As she swept over the shadow-shrouded Haunted Forest, Danyla witnessed countless bloody scenes. Beneath the forest's gloomy canopy, the Wildlings beyond the Wall struggled to survive, gathering wild fruit and hunting beasts.
But even more chose to plunder other tribes. The already sparse Wildling population seemed never to stop slaughtering one another. There were no rules or order here. Everything was done to fill their bellies, to stay alive.
She flew over towering mountains buried beneath ice and snow. Countless ruins of the First Men, now little more than faint traces, silently told the long, bitter history of their descendants.
Once a fortress beyond the Wall, the First Men's Fist had weathered into a cold, forbidding peak. Only its waist-high stone walls and command platform still bore any trace of its former purpose.
The steaming Milkwater, gleaming milky white, sustained not only many tenacious Wildling tribes. Tall, shaggy giants and the few remaining Children of the Forest also sheltered nearby.
Most beasts beyond the Wall were unusually fierce and formidable. Deer, wolf packs, and giant bears alike were much larger than their counterparts south of the Wall. The harsh environment had not only hardened the Wildling tribes, but also subjected the beasts beyond the Wall to a far more ruthless process of selection.
In the northernmost reaches beyond the Wall, the kingdom of the Thenns lay in a warm mountain valley, hidden within a small pocket of land at the far northern end of the Frostfangs.
The inhabitants of Thenn were called Thenns. They believed they possessed the purest blood of the First Men. Their main language was that of the First Men, and most knew only a word or two of the Common Tongue.
The Thenns' leader was the Magnar, whom they regarded as a god rather than merely