04 Night's Watch.pdf - Chaos Bleeds

Chapter 2: The Wall & the GiftThe Children of the ForestBefore Queen Alysanne, before even Brandon the Builder, peoplelived in the area known now as the Gift. First were the Childrenof the Forest who lived here as they did elsewhere, making theirhomes in the deep woods. There were no towns or cities to paytribute to human lords, just eyes and faces in the trees and the childrenhunting for their suppers. After the First Men came, they andthe children warred against one another. This happened less in theNorth than through the rest of what would be Westeros, however.When the kings rose in the North, they took weirwoods of theirown. Perhaps this was due to the forbidding climate, or perhapsdue to the presence of the Others. Either way, the children were notpersecuted in the North as they were in other places.Even as the First Men and their descendants made towns andvillages and the Andals followed behind, the Children of the Forestpersisted throughout the Gift. There is some evidence theymay have even assisted with the building of the Wall, as shown bythe carved face of the Black Gate deep within the Nightfort. Duringthe Age of Heroes, it’s said that the children gave the Night’sWatch a hundred daggers with blades of dragonglass each year.This continued for centuries after Brandon the Builder raised theWall. Even during the reign of King Robert, dragonglass bladeshards and arrowheads can still be found throughout the Gift,though such treasures are rare now compared to how it once was.If the children still exist anywhere, it’s beyond the Wall amidthe wildlings and the Others. With Winter coming, however,and this one likely to bring a storm of Others with it, the timemight be ripe for their reappearance. Perhaps the reappearanceof such a dire threat to the land might be sufficient to make theirexistence known to Westeros once more—or perhaps they aresimply gone, leaving only the weirwoods to mark their passing.so did the number of stewards to be put to the land. Once a place offarms and plenty, the wilderness has now reclaimed most of it, makingit scarcely less wild than the far side of the Wall.This was the situation even in the days of the Targaryen rule. JaehaerysI, known as The Conciliator, was only the fourth king of theTargaryen dynasty. When he traveled to Winterfell to meet with theNorthern lords, his queen consort (and sister, being Targaryen) GoodQueen Alysanne flew on dragonback to see the great Wall for herself.Always known for her tender heart, Queen Alysanne was shocked andhumbled to see the difficulties facing the brave men of the Watch and thegreat task they held. She stayed there for a night, the only ruler to do so.The Watch renamed one of their castles, Snowgate, to Queensgate in herhonor. Alysanne was so moved by the devotion and bravery of the Watchthat she convinced her husband to bequeath the New Gift to the watch,doubling Brandon’s Gift and giving the Watch tenants in the cities andtowns already there to support the Night’s Watch in their unending task.The Gift under King RobertWhile the lands that Queen Alysanne left the Watch two hundred andfifty years ago were fertile and well populated, times have changed. Noweven the New Gift is not what it once was. The Watch’s loss of manpowernot only affected how many castles it could keep open and howwell it could maintain its own land, but also how well it could protectthe holders and farmers from wildling attacks. Growing weary of losingstores and livestock—and daughters—to raiders from beyond theWall, the smallfolk make their way south or onto Umber lands bit bybit, trickling like blood from a wound that refuses to heal. The continuedmigration has left the Gift less able to recover and replenish bothitself and the Watch with every family that left its holdings behind. Thenumber of occupied and farmed towns and holdings is less than half ofwhat it once was, making Mole’s Town the only notable settlement inall of the Gift not already part of the Wall.Life in the GiftThe tribulations of the Night’s Watch affect no one else so much as thepeople who live within the Gift. Life there is difficult for the smallfolkin ways that those in other regions rarely experience. While thosenear the Iron Islands must occasionally endure raids from the ironmen(though less since King Robert brought them to heel), and those of theVale face the threats of the clansmen, neither have the persistence of thewildlings, raiding whenever they can break through the Watch’s guard.The forces beyond the Wall are stronger here, too, with strange portentsand powers unknown in the south making themselves known in subtleways. The weirwood holds sway here, not the Seven.It’s not only the wildlings or Free Folk, or even strange portents thatmake life here challenging. The climate alone is daunting. Even Summershere look like mild winters elsewhere, and when Winter comes, itbites here first. With this Summer lasting so long, even those in milderclimes fear the coming Winter—those who live so close to the Wallknow better than anyone how bitter the winds can be.If that were not enough, however, there is the presence of the Watchitself. No one in the area can or should forget that whatever their statusnow, the men who took the black were once thieves, murderers, rapers,and worse. Some were not, but in these days they are by far the minority.A man traveling alone through the Gift wearing black is as likely a mandeserting his post as not; those men have nothing left to lose. So long asthey cleave to their duty, they are considered honorable men. The temptation,however, to slip back into old ways can prove very strong for some,however. The peace between the people of the Gift and the men of theWatch is an uneasy one, despite their mutual dependence on one another.Mole’s TownThe largest settlement within the Gift (short of the inhabited castles) isMole’s Town. The town is largely subterranean, both for protection againstthe cold and protection against wildling attacks. Initially built into a seriesof natural caverns, the town has acquired both width and depth over thedecades. There are some structures above ground, primarily a stable andsmithy, but nothing substantive—or more valuable than necessary.The shops, stores, and homes of the town’s inhabitants are all belowground. Some traditional mining happened as a natural consequence ofso much digging, but nothing of great value was ever recovered and mostof those tunnels have been converted into what passes for streets. None ofthe shops have a huge selection, but they do what business they can withtravelers on the Kingsroad. Most of it falls to barter or trade, though thereis still some money in the region and no merchant would turn it away.62