A Feast for Dragons

the wood would soon be soaked through.
    “Where is the king?” asked Ser Corliss Penny.
    Four days ago, one of the king’s own squires had succumbed
to cold and hunger, a boy named Bryen Farring who’d been kin to Ser Godry.
Stannis Baratheon stood grim-faced by the funeral pyre as the lad’s body was
consigned to the flames. Afterward the king had retreated to his watchtower. He
had not emerged since … though from time to time His Grace was
glimpsed upon the tower roof, outlined against the beacon fire that burned
there night and day.
Talking to the red god
, some said.
Calling
out for Lady Melisandre
, insisted others. Either way, it seemed to
Asha Greyjoy, the king was lost and crying out for help.
    “Canty, go find the king and tell him all is ready,” Ser
Godry said to the nearest man-at-arms.
    “The king is here.” The voice was Richard Horpe’s.
    Over his armor of plate and mail Ser Richard wore his quilted
doublet, blazoned with three death’s-head moths on a field of ash and bone.
King Stannis walked beside him. Behind them, struggling to keep pace, Arnolf
Karstark came hobbling, leaning on his blackthorn cane. Lord Arnolf had found
them eight days past. The northman had brought a son, three grandsons, four
hundred spears, two score archers, a dozen mounted lances, a maester, and a
cage of ravens … but only enough provisions to sustain his own.
    Karstark was no lord in truth, Asha had been given to
understand, only castellan of Karhold for as long as the true lord remained a
captive of the Lannisters. Gaunt and bent and crooked, with a left shoulder
half a foot higher than his right, he had a scrawny neck, squinty grey eyes,
and yellow teeth. A few white hairs were all that separated him from baldness;
his forked beard was equal parts white and grey, but always ragged. Asha
thought there was something sour about his smiles. Yet if the talk was true, it
was Karstark who would hold Winterfell should they take it. Somewhere in the
distant past House Karstark had sprouted from House Stark, and Lord Arnolf had
been the first of Eddard Stark’s bannermen to declare for Stannis.
    So far as Asha knew, the gods of the Karstarks were the old
gods of the north, gods they shared with the Wulls, the Norreys, the Flints,
and the other hill clans. She wondered if Lord Arnolf had come to view the
burning at the king’s behest, that he might witness the power of the red god
for himself.
    At the sight of Stannis, two of the men bound to the stakes
began to plead for mercy. The king listened in silence, his jaw clenched. Then
he said to Godry Farring, “You may begin.”
    The Giantslayer raised his arms.
“Lord of Light, hear
us.”
    “Lord of Light, defend us,”
the queen’s men
chanted, “for
the night is dark and full of terrors
.”
    Ser Godry raised his head toward the darkening sky.
“We
thank you for the sun that warms us and pray that you will return it to us, Oh
lord, that it might light our path to your enemies.”
Snowflakes melted
on his face. “
We thank you for the stars that watch over us by night,
and pray that you will rip away this veil that hides them, so we might glory in
their sight once more
.”
    “Lord of Light, protect us,”
the queen’s men
prayed, “and
keep this savage dark at bay
.”
    Ser Corliss Penny stepped forward, clutching the torch with
both hands. He swung it about his head in a circle, fanning the flames. One of
the captives began to whimper.
    “R’hllor,”
Ser Godry sang, “we
give
you now four evil men. With glad hearts and true, we give them to your
cleansing fires, that the darkness in their souls might be burned away. Let
their vile flesh be seared and blackened, that their spirits might rise free
and pure to ascend into the light. Accept their blood, Oh lord, and melt the
icy chains that bind your servants. Hear their pain, and grant strength to our
swords that we might shed the blood of your enemies. Accept this sacrifice, and
show us the way to Winterfell, that we might vanquish the unbelievers.”
    “Lord of Light, accept this sacrifice,”
a
hundred voices echoed. Ser Corliss lit the first pyre with the torch, then
thrust it into the wood at the base of the second. A few wisps of smoke began
to rise. The captives began to cough. The first flames appeared, shy as
maidens, darting and dancing from log to leg. In moments both the stakes were
engulfed in fire.
    “He
was dead,”
the weeping boy screamed, as
the flames licked up his legs. “We