Fist of the First Men

Ancient ringfort

A bare hill crowned by a ringwall of the First Men, older than any song.

The fuller tale

The Fist is a bare stone hill above the Milkwater crowned with a tumbled ringwall older than any story about it ÔÇö a First Men fort from the Dawn Age, chosen by men who understood ground and left to the wind for thousands of years. The great ranging camps inside its ancient wall precisely because the old builders chose so well: steep sides, clear approaches, one defensible gate of piled rock.

None of it matters. The wights come for the Fist in the dark and the snow, and the strongest force the Watch has fielded in a generation is torn apart on ground its ancestors fortified against exactly this enemy. The hill keeps two gifts for the story: a cache of dragonglass buried under the ringwall, wrapped in an old cloak of the Watch ÔÇö left by someone, long ago, who knew what would be needed ÔÇö and the lesson that against the dead, walls are only where you stand while you learn better.

The chronicle here

The great ranging finds the army of the dead marching on the Fist of the First Men. (S2┬ÀE10)
The Watch camps on the Fist of the First Men; under the ashes Ghost noses out an old cloak wrapped around dragonglass. (ACOK 35)
On the Fist of the First Men, Chett's mutiny needs only a quiet night ÔÇö instead the horn blows once for rangers, twice for wildlings, and then a third time. (ASOS 1)