• “We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.
  “The wildlings are dead.”

“我们应该往回走了，” 当夜幕开始降临到森林时，盖瑞尝试着劝阻道，“这些野人已经死了。”

• “Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile.

韦马尔.罗伊斯爵士轻蔑的回答到：“莫非是死人把你吓到了吗？”

• Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go. “Dead is dead,” he said. “We have no business with the dead.”

盖瑞没有反驳罗伊斯的这种轻蔑的话语。他是一个年过五十的老人了，见多了像罗伊斯这样的贵族子弟。“死人就是死人，”他不卑不亢的说道，“这和我建议返回没有关系。”

• “Are they dead?” Royce asked softly. “What proof have we?”

“那些野人真的死了吗？”罗伊斯放下了姿态，轻轻的问道，“我们有什么证据？”

• “Will saw them,” Gared said. “If he says they are dead, that’s proof enough for me.”

“威尔看到他们死了，”盖瑞说道，“如果威尔说他们死了，对于我来说，足够有说服力了。”

• Will had known they would drag him into the quarrel sooner or later. He wished it had been later rather than sooner. “My mother told me that dead men sing no songs,” he put in.

威尔就知道，他会迟早被牵扯到争论中。他实在不希望进入这个话题。“我妈妈告诉过我，死人是不能唱歌的，”他直接加入了谈话中。

• “My wet nurse said the same thing, Will,” Royce replied. “Never believe anything you hear at a woman’s tit. There are things to be learned even from the dead.” His voice echoed, too loud in the twilit forest.

“威尔，我的乳母说过同样的话。” 罗伊斯说道。“女人的话一般不可信。我们甚至可以从死人哪里了解的一些更可信的事情。”罗伊斯说话过于大声，声音在周围茂密的森林里产生了回音。

• “We have a long ride before us,” Gared pointed out. “Eight days, maybe nine. And night is falling.”

“在前方还有很长的路程要走，”盖瑞指出了目前的情况。“大概需要八九天的时间。夜幕有降临了。”

• Ser Waymar Royce glanced at the sky with disinterest. “It does that every day about this time. Are you unmanned by the dark, Gared?”

韦马尔.罗伊斯爵士淡淡的扫视了一下天空，不好气的说到：“每天这个时候你都这么念叨，盖瑞，你是被夜晚的天色瞎怂了吗？”

• Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the Night’s Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will could sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear.

威尔看到盖瑞紧紧的抿着双唇，大衣帽衫下的双眼闪烁着难以抑制的怒火。盖瑞作在少年和青年期间一直是一个守夜人，已经足足有40年了，他从来没有被如此的轻视过。但是，事情好像不止于此。除了受伤的自尊心，威尔还能从这个老人身上感受了其他一下东西，其实可以感受到，那应该是一种接近恐惧的紧张。

• Will shared his unease. He had been four years on the Wall. The first time he had been sent beyond, all the old stories had come rushing back, and his bowels had turned to water. He had laughed about it afterward. He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and the endless dark wilderness that the southron called the haunted forest had no more terrors for him.

威尔也能同样感受到盖瑞的那种不安。也在长城已经四年了。这是他第一次被发配到这么远，所有古老的故事都浮现在了脑海中，他都快吓尿了。后来，一想当初这个情境，他就想笑。他已经是一个身经百战的老兵了，被男方人称之为有鬼出没的黑暗无边的荒野已经不能让他有丝毫的恐惧了。

• Until tonight. Something was different tonight. There was an edge to this darkness that made his hackles rise. Nine days they had been riding, north and northwest and then north again, farther and farther from the Wall, hard on the track of a band of Wildling raiders. Each day had been worse than the day that had come before it. Today was the worst of all. A cold wind was blowing out of the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things. All day, Will had felt as though something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not. Gared had felt it too. Will wanted nothing so much as to ride hellbent for the safety of the Wall, but that was not a feeling to share with your commander.

今晚很特别。有一些与众不同的事情貌似在今晚出现了。黑暗中有一股凛冽的气势让人毛骨耸立。他们已经骑行了足足9天了，先往北，再往西北，然后再往北，离长城是越来越远了，一路辛苦的追踪着这些野人偷袭者的踪迹。今天是这9天来感受最不好的一天。刺骨的北风淋漓的吹着，树木哗啦啦的摆动着像一个生物。一整天，威尔都感受到貌似由什么东西在盯着他们，一些冰冷且带有敌意的东西。盖瑞同样感觉到了。威尔此刻只想毅然的回到长城那边安全地带，但是，这个想法不可能跟自己的长官诉说。