The Nightfort
The Nightfort was the first castle raised on the Wall and the greatest. It is the only one where the steps up the ice were cut into the ice itself. As the Watch dwindled three quarters of it stood empty, and two hundred years ago the brothers left it for Deep Lake, a smaller castle that Queen Alysanne paid for with her jewels.
It has been rebuilt so many times that only its deepest vaults are original. Its towers are falling. Of its great hall one wall stands. Trees grow in its yards and its stables, and a twisted weirwood has come up through the roof of the kitchens, where an old well with steps cut into its sides goes down into the dark.
The North’s worst winter tales are set here. The Night’s King ruled from the Nightfort until his name was struck from memory. The Rat Cook fed a visiting king on the flesh of his own son, and the gods cursed him for it. The children who hear these stories remember them.
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The Wall
A wall of ice seven hundred feet high and three hundred miles long, raised in the Age of Heroes against the Others.
The Night’s Watch
The sworn brotherhood in black that has held the Wall since the Long Night, now fewer than a thousand men.
Guest Right
The oldest law of hospitality: a guest who has eaten under a host’s roof may not be harmed, nor may he harm.
Weirwood
The pale tree with red leaves and red sap that never rots, holy to the old gods and carved with their faces.