A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

by George R. R. Martin

  “I saw a shadow. I thought it was Renly’s shadow at the first, but it was his brother’s.”

  “Lord Stannis?”

  “I felt him. It makes no sense, I know . . .”

  It made sense enough for Brienne. “I will kill him,” the tall homely girl declared. “With my lord’s own sword, I will kill him. I swear it. I swear it. I swear it.”

  Hal Mollen and the rest of her escort were waiting with the horses. Ser Wendel Manderly was all in a lather to know what was happening. “My lady, the camp has gone mad,” he blurted when he saw them. “Lord Renly, is he—” He stopped suddenly, staring at Brienne and the blood that drenched her.

  “Dead, but not by our hands.”

  “The battle—” Hal Mollen began.

  “There will be no battle.” Catelyn mounted, and her escort formed up about her, with Ser Wendel to her left and Ser Perwyn Frey on her right. “Brienne, we brought mounts enough for twice our number. Choose one, and come with us.”

  “I have my own horse, my lady. And my armor—”

  “Leave them. We must be well away before they think to look for us. We were both with the king when he was killed. That will not be forgotten.” Wordless, Brienne turned and did as she was bid. “Ride,” Catelyn commanded her escort when they were all ahorse. “If any man tries to stop us, cut him down.”

  As the long fingers of dawn fanned across the fields, color was returning to the world. Where grey men had sat grey horses armed with shadow spears, the points of ten thousand lances now glinted silverly cold, and on the myriad flapping banners Catelyn saw the blush of red and pink and orange, the richness of blues and browns, the blaze of gold and yellow. All the power of Storm’s End and Highgarden, the power that had been Renly’s an hour ago. They belong to Stannis now, she realized, even if they do not know it themselves yet. Where else are they to turn, if not to the last Baratheon? Stannis has won all with a single evil stroke.

  I am the rightful king, he had declared, his jaw clenched hard as iron, and your son no less a traitor than my brother here. His day will come as well.

  A chill went through her.

  JON

  The hill jutted above the dense tangle of forest, rising solitary and sudden, its windswept heights visible from miles off. The wildlings called it the Fist of the First Men, rangers said. It did look like a fist, Jon Snow thought, punching up through earth and wood, its bare brown slopes knuckled with stone.

  He rode to the top with Lord Mormont and the officers, leaving Ghost below under the trees. The direwolf had run off three times as they climbed, twice returning reluctantly to Jon’s whistle. The third time, the Lord Commander lost patience and snapped, “Let him go, boy. I want to reach the crest before dusk. Find the wolf later.”

  The way up was steep and stony, the summit crowned by a chest-high wall of tumbled rocks. They had to circle some distance west before they found a gap large enough to admit the horses. “This is good ground, Thoren,” the Old Bear proclaimed when at last they attained the top. “We could scarce hope for better. We’ll make our camp here to await Halfhand.” The Lord Commander swung down off his saddle, dislodging the raven from his shoulder. Complaining loudly, the bird took to the air.

  The views atop the hill were bracing, yet it was the ringwall that drew Jon’s eye, the weathered grey stones with their white patches of lichen, their beards of green moss. It was said that the Fist had been a ringfort of the First Men in the Dawn Age. “An old place, and strong,” Thoren Smallwood said.

  “Old,” Mormont’s raven screamed as it flapped in noisy circles about their heads. “Old, old, old.”

  “Quiet,” Mormont growled up at the bird. The Old Bear was too proud to admit to weakness, but Jon was not deceived. The strain of keeping up with younger men was taking its toll.

  “These heights will be easy to defend, if need be,” Thoren pointed out as he walked his horse along the ring of stones, his sable-trimmed cloak stirring in the wind.

  “Yes, this place will do.” The Old Bear lifted a hand to the wind, and raven landed on his forearm, claws scrabbling against his black ringmail.

  “What about water, my lord?” Jon wondered.

  “We crossed a brook at the foot of the hill.”

  “A long climb for a drink,” Jon pointed out, “and outside the ring of stones.”

  Thoren said, “Are you too lazy to climb a hill, boy?”

  When Lord Mormont said, “We’re not like to find another place as strong. We’ll carry water, and make certain we are well supplied,” Jon knew better than to argue. So the command was given, and the brothers of the Night’s Watch raised their camp behind the stone ring the First Men had made. Black tents sprouted like mushrooms after a rain, and blankets and bedrolls covered the bare ground. Stewards tethered the garrons in long lines, and saw them fed and watered. Foresters took their axes to the trees in the waning afternoon light to harvest enough wood to see them through the night. A score of builders set to clearing brush, digging latrines, and untying their bundles of fire-hardened stakes. “I will have every opening in the ringwall ditched and staked before dark,” the Old Bear had commanded.

  Once he’d put up the Lord Commander’s tent and seen to their horses, Jon Snow descended the hill in search of Ghost. The direwolf came at once, all in silence. One moment Jon was striding beneath the trees, whistling and shouting, alone in the green, pinecones and fallen leaves under his feet; the next, the great white direwolf was walking beside him, pale as morning mist.

  But when they reached the ringfort, Ghost balked again. He padded forward warily to sniff at the gap in the stones, and then retreated, as if he did not like what he’d smelled. Jon tried to grab him by the scruff of his neck and haul him bodily inside the ring, no easy task; the wolf weighed as much as he did, and was stronger by far. “Ghost, what’s wrong with you?” It was not like him to be so unsettled. In the end Jon had to give it up. “As you will,” he told the wolf. “Go, hunt.” The red eyes watched him as he made his way back through the mossy stones.

  They ought to be safe here. The hill offered commanding views, and the slopes were precipitous to the north and west and only slightly more gentle to the east. Yet as the dusk deepened and darkness seeped into the hollows between the trees, Jon’s sense of foreboding grew. This is the haunted forest, he told himself. Maybe there are ghosts here, the spirits of the First Men. This was their place, once.

  “Stop acting the boy,” he told himself. Clambering atop the piled rocks, Jon gazed off toward the setting sun. He could see the light shimmering like hammered gold off the surface of the Milkwater as it curved away to the south. Upriver the land was more rugged, the dense forest giving way to a series of bare stony hills that rose high and wild to the north and west. On the horizon stood the mountains like a great shadow, range on range of them receding into the blue-grey distance, their jagged peaks sheathed eternally in snow. Even from afar they looked vast and cold and inhospitable.

  Closer at hand, it was the trees that ruled. To south and east the wood went on as far as Jon could see, a vast tangle of root and limb painted in a thousand shades of green, with here and there a patch of red where a weirwood shouldered through the pines and sentinels, or a blush of yellow where some broadleafs had begun to turn. When the wind blew, he could hear the creak and groan of branches older than he was. A thousand leaves fluttered, and for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable.

  Ghost was not like to be alone down there, he thought. Anything could be moving under that sea, creeping toward the ringfort through the dark of the wood, concealed beneath those trees. Anything. How would they ever know? He stood there for a long time, until the sun vanished behind the saw-toothed mountains and darkness began to creep through the forest.

  “Jon?” Samwell Tarly called up. “I thought it looked like you. Are you well?”

  “Well enough.” Jon hopped down. “How did you fare today?”

  “Well. I f
ared well. Truly.”

  Jon was not about to share his disquiet with his friend, not when Samwell Tarly was at last beginning to find his courage. “The Old Bear means to wait here for Qhorin Halfhand and the men from the Shadow Tower.”

  “It seems a strong place,” said Sam. “A ringfort of the First Men. Do you think there were battles fought here?”

  “No doubt. You’d best get a bird ready. Mormont will want to send back word.”

  “I wish I could send them all. They hate being caged.”

  “You would too, if you could fly.”

  “If I could fly, I’d be back at Castle Black eating a pork pie,” said Sam.

  Jon clapped him on the shoulder with his burned hand. They walked back through the camp together. Cookfires were being lit all around them. Overhead, the stars were coming out. The long red tail of Mormont’s Torch burned as bright as the moon. Jon heard the ravens before he saw them. Some were calling his name. The birds were not shy when it came to making noise.

  They feel it too. “I’d best see to the Old Bear,” he said. “He gets noisy when he isn’t fed as well.”

  He found Mormont talking with Thoren Smallwood and half a dozen other officers. “There you are,” the old man said gruffly. “Bring us some hot wine, if you would. The night is chilly.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Jon built a cookfire, claimed a small cask of Mormont’s favorite robust red from stores, and poured it into a kettle. He hung the kettle above the flames while he gathered the rest of his ingredients. The Old Bear was particular about his hot spiced wine. So much cinnamon and so much nutmeg and so much honey, not a drop more. Raisins and nuts and dried berries, but no lemon, that was the rankest sort of southron heresy—which was queer, since he always took lemon in his morning beer. The drink must be hot to warm a man properly, the Lord Commander insisted, but the wine must never be allowed to come to a boil. Jon kept a careful eye on the kettle.

  As he worked, he could hear the voices from inside the tent. Jarman Buckwell said, “The easiest road up into the Frostfangs is to follow the Milkwater back to its source. Yet if we go that path, Rayder will know of our approach, certain as sunrise.”

  “The Giant’s Stair might serve,” said Ser Mallador Locke, “or the Skirling Pass, if it’s clear.”

  The wine was steaming. Jon lifted the kettle off the fire, filled eight cups, and carried them into the tent. The Old Bear was peering at the crude map Sam had drawn him that night back in Craster’s Keep. He took a cup from Jon’s tray, tried a swallow of wine, and gave a brusque nod of approval. His raven hopped down his arm. “Corn,” it said. “Corn. Corn.”

  Ser Ottyn Wythers waved the wine away. “I would not go into the mountains at all,” he said in a thin, tired voice. “The Frostfangs have a cruel bite even in summer, and now . . . if we should be caught by a storm . . .”

  “I do not mean to risk the Frostfangs unless I must,” said Mormont. “Wildlings can no more live on snow and stone than we can. They will emerge from the heights soon, and for a host of any size, the only route is along the Milkwater. If so, we are strongly placed here. They cannot hope to slip by us.”

  “They may not wish to. They are thousands, and we will be three hundred when the Halfhand reaches us.” Ser Mallador accepted a cup from Jon.

  “If it comes to battle, we could not hope for better ground than here,” declared Mormont. “We’ll strengthen the defenses. Pits and spikes, caltrops scattered on the slopes, every breach mended. Jarman, I’ll want your sharpest eyes as watchers. A ring of them, all around us and along the river, to warn of any approach. Hide them up in trees. And we had best start bringing up water too, more than we need. We’ll dig cisterns. It will keep the men occupied, and may prove needful later.”

  “My rangers—” started Thoren Smallwood.

  “Your rangers will limit their ranging to this side of the river until the Halfhand reaches us. After that, we’ll see. I will not lose more of my men.”

  “Mance Rayder might be massing his host a day’s ride from here, and we’d never know,” Smallwood complained.

  “We know where the wildlings are massing,” Mormont came back. “We had it from Craster. I mislike the man, but I do not think he lied to us in this.”

  “As you say.” Smallwood took a sullen leave. The others finished their wine and followed, more courteously.

  “Shall I bring you supper, my lord?” Jon asked.

  “Corn,” the raven cried. Mormont did not answer at once. When he did he said only, “Did your wolf find game today?”

  “He’s not back yet.”

  “We could do with fresh meat.” Mormont dug into a sack and offered his raven a handful of corn. “You think I’m wrong to keep the rangers close?”

  “That’s not for me to say, my lord.”

  “It is if you’re asked.”

  “If the rangers must stay in sight of the Fist, I don’t see how they can hope to find my uncle,” Jon admitted.

  “They can’t.” The raven pecked at the kernels in the Old Bear’s palm. “Two hundred men or ten thousand, the country is too vast.” The corn gone, Mormont turned his hand over.

  “You would not give up the search?”

  “Maester Aemon thinks you clever.” Mormont moved the raven to his shoulder. The bird tilted its head to one side, little eyes a-glitter.

  The answer was there. “Is it . . . it seems to me that it might be easier for one man to find two hundred than for two hundred to find one.”

  The raven gave a cackling scream, but the Old Bear smiled through the grey of his beard. “This many men and horses leave a trail even Aemon could follow. On this hill, our fires ought to be visible as far off as the foothills of the Frostfangs. If Ben Stark is alive and free, he will come to us, I have no doubt.”

  “Yes,” said Jon, “but . . . what if . . .”

  “. . . he’s dead?” Mormont asked, not unkindly.

  Jon nodded, reluctantly.

  “Dead,” the raven said. “Dead. Dead.”

  “He may come to us anyway,” the Old Bear said. “As Othor did, and Jafer Flowers. I dread that as much as you, Jon, but we must admit the possibility.”

  “Dead,” his raven cawed, ruffling its wings. Its voice grew louder and more shrill. “Dead.”

  Mormont stroked the bird’s black feathers, and stifled a sudden yawn with the back of his hand. “I will forsake supper, I believe. Rest will serve me better. Wake me at first light.”

  “Sleep well, my lord.” Jon gathered up the empty cups and stepped outside. He heard distant laughter, the plaintive sound of pipes. A great blaze was crackling in the center of the camp, and he could smell stew cooking. The Old Bear might not be hungry, but Jon was. He drifted over toward the fire.

  Dywen was holding forth, spoon in hand. “I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn’t care to ride through it alone tonight. Can’t you smell it?”

  Grenn was staring at him with wide eyes, but Dolorous Edd said, “All I smell is the shit of two hundred horses. And this stew. Which has a similar aroma, now that I come to sniff it.”

  “I’ve got your similar aroma right here.” Hake patted his dirk. Grumbling, he filled Jon’s bowl from the kettle.

  The stew was thick with barley, carrot, and onion, with here and there a ragged shred of salt beef, softened in the cooking.

  “What is it you smell, Dywen?” asked Grenn.

  The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. “Seems to me like it smells . . . well . . . cold.”

  “Your head’s as wooden as your teeth,” Hake told him. “There’s no smell to cold.”

  There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander’s chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore. He gave his stew to Grenn, who looked in need of an extra supper to warm him against the night.

  The wind was blowing briskly when he left. By morning,
frost would cover the ground, and the tent ropes would be stiff and frozen. A few fingers of spiced wine sloshed in the bottom of the kettle. Jon fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled. The first watch had taken up their stations around the perimeter of the camp. Torches flickered all along the ringwall. The night was moonless, but a thousand stars shone overhead.

  A sound rose out of the darkness, faint and distant, but unmistakable: the howling of wolves. Their voices rose and fell, a chilly song, and lonely. It made the hairs rise along the back of his neck. Across the fire, a pair of red eyes regarded him from the shadows. The light of the flames made them glow.

  “Ghost,” Jon breathed, surprised. “So you came inside after all, eh?” The white wolf often hunted all night; he had not expected to see him again till daybreak. “Was the hunting so bad?” he asked. “Here. To me, Ghost.”

  The direwolf circled the fire, sniffing Jon, sniffing the wind, never still. It did not seem as if he were after meat right now. When the dead came walking, Ghost knew. He woke me, warned me. Alarmed, he got to his feet. “Is something out there? Ghost, do you have a scent?” Dywen said he smelled cold.

  The direwolf loped off, stopped, looked back. He wants me to follow. Pulling up the hood of his cloak, Jon walked away from the tents, away from the warmth of his fire, past the lines of shaggy little garrons. One of the horses whickered nervously when Ghost padded by. Jon soothed him with a word and paused to stroke his muzzle. He could hear the wind whistling through cracks in the rocks as they neared the ringwall. A voice called out a challenge. Jon stepped into the torchlight. “I need to fetch water for the Lord Commander.”

  “Go on, then,” the guard said. “Be quick about it.” Huddled beneath his black cloak, with his hood drawn up against the wind, the man never even looked to see if he had a bucket.