The dead were relentless, their numbers overwhelming. The Dothraki had fallen. The Unsullied had protected the retreat of the army of the North, then fallen back themselves into Winterfell Castle. The trenches were lit, giving the exhausted fighters a brief respite as the dead halted before the fire. It didn't take long for the Night King to send his followers forward into the flames until their corpses snuffed out the fire, allowing the walkers to trample over the fallen and approach the castle walls. They clawed over one another, forming piles along the walls until they spilled over the top to attack the defenders standing on the battlements.
Jorah and Grey Worm had stayed close to the Unsullied warriors, working as a unit to protect themselves and cut down the swarms of skeletons that barreled forward into their weapons. The dragon glass was effective; a single thrust into their rotting bodies was enough to end the horror of their existence. There were just so many... Their decayed flesh knew no fear, but they were filled with a rabid desire to kill. Clawing, stabbing, bashing the army of the living to death with terrifying ferocity.
After hours of fighting, Jorah realized there were no more walkers pouring over the walls. It was eerily quiet.
The ground began to move. No, not the ground - the bodies that covered it. Those who had fallen began to rise, their eyes blue with the magic that reanimated them. Jorah looked at Grey Worm with exhausted apprehension. The battle for life was not over yet.
Grey Worm shouted into the darkness, urging his men into formation. Their voices answered him in unison, a wordless breath of strength and unity as they stood side by side, raising their shields in a line. In moments, the dead were upon them again and the castle grounds became a swirling mess of bones and dragon glass once again.
Jorah was grateful for his endurance as he fought on, stabbing a wight as it came flying at him with dagger raised, swirling to slice another that came from the side. For all his experience and training, there were so many enemies. They had been fighting all night, and the reserve of his strength was nearly gone. He focused on moving and killing with the least amount of effort required.
A horrific sound cut through the battlefield. It was the cry of Drogon on the other side of the wall. Jorah had watched the dragon grow from infancy and had never heard him utter such an anguished cry. If Drogon was wounded, then his queen was in danger.
Luckily, the wights around the castle gate had become few and far between as they were cut down by the phalanx of Unsullied, the only organized fighters left in Winterfell. Others continued the fight in scattered engagements inside the castle and atop the battlements.
Jorah ran to the gate just in time to see Drogon lift off from the ground, covered in wights that clung to his scales and cut him with a hundred daggers. The white form of Danaerys fell from his back and landed hard on the ground. As he fought to get air beneath his wings, Drogon looked down at his mother and breathed fire in a ring around her before he managed to gain altitude and shake himself free of the walkers.
Jorah took off at a run toward his queen and leapt into the ring of fire as it slowly died down and the wights surrounding them began to close in. He offered her his hand; the look in her eyes was pure terror laced with relief at his presence as he helped her stand.
He turned and lashed out at a walker as it lunged for him, beheading the monster and twirling in the air to cut down another. Two came at him at once. He stabbed the first as Daenerys pierced the second over his shoulder with her dagger. Ser Jorah was running on pure adrenaline now, the need to protect his queen, his love, replacing the energy he had lost in the long battle. He fought bravely, but eventually even the adrenaline ran out and he began to swing his sword in short strokes between light-headed staggers, just barely keeping up with the dead as they threw themselves at him and Daenerys.
A scalding pain in his shoulder caught his breath. He had been stabbed. He looked the wight in its cold, dead, blue eyes as it stared at him and pulled the dagger out to stab him again. Daenerys sliced its arm off with her own dagger before planting it in the wight's skull for good measure, sending its bones crumbling to the ground in a heap. Jorah fell to one knee, breathing hard, forcing his good arm to raise his sword in defense as Daenerys stood behind him.
"For the queen!" Grey Worm's voice rose above the din, followed by the united grunt of the Unsullied. They came in a square phalanx at a measured run toward Jorah and Daenerys, mowing down the dead in their path with renewed ferocity.
Jorah could do nothing but block the blade of a wight with his sword as he knelt in pain on the ground. In moments the phalanx opened up and swept around them, dispatching the dead as they went until Jorah and Daenerys were surrounded. They were safe.
The Unsullied stood firm in their circle around their queen and her protector, not allowing the enemy to breach the wall of their shields as they struck out with their glass-tipped spears. All at once, the field was quiet, followed by the sound of clinking bones and steel. Jorah could not see past the Unsullied; he weakly called out to ask what was happening.
"The walkers have fallen, all of them! Arya must have done it. She must have killed the Night King!" The voice of his queen was full of disbelief. Jubilant.
Jorah's head felt so light; the world was tipping. He fell to his side and rolled to his back on the frozen ground, fighting to stay conscious as his queen's face appeared before him, weeping. She cradled his face in her hands, but he could no longer hear the words coming from her mouth as her lips moved above him. He felt a strong breath of cold air, another, and looked past Danaerys to barely make out the giant form of Drogon descending in the darkness to land beside them, his great wings spread out protectively as Jorah's heavy eyelids drew closed.