Ice and Fire: Conquering the World Starting from the Wall

Lynn exhaled a puff of white breath and said to Eamon:

"Let's try one last time, Maester Aemon."

I will feed the ravens good grains and fresh meat, and I will write to each lord, telling them my plans and the responsibilities I will soon assume.

If one-third of them are of sound mind, the Free People will remain in the Old and New Grants, becoming a bulwark protecting the Seven Kingdoms; otherwise, a new war will be inevitable.

After Lynn finished speaking, he turned and left, with the Thane people following closely behind.

Although she knew the outcome was unlikely to be good, Lynn still copied dozens of copies of the more concise version of the letter she had written to Last Hearth.

The reason for keeping the writing concise is that ravens can only carry a limited amount of weight, so the paper cannot be too large, and therefore the beautiful cursive handwriting is also omitted.

If the letter contains too much information, a special pen for writing small characters is needed.

It was nearly evening when Lynn finally finished writing the letter.

He arrived at the raven's nest with a stack of written letters and asked Aemon which noble names should be written at the top of the letters. Aemon answered him one by one and also explained to him how ravens work.

The core mechanism of ravens delivering messages is "returning to the nest," not "finding a route to deliver the message."

Most ravens are trained to fly to only one specific castle, which means that if you want to send a message from Winterfell to King's Landing, you need to keep a raven that originally belonged to King's Landing in the raven's nest in Winterfell.

When you release the raven to deliver the message, it will instinctively fly back to King's Landing.

Because of this one-way communication, castles must exchange ravens to maintain communication with each other.

Of course, some ravens are exceptionally gifted and, with effort, can learn to fly between two, three, or even four or five castles and follow instructions to go to designated locations, but these "once-in-a-century" intelligent birds are extremely precious and rare.

The maesters in each castle take on the role of "maintenance engineers," responsible for managing the crow nests, caring for and training the ravens.

The Citadel also established "Raven Studies" as a formal discipline, and maesters who wish to master this field need to obtain a chain made of black iron as proof of their qualification.

Because the Night's Watch has been severely understaffed in recent years, it has been sending men to the territories of various lords to search for criminals and bastards willing to wear the black robes.

The Night's Watchmen sent out to do this job are usually called "ravens" (such as Yoren, the Night's Watchman who rescued Arya in King's Landing).

This solved the problem of overcrowded prisons for many lords, so the Night's Watch had good relations with most nobles, and exchanging ravens was a natural thing to do. As a result, they could contact as many as fifty or sixty lords, large and small.

"Currently, the ravens can only reach as far as Oldtown and the Citadel, and the Northern lords have the closest contact with us. However, Winterfell has been burned down; you can send a letter to Riverrun, and perhaps King Robb will receive it."

Lynn held a pen, listening to Maester Aemon's explanation while filling in titles and names on the letter in the last rays of the setting sun.

Aemon said:

"Before King Robb went south, House Umber and the Karstark family always readily helped each other."

Does that mean they won't respond after that? Lynn wondered.

"Letters from Castle Black can be delivered to Dreadfort, Seven, Toren Square, Deepwood Keep, Bear Island, Widow's Lookout, White Harbor, Wasteland, and Streamlands, as well as the Riddle, Burley, Norry, Harclay, and Warr houses in the remote mountains."

He paused for a moment, then offered his suggestion:

"I suggest sending a message to the lords of the North first, as they are the only ones who can provide support if the food problem is to be solved."

"Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst; even if the southern lords were willing, the long transport routes would prevent supplies from arriving in a timely manner."

Inconvenient transportation is just an excuse; if land routes are not feasible, sea routes can be used instead.

Aemon's meaning was clear: he had no confidence in the lords of the North, and even less hope in the lords of the South; he simply didn't want to waste his precious ravens.

He also wanted to test Lynn to see if he genuinely wanted to defend the Wall or if he wanted to use it as an excuse to seize a crown for himself.

Seeing that Lynn didn't speak, he continued:

"There are no maesters or ravens in the Neck; they are loyal only to the Starks, and outsiders can hardly find them."

"South of the Neck, there are ravens in the castles of several dukes and princes, including King's Landing, the Eyrie, Riverrun, Casterly Rock, Storm's End, Highgarden, and Sunspear."

Besides these, there are dozens of other names, but I can't remember them all. Memory fades as one gets older. Please allow me to organize them and list them on paper later for your reference.

Lynn filled in the names of all the Northern lords except for House Amber, and then handed them to the old man.

"Send it out as soon as possible, Scholar, and also give me the list of southern nobles quickly."

Lynn spoke with unusual earnestness:

“Master Aemon, this is not a political statement or a show. The White Walkers are chasing the ashes of the campfires left by the Free Men, and they are heading south. I killed one of them myself, and Samwell Tarly killed another. I am quite certain of this, and you can summon him and ask him yourself later.”

Aemon nodded; he had already heard about this from Glenn.

(In the original book, Glenn, Paul Jr., and Sam fell behind the Rangers who survived the Battle of the Fist of the First Men and were overtaken by the White Walkers. Paul Jr. was killed by the White Walkers, and his body jammed the White Walker's sword. At this moment, Sam mustered his courage, closed his eyes, and wildly swung his dragonglass dagger, killing the White Walker with a flurry of swordplay.)

During the subsequent Castor Fortress rebellion, Glenn and a dozen others were forced to abandon the terrified Sam and return to Castle Black.

"No one can guarantee whether the Long Night will come, but the Night's Watch knows better than anyone that wights can cross the Wall, so there must be people stationed along the Wall."

This matter concerns not only the safety of the free people, but also the common crisis of all Westeros and even the entire known world.

If humanity cannot unite at times like these, then someone needs to lend them a hand.

After listening to Lynn's words, Eamon remained silent for a long time before finally whispering:

"This is difficult, Lord Lynn, very difficult."

Even during that long night at the end of the Age of Heroes, the First Men and the Children of the Forest were not united from the beginning.

"Unless facing extinction and with no other option, it is difficult for humanity to give up immediate interests and focus on thinking about the future."

Despite knowing that Eamon was blind, Lynn nodded instinctively, indicating that he agreed with the other's point of view.

But then he changed the subject and asked Imon:

"But that depends on whose interests it is."

For nobles, interests are their rights, status, land, and wealth. But for commoners, whose numbers are thousands of times greater, interests may simply be about survival.

What do you think?

Amon gave a wry smile.

"Lord Lynn, your words remind me of my brother, King Aegon V."

"He had worked to implement reforms that would give commoners more rights, but this angered the nobility and met with strong resistance."

"In this era, the rule of the aristocracy was deeply entrenched, and the common people could not be stirred up by a slogan or some policies."

You must admit—though it may sound a bit unseemly—that the common people often represent ignorance and shortsightedness; they can support you for one sentence and oppose you for another.

My brother, the king, failed miserably.