RoWE - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Patrol

The law stated: deserters from the Night's Watch were public offenders, and all lords of the Seven Kingdoms were obligated to hunt them down and execute them, especially those in the North, where the Starks and their bannermen showed no mercy to deserters. Unless one fled north to join the wildlings, the consequences of a direct escape were predictable. But Aeg wanted to escape his identity as a member of the Night's Watch to distance himself from the human predators to the north; how could he possibly run further north?

And to the south if one was determined to escape, preparations were necessary. One would need a good horse, provisions, a change of clothes out of the black, and the right timing to quickly flee the Night's Watch's sphere of influence, avoiding all villages and inhabited areas along the way... As long as one could successfully cross the Neck and escape the North, the escape plan would be partially successful. The next step would be to head straight for the warm and safe south. The further south one went, the less concern the lords and nobles had for the Night's Watch. One only needed to reach the fertile Riverlands or the Reach, find a place that would accept them without questioning their identity, and start a new life in another world.

The plan was clear and simple, but the problem was: in this era of inconvenient transportation and low population mobility, with his distinct foreign appearance and lack of legal identity, wanting to smoothly complete an escape plan was too difficult.

Shaking his head, Aeg dismissed these thoughts from his mind, Now was not the time to ponder. As the horses' hooves trampled the snow, emitting a series of soft, muffled sounds, the trunks and branches soon blocked out the sunlight, and they truly entered the vast northern boreal forest, located beyond the North.

"These damned wildlings," Gared cursed. "The weather's getting colder, and they're getting more restless."

"They wouldn't be wildlings if they were calm," Aeg replied casually, brushing off the snowflakes that had landed on his sleeve. Due to the shortage of manpower and supplies, and to make it harder for the wildlings to discern their activity patterns, the Night's Watch had abandoned regular patrols in favor of a more random and targeted schedule. Two nights ago, a brother on duty on the Wall reported seeing lights a few miles north of the wall, which was the direct reason for the Lord Commander and the chief ranger to arrange this patrol. If not for this incident, they would have finished their morning exercises and been comfortably warming themselves by the fire indoors.

"Enough chitchat. Spread out and advance in a line. Don't overlook any suspicious traces," Waymar interrupted the three Night's Watch soldiers' budding conversation without turning his head, issuing orders in a cold tone.

Hearing the command, Will and Gared shrugged and made a face behind the speaker's back. In order of age, from oldest to youngest, the four were Gared, Will, Aeg, and finally Waymar. Yet the youngest was their superior. It was impossible for the other three to have no opinions on this young noble from the Vale, the third son of the Lord of the Runestone, who with little chance of inheriting a title, had joined the Night's Watch. His father had personally escorted him to the Wall with a full cart of luggage. This was often ridiculed by other members of the Night's Watch during their drinking sessions. The great Ser Waymar Royce, who seemed more like he was here on a vacation than to serve.

Despite their dissatisfaction, discipline was present, and the three of them spread out as instructed, forming a line to begin their patrol and investigation.

Soon, they discovered signs of human activity near the area where the sentinel had spotted the light: there had been no snow the day before, and traces left by the wildlings, such as footprints and the remnants of campfires, were clearly preserved.

"They're gone," Gared said, looking at Waymar, hesitating.

***

The Night's Watch was born after the Long Night, during a winter that lasted a generation, when the White Walkers swept south through the realms of the First Men, nearly annihilating humanity. After this disaster, the Wall and the black-clad legion were established to combat the White Walkers and protect humanity. It was once the highest honor on the continent to join this armed force dedicated to defending all of humanity, even though the entry requirements were high, and volunteers were still numerous. But as the White Walkers retreated to the Lands of Always Winter and gradually disappeared, and the generation that had lived through the Long Night died out, the importance and treatment of this legion were destined to decline.

That's how it was said, but the Wall still, for a long time, effectively blocked the wildlings from the North for the Seven Kingdoms, maintaining its presence. However, an important historical event ultimately dealt a fatal blow to the Night's Watch, Aegon's Landing and the establishment of the Targaryen dynasty.

The dynasty of the dragon did not make things difficult for the Night's Watch, but its founder brought dragons from Valyria. During a subsequent large-scale wildling invasion, the ruler of the kingdom boldly rode a dragon north to incinerate the wildlings. This quickly drove away the invaders, but objectively, it greatly accelerated the decline of the Night's Watch. When one has a weapon capable of sweeping away enemies, the role and influence of the Night's Watch plummet. After all, if those crude wildlings came again, wouldn't it be enough to just inform the dragon-riding king?

Nobles and knights were no longer willing to dedicate their lives to a meaningless vigil, and the Night's Watch gradually lost its source of recruits, having to repeatedly lower the entry threshold. After a century of evolution, the Night's Watch became what it is now.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come."

When people feel their blood boil at this oath of the Night's Watch, filled with promises and titles that seem overwhelmingly powerful at first glance, how many can guess that it was not always this way? And behind the successive revisions, how much bitterness and helplessness is there?

The dragons and dragon riders of the Targaryen dynasty have gone with the wind, but the decline of the Night's Watch is now irreversible. Today, the black-clad legion is more of a security guard maintaining the Wall than the first line of defense against the wildlings. Its members, numbering fewer than a thousand, can be divided into three types:

The first type, to which Aeg belongs, are those who choose to serve at the Wall to avoid punishment thieves, poachers, rapists, and the like. These individuals, who were once not even worthy of tying the shoes of the "Night's Watch," are now the main force of the black-clad men and are destined to live and die here, with desertion as their only other option.

The second type are those who join out of necessity: officials and nobles who have fallen out of favor or lost power in political struggles, farmers who have lost their land, bankrupt merchants, and bastards... In theory, these people are encouraged to join the Night's Watch and can choose to leave freely before taking the oath, but in reality, they have nowhere else to go. Most of the "craftsmen" and "stewards" of the Night's Watch come from this group.

The third and final type, the smallest, are those like Ser Waymar Royce, volunteers who join out of a sense of honor and duty, or to avoid internal family power struggles by self-exile. They have other choices but step down from the power stage of the Seven Kingdoms to come to the Wall. Such individuals have become increasingly rare over time. Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, the chief ranger Benjen Stark, and even Maester Aemon Targaryen, who renounced his claim to the Seven Kingdoms, belong to this category. They are usually appointed directly as officers and leaders. This seemingly unfair rule is actually easy to understand, at the northernmost tip of the kingdom, far from the king's reach, if a group of scoundrels, criminals, or farmers were to command the Night's Watch, which does not belong to any lord, who knows what the guardians of the Wall would become.

No filial sons remain by the bedside of a long-ailing parent, and no heroes remain at the Wall after a long freeze. No matter how much passion and ambition the young nobles who voluntarily join the Night's Watch may have, once they discover that the Wall and the legendary Night's Watch are nothing like they imagined, and the environment is so harsh, their enthusiasm quickly turns to disillusionment.

Ser Waymar Royce is no exception. He regrets his decision. No one forced him to come to the Wall, but he was inspired by the oath of the Night's Watch and chose to come here to show his beloved brother that he had no intention of competing for the family estate. Now, the words have been spoken, the oath has been taken, and even if he dared to shamelessly slink back home, his family would never openly welcome him back.

The only course of action now is to quickly achieve some merit, and then apply to return home for a visit, so as not to be questioned for running away because he couldn't endure the hardship.

The young ranger captain rode his horse around the place that had once been a wildling camp, pondered briefly, and soon made a decision: "They're not many. Follow the footprints. Pursue them."