The Shadow Tower

Westernmost manned castle of the Night's Watch, guarding the mountain end of the Wall.

The fuller tale

Westernmost of the manned castles, the Shadow Tower sits where the Wall runs up into the mountains, guarding the broken country around the Gorge where the ice ends and the cliffs take over ÔÇö the one flank of the Wall that can be walked around, if a raider is brave or desperate enough. It has none of Castle BlackÔÇÖs bustle; the men of the Shadow Tower are rangers of the hard school, patrolling passes where the wind does most of the killing.

Its most famous son is Qhorin Halfhand, the great ranger of his generation, who leads the probe into the Skirling Pass and spends his own life to plant Jon Snow among the wildlings ÔÇö a sacrifice ordered so quietly that even the man who carries it out is despised for it. The Shadow TowerÔÇÖs whole character is in that trade: unglamorous, unthanked, and exactly what the Watch is for.

The fallen of this place ÔÇö if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground ÔÇö or none the maesters have set down.