About twenty mounted men were resting in the clearing, all wearing heavy black fur cloaks and carrying longswords and longbows.
They were Rangers of the Night's Watch.
Almost the moment King Ghidorah appeared overhead, a commotion broke out in the Rangers' camp below.
"Captain, look." Will, a young, thin-looking Ranger, pointed at the sky, his voice trembling.
Qhorin raised his head, and his gray eyes instantly narrowed.
Qhorin Halfhand was one of the finest Rangers in the Night's Watch. They had been ordered to patrol the Gift, searching for Wildlings who had crossed the Wall to raid the lands to the south.
The main reason so many of them were traveling together was that any Wildling capable of scaling the Wall on their own was a formidable opponent. They had already lost quite a few brothers to such people.
King Ghidorah was not flying very high. The golden dragon gleamed in the sunlight, his three heads slowly turning toward them. Even from a distance, his oppressive presence made it hard to breathe.
"Seven preserve us..." one Ranger murmured.
Qhorin quickly recovered and reacted at once. "Sound the horn! Warn the Wall! Hurry!"
"But Captain, how many blasts should I sound?" The Ranger carrying the horn hesitated. There was no precedent for this.
"That's a dragon," Qhorin snapped. "Far more dangerous than Wildlings. Three blasts." As far as he was concerned, dragons and Others were both creatures of legend. Treating them as the same threat was perfectly reasonable.
The Ranger hurriedly sounded three blasts. The horns of the Night's Watch could carry a long way.
Qhorin stared at the dragon in the sky, but his hand merely rested on the sword hilt at his waist. He did not draw it. He had fought countless battles to the death, faced all manner