Three days later, Akkarulf looked out at the massive grey shapes hauling carts of lumber being brought into the camp. Joy and relief was evident on the soldiers' faces.
The clink of metal on stone announced that the Wolf was making his way up to the walltop.
"Yarrl, the Golden Company's arrived."
"So they have... excellent!"
The Wolf looked out with evident satisfaction at the war elephants being unloaded and corralled on the northern edge of the camp and rubbed his armored hands together.
"Excellent indeed. Right, get me Thrravr and his Thenn, and if you find Gorion before I do, send him to the Silence as well."
"You're leaving, yarrl?"
"A profoundly astute observation, Akkarulf, small wonder I keep you on watch."
Akkarulf did not answer but ran down the wallstairs, the Wolf's heavier tread following him.
Akkarulf accompanied the Wildings to the Silence in its wooden cradle. Gorion was approaching from the other side, accompanied by the Wolf. Other marauders were milling about the courtyards, chattering excitedly. The giant made no preamble, giving his orders before anyone had spoken.
"Gorion, you'll select your best men, we'll need three ships along with the Silence. Take down the masts down on all three. Thrravr, take your best trackers, hunters and trappers, there's spadework and butchering to be done. And everyone dress warmly."
"What for, magnar?"
"Have you not heard the news?"
Both men shook their heads.
"Our enemies bring war-beasts, a worthy challenge that must be answered in kind. Unfortunately it'd take too long to bring our own over, and the last time I tried the only thing that survived was the legs. Not even all of them. Thrravr, have your tribe hunted mammoths before?"
Thrravr's eyes lit up.
"We have."
The Wolf nodded.
"Off you go now. Gorion, be sure to take those who have yet to be rewarded for their service by the masters. There will be little glory to be gained here, for if I know these southerners they will wait until their engines are finished to attack."
The captains ran off, the Wolf calling out to his marauders. The Silence lifted ponderously into the air, its demonic prow snapping left and right.
By late afternoon the preparations had been made, the Silence floating above three unmasted Ironborn ships which bobbed in the choppy waters.
The Wavetalon, Crabsclaw and Plunderer were anchored side by side, their masts removed and lying across all three ships. Marauders secured the masts to the sides of the Wavetalon and the Plunderer with ropes and chains, leaving the Crabsclaw untethered to either.
The Silence drifted above them, more chains and ropes dropping down to be securely attached to the sides of each ship, the middle ones far longer than the others.
The Thenn and Gorion's chosen Ironborn waited onboard the waited on the shore beside the Wolf, waiting for any last minute orders.
"You have doubts, Akkarulf."
Akkaruf started. He had not expected his thoughts to be so visible.
"Well no, yarrl, anything on the Crabsclaw's deck will be well shielded, but why not seize a cog like last time? It allowed the elephants to go through the demon sea safely enough."
The Wolf shook his head.
"Time is of the essence, we cannot afford to waste any looking for a ship of the right size and shape."
The giant barked an order at a marauder securing a rope and turned back to Akkarulf.
"Now, while I'm gone : Sven and the ratkin tell me that what's in that tent we saw is very much worth getting our hands on. I want you to get it into the castle. Ask Sven for help if you must, but keep the contents under close watch day and night, from him and the vermin both. The greedy bastards can chew through their own weight in the stuff in half the time it takes for a drunken hairbarrel to piss himself."
"Yes yarrl."
Akkarulf looked back towards the warcamp.
"And if they put up the skull?"
"Tell them... hrm."
The Wolf looked at the sky.
"… a week from that day."
The Wolf boarded the Wavetalon and climbed up to the Silence. At a yelled signal, the three waterborne ships hauled up their anchors. The Silence rose higher, the Wavetalon and Plunderer rising with it. The air filled with ominous creaking and groaning, but the masts held firm, and the ships stayed well apart as they rose.
The three ships formed an arrowhead as they ascended. Akkarulf, watching from the shore, was put in mind of a kite shield held upside-down as the Crabsclaw rose in turn, its deck barely higher than the keels of the other ships. The impression was reinforced by rope ladders being tossed down to the Crabsclaw by marauders on either side, allowing passage from ship to ship.
When the Crabsclaw was free of the water, a marauder on the shore blew a warhorn. The blast was soon drowned out by the triumphant screech of the dragonhead prow as the hole into the demon sea opened and closed on the ships.
Gorion shivered as the cold wind struck him, dissipating the last fogs of the demon sea. Near the mast, Thrravr stood up, his hands shaking, the dog-elk thing he had been gutting fading away. Everywhere along the decks of the four ships, marauders, Ironborn and Wildlings stood up, tended to their wounds and finished off those beyond help. Those on the Crabsclaw had had an easier time of it, being able to focus their defenders at the stern and prow, but the tally still rose to nearly a dozen men.
The Wolf's voice rang out from the Silence above.
"Lookouts all around! First to spot a herd doesn't dig!"
Even this far beyond the Wall, the endless winter's grip was loosening after the Night King's defeat. A watery sun could be glimpsed in the pale sky, and patches of green broke up the expanses of white snow, grey trees and black rock.
It was nearly midday when a Thenn woman on the Plunderer shouted and pointed eastwards, where dark shapes stood out from the tundra near a small forest. The Silence turned, the ships under it swinging to and fro, and soon the shapes sharpened into a score of mammoths, scraping at the snow with their tusks to uncover the grass and moss beneath. The biggest of the lot was grazing somewhat apart from the rest.
The Wolf joined the lookout and clapped her on the shoulder.
"Well done, Hurog! No digging for you!"
The Silence moved in a wide circle around the herd, Thrravr standing at the prow of the Silence and looking intently at the ground.
"There, magnar!"
The Wolf looked at where the Thenn pointed, a slight depression in the ground near the forest and within two arrow's flights from the herd, and nodded. The ships drifted lower to the ground until the Crabsclaw plowed through the snow as it would the waves. Rope ladders were cast overboard and the crews set to work.
The ground was cleared by marauders with shovels in a wide rectangle, aided by the Silence dragging the Crabsclaw through the snow. Firewood was taken from the ships' holds and stacked on the frozen ground in large pyres at regular intervals, in accordance with Thrravr's directions. Other sailors fanned out into the forest to cut down trees, gathering pine branches and firewood. When night fell, the mammoths had barely strayed from their grazing grounds.
The great bonfires burned through the night in order to soften the iron-hard ground. When morning came, picks of bronze, iron and even bone and horn beat ceaselessly at the permafrost. Not one man sought to shirk his duty, they knew the rewards would be well worth their pains. The Wolf himself did the work of ten men, smashing through rocks and boulders as though through cobwebs. The spoils were hauled away on shields and cloaks and heaped on the sides of the pit. Only Hurog was spared from digging for her spotting of the herd, instead joining the wood gatherers.
At last the pit was complete, twice the height of a man in depth and broad enough at the bottom to hold a dozen horses. Immense chains crisscrossed the bottom of the pit and secured near the edges under the weight of felled trees.
The Wolf wiped his brow and called out in a voice of thunder.
"Well done, warriors! Rest now, for tonight, we drink, and tomorrow... we hunt!"
Ragged cheers filled the air as the exhausted marauders gladly went to their hammocks in the ships. When night fell, they had sufficiently recovered to participate in the Doomdrinking. As he downed the horrible concoction, Gorion felt a sense of achievement he had not known since the raid on the Isle of Faces.
Only one man lost to a falling tree, eleven to the demon sea, two more to the Doomdrinking, the hunt boded well. As he watched the Thenn butcher the dead, he wondered what reward the gods would grant him for his participation.