Jon sheathed the dagger. “I’ll do it.” He wanted to hear what they were saying.  Edd cut three thick slices off a stale round of oat bread, stacked them on a wooden platter, covered them with bacon and bacon drippings, and filled a bowl with hard-cooked eggs. Jon took the bowl in one hand and the platter in the other and backed into the Lord Commander’s tent, Qhorin was seated cross-legged on the floor, his spine as straight as a spear. Candlelight flickered against the hard flat planes of his cheeks as he spoke. “...Rattleshirt, the Weeping Man, and every other chief great and small,” he was saying. “They have wargs as well, and mammoths, and more strength than we would have dreamed. Or so he claimed. I will not swear as to the truth of it. Ebben believes the man was telling us tales to make his life last a little longer.”  “True or false, the Wall must be warned,” the Old Bear said as Jon placed the platter between them. “And the king.”  “Which king?”  “All of them. The true and the false alike. If they would claim the realm, let them defend it.”   The Halfhand helped himself to an egg and cracked it on the edge of the bowl. “These kings will do what they will,” he said, peeling away the shell. “Likely it will be little enough. The best hope is Winterfell. The Starks must rally the north.”  “Yes. To be sure.” The Old Bear unrolled a map, frowned at it, tossed it aside, opened another. He was pondering where the hammer would fall, Jon could see it. The Watch had once manned seventeen castles along the hundred leagues of the Wall, but they had been abandoned one by one as the brotherhood dwindled. Only three were now garrisoned, a fact that Mance Rayder knew as well as they did. “Ser Alliser Thorne will bring back fresh levies from King’s Landing, we can hope. If we man Greyguard from the Shadow Tower and the Long Barrow from Eastwatch...”  “Greyguard has largely collapsed. Stonedoor would serve better, if the men could be found. Icemark and Deep Lake as well, mayhaps. With daily patrols along the battlements between.”  “Patrols, aye. Twice a day, if we can. The Wall itself is a formidable obstacle. Undefended, it cannot stop them, yet it will delay them. The larger the host, the longer they’ll require. From the emptiness they’ve left behind, they must mean to bring their women with them. Their young as well, and beasts... have you ever seen a goat climb a ladder? A rope? They will need to build a stair, or a great ramp... it will take a moon’s turn at the least, perhaps longer. Mance will know his best chance is to pass beneath the Wall. Through a gate, or...”  “A breach.”  Mormont’s head came up sharply. “What?”  “They do not plan to climb the Wall nor to burrow beneath it, my lord. They plan to break it.”  “The Wall is seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that it would take a hundred men a year to cut through it with picks and axes.”  “Even so.”  Mormont plucked at his beard, frowning. “How?”  “How else? Sorcery.” Qhorin bit the egg in half. “Why else would Mance choose to gather his strength in the Frostfangs? Bleak and hard they are, and a long weary mar............