wildling Host began a direct assault on the
gate.
Atop the wall, barrels of pitch, arrows, and trebuchets were unleashed on the still largely
unseen enemy and both sides fought blindly through much of the night.
At dawn, a contingent of giants with thousands of wildlings guarding their flanks brought
a battering ram up to the gate, breaking down the outer door but quickly retreating under
a volley of arrows, caltrops, and burning oil.
At least one giant was able to enter the tunnel before being cut down by five members of the
Night’s Watch, who gave their lives in turn.
The fighting continued for days with neither side able to achieve any headway.
Despite a scattered few reinforcements from Eastwatch by the Sea, the Night’s Watch
was running low on supplies, including oil, pitch, and arrows.
At the request of Mance Rayder, a single envoy, Jon Snow, was sent to the Wildling encampment
to attend a parlay.
Wildling Wargs, skinchangers able to see through the eyes of animals, were able to report how
few defenders remained on the Wall while Mance also revealed he possessed the Horn of Winter,
a magic object said to be capable of toppling the Wall if blown.
The Watch was given three days to allow the Wildlings through before the Horn would be
sounded.
But the parlay was soon interrupted.
In a reversal of the defeat he suffered at the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis Baratheon
had arrived on the battlefield undetected, his force of 1500 knights and mounted soldiers
sweeping across the Wildling lines.
Completely unprepared for any type of counter-attack, the Wildlings broke with only the giants holding
the line.
In a matter of hours, Mance Rayder’s attack on Castle Black was routed.
What might have occurred if these reinforcements had not arrived can only be speculated.
Regardless of whether the Horn of Winter truly possessed the means to bring down the Wall,
the Night’s Watch lacked the munitions to continue the fight much longer.
If the Wildlings had maintained their resolve, it is likely they would have broken through
the tunnel and slaughtered the Night’s Watch to a man.
Even if every brother of the Night’s Watch been assembled at Castle Black, they simply
lacked the numbers for a prolonged assault and lacked any tangible support from the Great
Houses of Westeros.
Instead, Mance had lost a battle he never truly wanted to fight.
The King Beyond the Wall had not led tens of thousands of his people south simply to
bring battle to the Night’s Watch.
They had fled a far greater enemy.
And when these Others reached the Wall, it would take far more than what had so far been
mustered to stop them.
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