The wind in the valley carried a sickly sweetness of blood.
The clamor of the living had faded away.
Fifteen thousand corpses-or rather, things that had once been corpses-stood silently on the valley floor.
They still wore the crimson surcoats of House Lannister, arrows protruding from their bodies, but their eyes shone.
An expanse of eerie blue light joined into a strange sea of stars beneath the dusk.
Tormund felt his teeth ache.
He would rather wrestle a hundred giants than look at these things again.
He nudged Mance Rayder beside him.
"Chief, isn't... isn't this a bit fucking much?"
Mance did not answer. He simply watched the new army made from their enemies, watching their lifeless movements.
He felt no fear, only awe.
This was a power beyond mortal understanding, a power capable of overturning the entire world.
"Are you questioning Lord Lynn's decision?"
"Hurry up and get everything packed."
Mance's voice was a little hoarse.
"We're moving somewhere else."
He turned and entered a hastily erected tent.
Mance took a piece of obsidian from inside his clothes.
Suddenly, a ghostly green flame appeared over the obsidian.
Its glow distorted the light and shadows inside the tent. Mance's shadow stretched and twisted across the wall like a struggling ghost.
Within the flame, a hazy face slowly appeared.
Lynn.
"How did the battle go?"
Lynn's voice came from the flame.
"Fifteen thousand men. Not one escaped."
Mance kept it brief.
The face in the flame nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the result.
"How far away is Tywin's main force?"
"Within three days, he'll know everything that happened here."
"Too slow." A trace of impatience crept into Lynn's voice.
"I don't have time to play hide-and-seek with him in the Riverlands."
Mance frowned.
"Then what do you have in mind?"
"Abandon Riverrun."