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The mass crowd of wildlings soon started to move forward. While the Giants and bulk of troops stayed behind close to the bonfires, some vanguard elements began to risk trial probes towards the ice Wall, with a discipline that the commander of Castle Black would have liked to find among his own men.
-–- Archers!...» Ser Alliser suddenly shouted. As the black-clad bowmen were lining up along the parapet walk, the commander continued: «...Enemy group closing in, left hand! Attention... Nock... Draw... Loose!
Alliser Thorne was then stunned to see only half of the arrows fly to the left towards the enemy mob... and the other half dart the void on the right, in a fruitless waste! Instead of loosing arrows, two archers had even thrown their bows at the enemy! And to top it off, when the half-volley shot to the left finally swooped down, no arrow did actually hit the ground less than twenty yards away from a wildling!
-–- What the...!» Thorne screamed out beside himself, before he gave thought and asked worriedly: «How many of you don't know their left from their right?!
After having glanced at each other, almost all of the archers ended up raising their hands as one man. One of them even lost balance and fell into the void during this particularly dangerous exercise! Ser Alliser gaped in horror, wide-eyed at facing this new blow dealt to the low regard in which he held his men already.
-–- Fucking lot of dulled morons! he cursed strongly. How can it be one doesn't know left from...?! And this volley... What a disgrace! Hah, they must be laughing out loud down there! For pity's sake, just tell me you've been provided some combat training, yah?!
Then came a long heavy silence, and a endless moment of hesitation, before one of the bowmen finally brought himself to raise his hand awkwardly:
-–- Er, Ser, you know, basically, I'm just a steward, huh?
Alliser Thorne frowned at this unwelcome remark; but before he may have replied anything, another sworn brother raised his hand in turn:
-–- And, er, that's my case too, Ser...
That second confession worked as a dike-breaker, for all of the brothers soon spoke over each other in an uncontrolled hubbub:
-–- True of me as well, Ser: just a steward!
-–- So am I: steward...
-–- Me too.
-–- Ditto...
Facing up to such a stunning revelation, Ser Alliser Thorne remained slack-jawed for about three long seconds, unable to slur a single word. But once back to the sordid reality, he roared:
-–- You ALL have been trained as stewards?! Seven Hells! so we don't have a single one true ranger within the ranks!?...» A heart-stopping thought abruptly crossed the mind of Ser Alliser, who asked at once: «...Not a single one true builder either? But then, who took care of maintaining the Wall, for these last months?!
The commander got his answer in a rather unexpected way, when a large piece of the ice Wall neglected for too long suddenly came away, bringing two stewards down! This new stroke of fate had Ser Alliser rage even more, and he started to turn around himself, desperately looking for his deputy:
-–- Lord Slynt? Lord Slynt? Janos Slynt, where the Seven Hells are you hiding?!
-–- Er, Ser, a steward chimed in, Brother Janos has just gone down using the elevator. He said he had, er, a pressing need. When they saw him moving away, three other brothers realized that they too had a pressing need, and they went down with him!
-–- Hem! That's what they planned, anyway, another steward added while watching down the vertical framework. Yet the cage has just come off and... Ouch! crashed right in the middle of the courtyard, crushing a score of our boys! True, we should have maintained that bloody stuff a little bit, instead of spending all of our time at cooking pies...
Alliser Thorne roared out of despair for the nth time already in this dark night. Unable to restrain his anger any longer, he finally exploded:
-–- Donkeys! Lamebrains! Crannogmen from the Neck! That was not enough for you to be a freaking bunch of illiterate bastards, of unclean sons of bitches, of chicken thieves and goat fuckers?! No, I was also to be fobbed off a full necklace of millstones, a herd of gluttonous hogs not even worth the crap they shit!?
A dead silence fell upon the parapet walk still whipped by heavy snow flurries. Not the lowest murmur could be heard among the stewards, even when a giant arrow suddenly swept away one of them! A slight plaintive voice finally rose from the ranks:
-–- That was not very kind, Ser, what you said...
Ser Alliser breathed deeply. Against all odds, his sharp rant had succeeded in somewhat calming his nerves... After a quick assessment of the situation down the Wall, the commander undertook to issue a new batch of orders:
-–- All right, drop your bows now, you may just hurt yourselves! The enemy is marching in droves on the foot of the Wall! So go and bring the oil casks! Definitely don't draw any flame too close before they're all put on the wooden ramps at the parapet! Be cautious, damn, I'm not joking! Handle these barrels with the utmost care, and keep them away from fire!
There was quite a frantic stampede as the stewards started running around, every man for himself, so that Ser Alliser wasn't that surprised when two more of these idiots fell into the void – again! Mindful of the danger posed by so much flesh driven by so little intelligence, Alliser Thorne screamed his lungs out to overcome the uproar:
-–- Repeating slowly, for dafties! One: you bring the oil casks to the ramps, one by one, cautiously. Two: you...?!...
The hapless commander of Castle Black understood that this was the end of it, when he saw one of his best-built "dafties" run with a drum under each arm, and a flaming torch in each hand! As expectable with such a load, the black-clad moron ended up slipping on the ice, just as he got closer to the stock of oil. One of his drums broke under his weight, and the spilled oil ignited at the heat of the torch. The brother's rags caught fire, and the panicked human torch couldn't think of anything smarter than rolling over on the ice... right to the stockpile, three dozens of oil barrels at least, enough to blow every living thing over the Wall! Ser Alliser actually witnessed all of this, amazed and helpless...
-–- Oh, dammit! he sighed in a weary tone, just before being engulfed in the fireball.
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