The Wall.
Castle Black.
Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, stood atop the Wall, his wrinkled face reddened by the biting wind.
Frost clung to his graying beard as he gazed across the endless snowfields toward the distant north.
Ever since Lynn had led the Wildlings south, the Wall had enjoyed a peace it had not known in years.
Without the Wildlings harassing them, even the abandoned forts between Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and the Shadow Tower seemed less dilapidated.
Everything seemed so peaceful.
Yet Jeor's heart remained heavy with unease.
The Long Night was coming.
Those words weighed on his heart like an iceberg.
Suddenly.
"Hoooo-hoooo-hoooo-"
A bleak horn call, so ancient it hardly seemed of this world, sounded from the far southern horizon.
It pierced the wind and snow, crossed a thousand miles of frozen land, and reached every member of the Night's Watch with perfect clarity.
It was not loud, yet it seemed to resonate directly in the depths of their souls.
The men atop the Wall stopped their work and looked south in bewilderment.
"Was that a horn?"
A young Ranger asked uncertainly.
"Doesn't sound like ours."
The veteran beside him shook his head, his face full of confusion.
"That sound... it's fucking unnatural."
Jeor Mormont's expression darkened.
"What is that sound?"
Jeor murmured to himself.
He had never heard such a strange horn call.
Yet the instant his words fell, the ice wall beneath his feet, which had stood solid for eight thousand years, gave its first groan of agony.
Crack-
It was a faint, brittle sound, yet enough to make everyone's scalp prickle.
Then came a second, a third...
Like a plague, countless spiderweb cracks spread wildly across the Wall's outer layer of ice!
"Seven above! The Wall... the Wall is cracking!"
A man of