Disclaimer: I don't own Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire

Alyssa I Targaryen

Book : The Long Night

Chapter 5: Battle of Castle Black

Beta:

Trigger warning: Canon typical underage, nudity

It was late at night at Castle Black and in their bedchamber in the King's Tower, Alyssa was busy making love to Elia. She was in fact enthusiastically rubbing her cunt against Elia's own as their wandering hands explored and pampered each other's bodies. A delightful activity that was helping them build towards a powerful peak when suddenly there was an urgent knock on the door.

"Your grace, Lady Elia! Wights! An army of wights have been spotted!" Brienne shouted from the other side of the sturdy oak.

For a moment the two lovers just froze as their passion addled minds processed the news before with massive groans of disappointment they pulled away from each other. They had not yet successfully reached a high but they nevertheless knew their duty and could not continue. A fact that left them deeply annoyed as this had been the first time that they had the chance to lay with each other in a sennight, Alyssa having been, at Elia's insistence, secretly using Gate to have her other concubines back in King's Landing visit her here in Castle Black in accordance with the schedule they had worked out before they had departed North.

"Tonight doesn't count!" Elia demanded as she pulled on her breast band and drawers heedless of the sweat and other things that covered her body from their lovemaking. "We didn't get to finish! I demand a make up night!"

"Agreed." Alyssa acquiesced easily as she threw on her chemise with the same disregard for what coated her body at the moment before slipping on then lacing her boots.

"You should wear men's clothes." Elia said a moment later as she slipped on and secured her trousers and tunic even as Alyssa just finished her boots and was pulling on her kirtle. "It's more comfortable in a fight."

"I have an image to maintain." Alyssa countered as she finished putting on her gown and was tightening her sword belt with the sheathed Dark Sister dangling securely from it around her waist.

"What that you're a woman and a warrior at once?" Elia asked as she, having put on her outer furs, held Alyssa's fur lined jacket for her so she could slip her arms more easily into its sleeves.

"Thank you." Alyssa said as she finished slipping her arms in and began working on the buttons. "And precisely."

"Aren't your breasts enough proof of that?" Elia said with a scoff as she slipped on her boots.

Alyssa rolled her eyes.

"Sadly, no." She said as she took the time her lover used to put on her footwear to adjust how her clothes sat a little. "Besides I like dresses."

"On the battlefield?" Elia asked incredulously even as she continued lacing her boots uninterrupted.

"I do ride on Ghost's back most of the time, which means I don't need armor and can dress how I like. Is that not why you're forgoing armor now?"

"Yes, but at least I'm wearing something I can fight in." Elia said as she finished one boot and moved to the next.

"I can fight well enough in a dress." Alyssa countered with a shrug. "Besides, I mainly use magic in combat anyway."

"I won't win this will I?" Elia said with a sigh halfway through lacing up her second boot.

"No," Alyssa confessed with an amused smile. "Just like you didn't the last nine times you brought this up. Or the four times Mya did."

Elia just giggled at that and finished with her boots.

"Done!" Elia she declared triumphantly and Alyssa nodded as they both moved to leave their rooms.

As they finally exited their chambers, they were met with Aunt Dany just hurrying out of her own rooms with Dickon Tarly, both of them showing signs, much as they themselves were, of having dressed hastily.

Alyssa couldn't help the amused smirk she shot at her Aunt at the sight, but the other Targaryen just rolled her eyes.

"Now is not the time, Niece." She reprimanded as she took the mage's arm and pulled her along as they rushed out of the Tower.

"True," Alyssa said with a giggle. "But I reserve the right as your Niece to tease you about this later, Aunt."

"After we fight off the wights, you can tease me all you want."

Moments later, Alyssa, Dany and Elia were riding the newly expanded elevator up to the top of the Wall. Constructed by giants and powered by their mammoths, the new elevator could now carry up a giant and a mammoth up the Wall at the same time if ever the need arose. This in addition to two dozen new smaller elevators and many more new added stairs made travel up and down the Wall much easier. A point that was made clear by the unit of Valemen archers they now shared the elevator with that were hurrying up to reinforce those on duty.

"The sentries spotted the wights massing just beyond the tree line across from the Castle Black gate through the Wall." Brienne briefed them as they stood to one relatively secluded corner of the crowded elevator.

"Do we have any ideas on the enemy numbers?" Alyssa asked seriously, her levity over her Aunt's liaison with Dickon Tarly pushed aside for a more appropriate time.

"No accurate ones, your grace." Brienne said apologetically. "They have been keeping to the tree line which has made attempts to count their numbers next to impossible, but estimates indicate that they number in the thousands."

"Is this their main force then?" Elia asked. "The horde of a hundred thousand?"

"It's possible." Alyssa said with a frown. "But something doesn't seem right. Every account of his campaign against the Free Folk shows that the Night King is no fool. So why would he mass his forces to attack a heavily fortified location like Castle Black and risk the destruction of the wight army he's taken years to amass?"

"There does feel like something is amiss." Aunt Dany agreed. "But whatever the Night King's plan, we cannot let this chance to wipe out a chunk of his army go to waste."

"And we won't." Alyssa affirmed as the elevator came to a jerky stop as it reached its destination at the top of the Wall.

They promptly disembarked and headed to an observation hut on the northern edge of the Wall where Lord Commander Thorne was already peering through the lens and bronze tube of a Myrish eye, one of the many new pieces of equipment Alyssa had provided the Watch, at the undead horde standing patiently at the edge of the Haunted Forest.

"They've just been standing there," the Lord Commander said handing the far eye to Alyssa as she and Aunt Dany walked over. "That and growing in numbers."

Alyssa nodded and put the device to her eye and peered down at the undead along the tree line. They were everywhere she could see. Beasts of all types, men, women, even children, all dead but animated to an unholy imitation of life and forced to serve as the Others' slaves. It might have been her imagination but as her eyes looked over them, she thought their glowing blue eyes followed her gaze as if they were searching her soul from the distance.

What was not her imagination was when an Other stepped very deliberately into her view. He was tall and gaunt, with flesh pale as milk and had cold blue eyes akin to burning ice just like all his kind but was dressed in elaborate armor and had a series of horn like growths on his head that together looked very much like a crown.

"The Night King!" Alyssa gasped as she pulled the far eye from her eye and tore her gaze away. Even as the victorious smirk on the monster's face that was her last glimpse of the Night King sent a shiver of fear down her spine.

"Let me see." Aunt Dany said reaching for the Myrish eye.

"No time," the Lord Commander said as movement below caught all their attention. "They're coming."

It seemed the Night King realizing that Alyssa was there was the signal the wights had been waiting for as suddenly thousands of the undead swarmed out of the tree line and towards the Wall.

"Fire!" Thorne shouted at the men on the Wall. "All archers and catapults fire!"

Thousands of fire arrows shot down at the wight hordes even as the catapults began hurling barrels of Wildfire down as well, together they turned the empty expanse between the tree line and the Wall into a sea of flames, many of them green. Yet the wights still came in a seemingly unending tide, braving the flames and smothering large patches of it with their own bodies as they advanced relentlessly. Many fell but enough made it through the barrage that the men at the tunnel through the Wall would have plenty of work to do.

"Keep firing!" Thorne shouted as he too picked up a bow and turned to the two Queens. "Your graces, what are you waiting for!? Get on your dragons!"

"Right!" Alyssa shouted as she ran to the Castle Black side of the Wall, already calling out to Ghost through their bond. "Aunt Dany, Ghost is bringing your dragons so follow me."

Her Aunt looked skeptical but nodded and trailed after her. Alyssa did not make her way to the elevators which were even now hard at work bringing more companies of archers up the Wall, but to an empty edge nearby where seconds later Ghost flew in and took a hovering position.

"Levitate!" Alyssa cast on all of them before jumping off the Wall.

There were cries of alarm but as her spell took hold and she floated down onto the fighting platform on Ghost's back, the rest of Alyssa's retinue starting with Elia followed her lead and leapt off the Wall with varying degrees of reluctance. Followed at last by a fearful Aunt Dany.

Drogon didn't seem to want to cooperate though and even as Alyssa moved her Aunt onto his back with her spell, the black dragon literally snatched her out of the air with his jaws and tossed her on instead.

"Aunt Dany, are you alright?" Alyssa shouted in concern.

"I'm fine!" She heard her Aunt shout back sounding a little rattled even as she hastily adjusted her grip on her dragon's back while Rhaegal and Viserion squawked at their brother angrily as they flew over the Wall.

"Ghost! Over the Wall! We need to support them!"

Ghost roared his agreement and began beating his wings to take them over the Wall even as Alyssa cast Mage Armor over him as they readied to join the fight.

Even as two of his daughters and his royal gooddaughter flew over the Wall to join the fight on the other side, Prince Oberyn Martell, Red Viper of Dorne, met up with Obara as they rushed to the tunnel entrance that led to the other side of the Wall from across the greatly expanded Castle Black.

"Where's Tyene?" Oberyn asked his eldest daughter who should have been with her sister while he had been enjoying the pleasures of a particularly comely Free Folk wench.

"She's gone to the healer's tents." Obara told him as she fell in besides him. "She said she'd be more help there."

"Good decision," Oberyn concluded even as the sound of something very heavy smashing into the Wall reverberated through the air.

"What was that?" Obara asked, alarmed. "I thought the wights didn't have catapults."

"No," a Night's Watch Brother rushing beside them confirmed. "But they do count giants among their number."

"So they're having wight giants tossing boulders take the role of catapults?" Oberyn asked. "These Others are smart bastards."

"Is that what they're doing?" Obara asked as they finally began to near the fortifications guarding the tunnel.

"It's only a guess," Oberyn told his daughter. "The only way I'd know for sure is if I was up on the Wall or on the Queen's dragon. But I'd bet good coin on it."

Their discussion was cut off when a group of bedraggled looking men ran out of the tunnel.

"They've broken through the gate on the other side!" Their leader, a Night Watch's Brother, shouted as he helped an injured Northman through the disorganized group of men standing at the top of the incline leading down into the tunnel entrance. "The line in the tunnel is holding but not for long. They're coming."

His words seem to shake the defenders, mainly Northmen, Oberyn noted, and they looked at each other worriedly. Even their commander a young man wearing the Karstark colors, one of the Lord of Karhold's younger sons perhaps, looked lost.

Guess I'll have to step in. Oberyn concluded as he climbed up a wooden observation tower that gave him a nice vantage point from which to see the whole area around the tunnel entrance. Thanks to some remodeling ordered by the Queen, the tunnel now opened up onto an incline at the top of which the Karstark men had formed up. On either side of the incline were short, thick walls from the tops of which a spearman could just about jab down at the enemy below and still had enough room for two or three men to stand behind him. These walls were anchored on one side by the Wall itself and internally by a pair of short towers, the latter of which were currently manned by only a paltry three archers each. Between these towers was a heavy gate ahead of which stood the Karstark men.

"Form a shield wall!" Oberyn shouted into a conveniently placed speaking horn at the Northmen guarding the gate. "Lower your spears and stab any of those undead monsters that you see coming!"

The Karstark men looked at their commander questioningly and the man shot Oberyn a grateful look before echoing his command. Taking heart from their commander's renewed courage and clear instructions, the men did as they were told and formed up into a passable shield wall with dragonglass tipped spears pointed firmly at the tunnel entrance.

"Get a line of men on the walls!" Oberyn shouted and his arriving Dornish spears rushed to obey. "Two rows at least. Three if you can fit them. Archers behind them! And get more archers into those towers! Pack them as tightly as you can and still shoot!"

"On it, your grace." Ser Ryon Allyrion, one of the Dornish commanders, shouted as he organized the men according to Oberyn's instructions.

"Get blocks of spearmen to cover any possible breaches just in case one of the damned things slip through," Oberyn added. "And stagger archers behind them or inside their formations if possible."

"Yes, your grace." Ser Ryon returned, adding it to the instructions he was relaying even as the lines on the walls on either side of the incline solidified into a proper shield wall.

This they managed just in time as a dozen or so Night's Watch Brothers and Northmen ran in terror out the tunnel even as the wights chased them. Many bore marks of having braved the sea of fire that Oberyn knew was being unleashed against them on the other side of the Wall and which severely thinned the numbers of the highly flammable creatures, but still dozens of them came pouring out inarticulately screaming their hatred of the living.

"Archers fire!" Oberyn shouted and dragonglass and flaming arrows aplenty rained on the wights as the survivors of the tunnel defense line pressed their way through the forward lines towards safety.

Over a dozen wights fell but they were replaced by more of the monsters pouring through the Wall behind them and the first finally met the defender's spears. These were promptly silenced by the mere nick of the spears' dragonglass tips but many used the inertia of their suicidal charge to impale themselves on the spears making them next to impossible to maneuver by their users and thus useless.

"If you spear is stuck then drop it!" Oberyn shouted. "And fall back to get a new one! Commanders rotate in new men as needed! And where the hell is the Wildfire!?"

"Here, your grace!" An Alchemist said from nearby where he was standing next to a small catapult. "Should we unleash it now?"

Oberyn turned to the situation at the tunnel entrance. They had taken out at least three dozen wights already but there were at least twice that rushing their lines using their fallen brethren as shields in an act of intelligence that frankly surprised the Prince but which he chalked up to their distant Other masters. Worse, more were coming in a seemingly unless tide.

I need to slow them down. Oberyn concluded. And there's more than enough fuel in there already.

"Do it!" Oberyn ordered the Alchemist who smirked like a madman and activated the catapult, sending a cask of Wildfire precisely into the heart of the mob of wights pouring out of the tunnel entrance, spilling the flammable liquid all over the creatures. With dozens of fire arrows flying at them every moment, it took naught but a second or two before the Wildfire caught ablaze transforming the attacking mob into an emerald green pyre.

"Commanders rotate out your men if they need it, but keep an eye out for enemy stragglers!" Oberyn ordered. "And keep watch for the next wave!"

"They're coming!" Someone shouted as a dozen or so wights hurled themselves out of the tunnel and into the green flames smothering them with the ash of their rapidly incinerated bodies, opening a space in the process that allowed even more of their ilk to surge out behind them.

"Shoot them down! Don't let them smother the flames entirely!" Oberyn shouted even as the archers hurried to obey.

"They just keep coming." Obara noted with a frown as the wights did just as she said and kept pouring out the tunnel entrance.

"Of course they are." Oberyn said as he eyed the undead with angry distaste. "They are nothing but puppets for the Others now. They know no fear and no pain. No matter what we do they will keep coming until either they are all dead again or we are."

"Then we'll just have to outlast them." Obara said. "Kill them until they are none of them left."

"Let us hope that happens before there are none of us left to fight them."

"Save your arrows," Alyssa urged Elia and her Queensguard as they all armed themselves with bows and quivers of dragonglass from a crate, all modified for safe use from the back of a flying dragon, while strapping themselves into their fighting positions on the howdah, as the Imp had discovered such platforms were called, on Ghost's back. "Use them only on the Others."

"As you command, your grace." Loras shouted his agreement as Ghost crested over the Wall and dove groundward to add his dragonfire to the streams unleashed by Aunt Dany's dragons that were burning deep furrows in the ranks of the wight tide surging out of the Haunted Forest.

"Meteor Swarm!" Alyssa cast, sending three dozen blazing orbs of fire plummeting to the ground from the sky above into the forest itself, setting swathes of it alight even as she killed hundreds of wights. That this also created illumination by which to spot any Others Elia and her Queensguard might target with their bows was just a happy coincidence.

"Your grace, wight giants!" Nymeria shouted and Alyssa turned just in time to see a pair of the undead giants stomp into view each with a massive boulder in their hands.

"Ghost!" Alyssa shouted in alarm, even as her dragon reacted smoothly and evaded the thrown boulders with ease and the huge rocks impacted the Wall instead.

"Firestorm!" Alyssa incanted in retaliation nonetheless, conjuring a sheet of white hot flame that incinerated the two boulder throwing wight giants.

"Your grace, more giants!" Brienne shouted and Alyssa turned to see another three undead giants appear out of the foliage of the forest their bulk previously hidden by the thick tree cover.

This time, Alyssa didn't even need to issue a command for Ghost to evade the rocks hurled his way so she just jumped to the offensive herself.

"Wall of Fire!" She cast, creating a line of white flames that ignited the three wight giants and wishing she could use her more powerful spells in quick succession.

"Alys! More!" Elia shouted and Alyssa turned to see another pair of wight giants suddenly make themselves known.

What in the world is the Night King doing? He's just wasting his wight giants by having them appear in small groups like this.

The moment that Alyssa took to contemplate what the Night King was doing, was when Aunt Dany decided that she would take the initiative and attack the wight giants this time and had Drogon bank towards them with his smaller siblings in tow.

Alys hasn't seen them. Daenerys concluded when her Niece didn't destroy them instantly with her magic as she had the first two batches of wight giants. Then it's up to me!

"Drogon! Attack those giants!" Dany ordered and her black scaled son obeyed, breaking off his strafing run on the helpless wights below to bank towards the giants prompting his smaller siblings to follow.

The massive wights made out of the friendly and majestic giants noticed them immediately, their unnatural glowing blue eyes turning to them and leveling them with a malice filled gaze even as they tossed the boulders they used as projectiles at them.

Dragons were masters of the air however and all three of her children easily evaded the two boulders. Each of the wights turned to rip up one of the massive trees that seemed to dominate this forest Beyond the Wall to use as a club or possibly even a throwing stick but they were too slow and Dany's children were upon them before they could so much as grab hold of a trunk.

"Dracarys!" Dany ordered and jets of black, white and green dragonfire shot from her children's mouths and easily set the highly flammable wight giants alight.

That was also the exact moment that the spears began flying up at them from the forest below. Reacting immediately, her children climbed into the air desperately in a bid to escape the attack. But the sheer volume of the ice spears thrown at them by what Dany were horrified to discover were inhuman white skinned humanoids that could only be Others were too many and some struck their targets. Drogon was hit twice, one in the tail and another in the left leg. Smaller and more agile Rhaegal managed to evade all but one spear which hit him in his right knee and caused him to howl in pain. Viserion had got the worse of it however as he was hit right in the chest and began to fall out of the air.

"NO!" Dany screamed as her son fell to his doom.

"NO!" Aunt Dany's agonized scream resounded across the battlefield as Viserion plummeted out of the air with one of the Others' ice spears firmly embedded in the center of his chest.

"Flame Strike!" Alyssa cast as she poured extra power into the spell and created a massive pillar of fire in the spot from whence the ice spears were being hurled. So intense were these pure white flames that they literally disintegrated the patch of forest they targeted and revealed the three dozen Others stumbling away from the liquefying remains of what might have once been giant ice spiders.

"Kill them!" Alyssa ordered Elia and her Queensguard as Ghost flew in and they dutifully rained down a shower of dragonglass tipped arrows that caused the disorientated White Walkers to shatter one by one as they were taken out by the relentless fire.

The rain of arrows was cut short however when suddenly Ghost surged upwards.

"Ghost wha-"

The answer presented itself as even more ice spears flew past, many of them missing entirely and others thankfully bouncing off the Mage Armor Alyssa had cast on him.

A quick glance to the side saw Drogon and Rhaegal similarly being forced back by what must have been hundreds of Others throwing their spears at them despite their best efforts to recover their brother's body.

Speaking of Viserion's body.

"Where is it?" Alyssa asked as she searched the forest for its location. As much as she knew doing so would hurt her Aunt, she had to cremate it before the Night King could raise Viserion as a wight.

Her search had barely begun when a sudden blizzard appeared entirely out of nowhere and turned the visibility to zero. Ghost shot skyward, the whizzing sound of missed ice spears and the pinging of on target ones accompanying them as they flew high into the air and burst out of the unnatural snowstorm that now blanketed the Haunted Forest. First Rhaegal and then Drogon shooting out of the cloud of swirling snow moments later.

This whole attack was nothing more than a trap. A trap so the Night King could get a dragon! Alyssa realized as Ghost began flying back towards the Wall, whose top barely made it over the unnaturally low clinging blizzard.

Behind them Rhaegal and Drogon continued circling the spot where their brother had fallen crying out for him but thankfully refused to dive back below the thick cloud and into danger despite their mother's increasingly desperate pleas for them to do so. It was futile though, and they needed to regroup but Alyssa left them be for the moment. She would just keep an eye on them. For now.

"Ghost, strafe just ahead of the Wall. Use it as a reference." Alyssa told her dragon. "But do not go under the cloud."

Her dragon roared his understanding as he moved to do just that. As terribly as the battle had gone so far, it was still ongoing and unlike her Aunt she would not waste time grieving while her men were still fighting for their lives.

"I'm sorry," Dany said as she walked into Alys' solar in the King's Tower two days after the battle and causing her Niece to look at her with confusion, though the other woman quickly dismissed that and the correspondence she had been reading to come over and pull her into a hug.

"It wasn't your fault," the mage said patting Dany's back comfortingly. "I didn't realize it was a trap either."

"No, but you weren't the one to recklessly close with the enemy and expose yourself."

"I had the benefit of my magic allowing me to attack the giants from range." Alys said as she pulled away slightly to allow her right hand to wipe away at Dany's tears. "And I didn't lose a son in that battle."

The reminder almost had Dany break out into sobs all over again like she had been doing for the past day but she couldn't afford to waste time on grief any longer so she took a shaky breath to steady herself instead.

"We'll avenge him." Dany said, her grief transforming into anger in a moment.

"We will." Alys agreed as she pulled away entirely.

"Have you been able to locate his body?" Dany asked, hoping that her worst fears were not realized.

"No," Alyssa said with a shake of her head. "After that unnatural blizzard lifted and the wights finally stopped coming, our scouts combed the Haunted Forest for leagues but we found no trace of Viserion's body. I'm afraid-"

"Don't say it, Niece. Please don't."

As likely as it was, the thought of Viserion having become a wight was too painful to bear.

"We can't deny reality, Aunt." Alys said as kindly as the stern woman could.

"I know," Dany admitted looking away and unable to meet her Niece's intense eyes. The other Targaryen did not know it, but whenever she spoke of the war with the Others her eyes took on the cast of a fanatic. As if she would do anything to achieve victory over the abominations.

"But," Dany continued in a soft, vulnerable voice that since the birth of her dragons she had only ever used in Missandei's presence. "Please. Until we must, let me hold out hope."

Alys said nothing, which was disapproval enough coming from her Niece who had something to say in almost any situation.

"What needs to be done now?" Dany asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Anything I can do?"

"I'll handle the search for the Night King." Alyssa told her with cold intensity. "My magic can see him but he's not anywhere I recognize unfortunately, so all I can say is that he is on the move."

"Where?" Dany said, less a question and more just idle wondering.

"Hopefully the scouts will tell us." Alyssa answered her anyways. "I have told them any details that my Scrying has shown me. It's up to them now."

"So what can I do?" Dany asked again.

"Check up on Drogon and Rhaegal." Alyssa urged. "We'll need them whenever and wherever the Night King makes his move."

"I can do that," Dany said with a sigh of relief and turned to leave.

"Aunt Dany?"

"Yes, Alys?" Dany turned back to ask as she was just about to open the door to leave.

"We will avenge Viserion and win this war." Alyssa insisted with the cold certainty of a true zealot.

Dany merely offered her Niece a smile and left, hiding her discomfort with the other woman's intensity. Now was not the time to confront her about her strange focus on this conflict. That could wait until after this war was won.

That is if we live long enough to enjoy victory. Dany's mind thought against her will and images of Viserion falling from the sky filled her mind's eye.

Done!

Yes, I had Dany hook up with Dickon Tarly. Right now it's just a fling. Will it become something more? I'm not telling. XP

Moving on…

I hope the battle was acceptable. It was a fun but challenging thing to write so I'm not a hundred percent on its quality. That said, I do hope it is not too bad. And yes, I still gave the Night King Wight!Viserion. Why? Because it's honestly the most expedient way for him to get over the Wall unless I use the Horn of Winter plot and have him take down the whole Wall but that's too damned Deus Ex Machina for me. Besides despite its poor execution at times and its lack of ultimate payoff in the show, the idea of the Night King getting his hands on an undead dragon is a good one.

Lastly, Dany sees Alyssa as a fanatic? How could she not when in the previous chapter Alyssa all but admitted to her that everything she's done so far was nothing more than preparation for this war. And she doesn't even realize this is the second time that Alyssa has fought this war. That said, is Dany's perception of Alyssa accurate? Well, she is grieving Viserion's loss here and not exactly all there when she made the observation but that doesn't mean she's wrong either. So how correct is she? I'll leave that up to the individual reader to decide.

That's it for me this chapter so till next time addiju!