White Walkers riding Ice Spiders as big as hounds; Bran IV, A Game of Thrones

White Walker riding an Ice Spider

The most terrifying story told by Old Nan: The Others invading the Realms of Men during the Long Night, they rode dead horses and Ice Spiders.

Reference excerpt from the book: Bran IV; A Game of Thrones

Old Nan nodded.

“In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click.
“They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins.
They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain.
All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them.
They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

“Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest.
Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch.
So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost.
He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions.
For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities.
One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it.

And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

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