The force wave had torn the defenders apart, but it had not killed all of them.
Men crawled from beneath shattered barricades with blood running from their ears and noses. Others staggered upright with broken shields hanging from numb arms, their armor split by flying stone and iron. The tunnel was no longer a defended passage. It had become a grave packed with fire, splintered wood, and bodies layered so thickly that the living had to climb across their brothers to escape.
Jinx moved through them.
He did not charge immediately.
He walked past Rodrik Umber's body with Dark Sister hanging at his side, his bare feet leaving bloody prints across the broken stone. The dead Lord Commander remained upright behind him, untouched by the draining force and the destruction that followed it, while everything farther south burned.
A ranger rose from beneath a collapsed shield wall and thrust a spear toward Jinx's chest.
Jinx's left hand opened.
The weapon stopped in the air.
The ranger's eyes widened as the spear trembled between them, its point held less than a foot from Jinx's skin by a force neither man could see.
Jinx curled his fingers.
The spear ripped itself from the ranger's hands and flew backward through the man's throat.
He struck the floor still clutching at empty air.
The brothers farther down the tunnel froze.
Jinx looked toward them through the smoke.
Then he ran.
His body blurred across the ruined ground, speed returning to limbs that should have barely been capable of supporting him. He vaulted over a burning wagon without slowing, twisted sideways through a gap between two fallen beams, and landed against the tunnel wall with one foot planted almost horizontally upon the ice.
For three strides he ran along it.
Arrows passed beneath him.
Jinx kicked away from the wall, turned in the air, and landed among the archers before they could reach for another volley.
Dark Sister moved once.
Two men came apart.
The third dropped his bow and raised both hands as though surrender might still mean anything. Jinx caught him by the front of his black cloak, lifted him from the ground, and threw him into the nearest group of defenders.
The man struck them with enough force to carry four brothers backward.
Jinx followed before they finished falling.
The survivors tried to form another line at the southern end of the tunnel, where the passage opened into Castle Black's yard. There were no prepared barricades there anymore. The force wave had scattered them, leaving only an overturned cart and several stacks of timber between the tunnel and open air.
"Shields together!" one of the remaining officers shouted, blood running down one side of his face as he struggled to keep his sword raised. "Hold the mouth! Do not let him into the yard!"
Twenty brothers formed around him.
Their shields overlapped. Spears lowered over their shoulders, and men with crossbows braced behind them, aiming down the length of the tunnel through smoke thick enough to sting their eyes.
Jinx came toward them on all fours.
Dark Sister scraped behind him.
"Loose!"
Crossbows cracked.
Bolts cut through the smoke.
Jinx jerked sideways before the first reached him, his body turning at an angle no man moving at that speed should have managed. One bolt grazed his cheek. Another punched through the torn flesh of his upper arm. A third entered beneath his ribs and drove halfway through his body.
The impact spun him.
He struck the wall shoulder-first, snarled, then caught himself with one blood-covered hand.
The officer saw him falter.
"Again!"
The surviving crossbowmen reached for fresh bolts.
Jinx lifted his left hand.
Every loose weapon in the tunnel shifted.
Broken swords, spearheads, arrowheads, nails, and jagged pieces of iron rose from the ground around him. Some trembled only a few inches above the stone. Others spun slowly through the smoke, turning their blood-covered edges toward the men blocking the exit.
The officer's face went pale.
"Shields!"
Jinx closed his fist.
The debris flew.
Metal struck the shield wall in a screaming storm. Spears shattered. Crossbowmen were thrown backward with broken blades buried in their faces and chests. One defender's shield survived three impacts before a snapped sword point punched through the oak and entered his eye.
The formation broke.
Jinx hit it a moment later.
He drove both hands into the central shields and pushed.
The invisible force exploded outward.
Men lifted from their feet and slammed into the open yard beyond the tunnel. Several struck the frozen ground hard enough to stop moving. Others rolled through snow stained black by ash, their weapons scattering around them.
Jinx crossed the threshold into Castle Black.
The brothers waiting in the yard saw him clearly for the first time.
Torchlight and the last red remnants of sunset caught across his ruined body. Blood covered nearly every inch of him. His hair hung around his face in tangled black and silver-blond strands, and the red-rimmed yellow of his eyes burned through the darkness like twin coals.
The wounds Rodrik had given him remained visible.
The Lord Commander's broken blade had left a raw seam through Jinx's stomach. One shoulder sagged despite the stolen strength repairing it. His thigh was opened deeply enough that bone appeared whenever he moved, and several arrows remained buried in his back.
He should have been dead.
Instead, he stood in the yard of Castle Black with Dark Sister in his hand and hundreds of bodies behind him.
A horn sounded.
The defenders positioned throughout the castle opened fire.
Arrows fell from the towers. Crossbow bolts came from the armory roof and the wooden galleries overlooking the yard. Men threw spears from behind wagons, while several builders rolled a barrel of burning pitch down a raised ramp.
Jinx moved.
His speed no longer resembled running.
He darted between the falling arrows, twisting through openings so narrow that shafts brushed his hair and clothing without touching flesh. He planted one hand upon the ground, flipped over a spear aimed at his chest, and cut the thrower through the throat before his own feet had fully landed.
The pitch barrel struck the ground beside him.
It burst.
Flame swallowed Jinx from the waist down.
He howled and leapt through it, blackened leather peeling from his legs while smoke rolled from his body. He caught the edge of a wooden gallery above the yard and pulled himself upward with one arm, covering a distance that should have required a ladder.
The archers stationed there scattered.
Jinx landed among them.
Dark Sister passed through the first man's bow and chest. The second managed to draw a short sword, but Jinx caught his wrist and bent it backward until bone pierced skin. He threw the screaming brother over the railing before cutting down the next two in front of him.
A veteran ranger charged from behind.
His axe struck Jinx between the shoulders.
The blade bit deeply.
Jinx pitched forward and caught himself against the railing. Blood poured down his back, mixing with the remains of burned leather.
The ranger ripped the axe free and raised it again.
Jinx turned.
His left hand snapped outward.
The veteran flew off his feet as though kicked by a giant. His body struck the wall of the armory hard enough to break several boards, then fell into the snow beneath it.
More men rushed the gallery.
Jinx sprang over the railing.
He dropped two stories into the yard, landed in a crouch, and rolled beneath the swing of a greatsword wielded by a broad builder.
The builder reversed the blow quickly.
Steel opened Jinx's side.
The man had just enough time to see that he had landed the strike before Dark Sister passed upward through his groin and emerged beneath his sternum.
Jinx kicked the body from the blade.
The fight spread across Castle Black.
The remaining brothers knew the tunnels and towers better than he did. They used narrow passages to trap him, dropped stones from above, and fired from windows before retreating deeper into the buildings. Groups struck from opposite directions, forcing Jinx to turn between them while spears stabbed at his injuries.
They hurt him.
A crossbow bolt entered the back of his knee and brought him down for several breaths. Two rangers attacked together, one striking his sword arm while the other drove a spear through his shoulder. A pot of boiling water poured from an upper window and blistered the side of his face, making the yellow glow of one eye disappear briefly behind swollen flesh.
Each wound slowed him.
None stopped him.
Jinx dragged the spear through his own shoulder rather than waiting for the ranger to pull it free. He seized the shaft behind the head, tore the weapon from his body, and drove it backward through the man's chest.
The force obeyed his anger in crude, violent bursts.
Doors tore from hinges when he approached them. Men were pulled from behind cover and dragged screaming across the ground toward Dark Sister. Spears changed direction in mid-flight. Stones rose around his feet and fired outward hard enough to break skulls.
He possessed none of the refinement or calm control such power should have required.
He did not need it.
The hunger wanted something moved, crushed, or brought closer, and the power answered.
A group of stewards tried to barricade themselves inside the common hall.
Jinx ripped both doors outward.
They struck the men behind them, crushing three against the tables. The others charged through the debris, armed with cleavers, kitchen knives, and iron pokers because no proper weapons remained.
Jinx caught the first by the throat.
The man's body lifted until his boots hung a foot above the floor. Jinx threw him sideways into a stone pillar, then spun beneath a cleaver and drove Dark Sister backward through another steward's ribs.
A fire poker struck his temple.
Jinx staggered.
The old cook holding it struck him again, both hands locked around the iron rod while tears ran down his face.
"For the Watch!" the cook screamed as he swung a third time.
Jinx caught the poker.
The iron bent between his fingers.
He headbutted the old man hard enough to break his face, then moved past him while the cook collapsed beside the overturned tables.
By the time darkness fully covered Castle Black, the snow in the yard had disappeared beneath blood.
Fewer than one hundred and twenty brothers remained capable of moving.
They gathered near the southern gate under the command of the oldest living ranger, a thin, white-bearded man named Mors Flint who had served at the Wall for forty-six years. His left arm hung useless beside him, the shoulder broken during Jinx's first force wave, while blood from a cut above his brow repeatedly blinded one eye.
He looked across what remained of the Watch.
Men leaned against one another to stand. Some had arrows still lodged in their bodies. Others held shields with broken fingers or carried swords in hands too numb to close properly. Nearly every face belonged to someone wounded.
Behind them, Castle Black burned in three places.
Jinx emerged from the common hall.
He limped now.
Dark Sister dragged along the ground, the blade leaving a line through blood and ash. His body had begun weakening again beneath the damage accumulated after the draining. One arm barely moved. His burned skin had cracked, and each breath came with a wet rattle.
Yet he continued toward them.
The remaining brothers prepared to fight.
Mors looked from Jinx to the open southern gate behind his men.
Rodrik had ordered the Watch to hold.
Rodrik was dead.
The men still standing had already bought more time with their blood than anyone could reasonably demand.
Mors lifted his sword.
Several brothers mistook the movement for a command to charge and began stepping forward.
"Retreat," he said.
No one moved.
The word seemed impossible within Castle Black.
A young ranger stared at him. "What?"
"I said retreat." Mors turned toward the southern gate and pointed with his sword, his voice rising until even the wounded near the back could hear. "All surviving brothers withdraw. Take anyone who can be moved and run south."
A builder shook his head, face twisted with grief. "Lord Commander Umber ordered us to hold."
"Lord Commander Umber ordered us to buy the North time." Mors looked toward Jinx, who had stopped near the center of the yard. "We have bought it with four hundred lives. I will not spend the last hundred because the dead cannot change an order."
Another brother tightened his grip upon his spear. "He will follow."
"Then we scatter and make him choose."
Mors shoved the nearest man toward the gate.
"Move!"
The retreat began without formation.
Men carried wounded brothers between them. Those still strong enough to run helped those whose legs no longer worked properly. Several turned repeatedly, expecting Jinx to charge the moment their backs faced him.
He did not.
Jinx remained in the yard.
His head tilted as the survivors passed through the southern gate and spilled onto the kingsroad. The scent of their blood drifted behind them. Their heartbeats remained loud enough for him to hear.
Yet Castle Black held hundreds of bodies.
Fresh bodies.
The hunger shifted inside him.
The fleeing men became less important.
Mors was the last to pass through the gate. He stood beneath the arch for several breaths, sword raised despite his broken arm, watching the monster that had destroyed the Watch.
Jinx stared back.
Neither moved.
Then a wounded brother screamed from somewhere inside the common hall.
Jinx's head snapped toward the sound.
He turned away from the gate.
Mors did not waste the gift.
He staggered south after the others, and the surviving Night's Watch fled into the darkness, wounded, exhausted, and unable to understand why they were still alive.
Jinx walked back into Castle Black.
The immediate violence left him.
His shoulders sagged as Dark Sister slipped from his hand and struck the snow. He dropped onto all fours beside the nearest corpse, breathing heavily while blood from his wounds dripped across the dead brother's black cloak.
For several seconds, he only stared.
Then he bit into the body.
The hunger answered.
Jinx tore through leather and wool with his teeth, reaching the warmth beneath. He fed without restraint, ripping flesh free and swallowing before he had finished chewing. Blood covered his face anew. Every mouthful quieted some small portion of the screaming emptiness inside him.
He moved from body to body.
The dead in the yard first.
Then those beneath the galleries.
He crawled through the common hall, feeding upon men killed beside overturned tables and broken benches. His movements became slower as the hunger eased, no longer driven by the frantic desperation that had carried him through the gate.
He did not touch every corpse.
Some had withered beneath his draining power and offered little. Others had been burned too badly or crushed beneath debris. He chose those still warm, sometimes dragging them into darker corners before feeding.
When he reached the tunnel again, he stopped.
Rodrik Umber remained standing among the dead.
Jinx crouched several paces away, his mouth and hands covered in blood. The yellow light within his eyes had dimmed but not vanished.
A low sound left him.
Not a growl this time.
Something quieter.
He lowered his head toward the dead Lord Commander, then turned away without touching the body.
Outside the ruined northern gate, the dragon egg waited where he had left it.
Jinx retrieved it only after the worst of the hunger had been fed. He carried it back through the shattered tunnel in both arms, stepping carefully around Rodrik before entering Castle Black once more.
The surviving brothers were already far down the kingsroad.
Jinx did not follow.
He settled beneath the broken gallery in the center of the yard with the fungus-covered egg held against his chest and Dark Sister resting within reach.
Around him, Castle Black burned.
The dead lay everywhere.
Jinx lowered his blood-covered face against the dragon egg, closed his yellow eyes, and listened to the last surviving heartbeats hidden among the ruins.