A Feast for Dragons

castle, with every gate
closed and barred and the battlements thick with sentries. Like as not, the
guards outside the keep would stop them. Holly and her knife would be of small
use against six men in mail with swords and spears.
    But the guards outside were huddled by the doors, backs
turned against the icy wind and blown snow. Even the serjeant did not spare
them more than a quick glance. Theon felt a stab of pity for him and his men.
Ramsay would flay them all when he learned his bride was gone, and what he
would do to Grunt and Sour Alyn did not bear thinking about.
    Not ten yards from the door, Rowan dropped her empty pail,
and her sisters did likewise. The Great Keep was already lost to sight behind
them. The yard was a white wilderness, full of half-heard sounds that echoed
strangely amidst the storm. The icy trenches rose around them, knee high, then
waist high, then higher than their heads. They were in the heart of Winterfell
with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might
have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues
beyond the Wall. “It’s cold,” Jeyne Poole whimpered as she stumbled along at
Theon’s side.
    And soon to be colder
. Beyond the castle
walls, winter was waiting with its icy teeth.
If we get that far
.
“This way,” he said when they came to a junction where three trenches crossed.
    “Frenya, Holly, go with them,” Rowan said. “We will be along
with Abel. Do not wait for us.” And with that, she whirled and plunged into the
snow, toward the Great Hall. Willow and Myrtle hurried after her, cloaks
snapping in the wind.
    Madder and madder
, thought Theon Greyjoy.
Escape had seemed unlikely with all six of Abel’s women; with only two, it
seemed impossible. But they had gone too far to return the girl to her
bedchamber and pretend none of this had ever happened. Instead he took Jeyne by
the arm and drew her down the pathway to the Battlements Gate.
Only a
halfgate
, he reminded himself.
Even if the guards let us pass,
there is no way through the outer wall
. On other nights, the guards
had allowed Theon through, but all those times he’d come alone. He would not
pass so easily with three serving girls in tow, and if the guards looked
beneath Jeyne’s hood and recognized Lord Ramsay’s bride …
    The passage twisted to the left. There before them, behind a
veil of falling snow, yawned the Battlements Gate, flanked by a pair of guards.
In their wool and fur and leather, they looked as big as bears. The spears they
held were eight feet tall. “Who goes there?” one called out. Theon did not
recognize the voice. Most of the man’s features were covered by the scarf about
his face. Only his eyes could be seen. “Reek, is that you?”
    Yes
, he meant to say. Instead he heard
himself reply, “Theon Greyjoy. I … I have brought some women for
you.”
    “You poor boys must be freezing,” said Holly. “Here, let me
warm you up.” She slipped past the guard’s spearpoint and reached up to his
face, pulling loose the half-frozen scarf to plant a kiss upon his mouth. And
as their lips touched, her blade slid through the meat of his neck, just below
the ear. Theon saw the man’s eyes widen. There was blood on Holly’s lips as she
stepped back, and blood dribbling from his mouth as he fell.
    The second guard was still gaping in confusion when Frenya
grabbed the shaft of his spear. They struggled for a moment, tugging, till the
woman wrenched the weapon from his fingers and clouted him across the temple
with its butt. As he stumbled backwards, she spun the spear around and drove
its point through his belly with a grunt.
    Jeyne Poole let out a shrill, high scream.
    “Oh, bloody shit,” said Holly. “That will bring the kneelers
down on us, and no mistake.
Run!”
    Theon clapped one hand around Jeyne’s mouth, grabbed her
about the waist with the other, and pulled her past the dead and dying guards,
through the gate, and over the frozen moat. And perhaps the old gods were still
watching over them; the drawbridge had been left down, to allow Winterfell’s
defenders to cross to and from the outer battlements more quickly. From behind
them came alarums and the sounds of running feet, then the blast of a trumpet
from the ramparts of the inner wall.
    On the drawbridge, Frenya stopped and turned. “Go on. I will
hold the kneelers here.” The bloody spear was still clutched in her big hands.
    Theon was staggering by the