A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

complained.
    â€œAre you
really
a brother of the Night’s Watch?” Bran asked.
    The fat man’s chins jiggled when he nodded. His skin looked pale and saggy. “Only a steward. I took care of Lord Mormont’s ravens.” For a moment he looked like he was going to cry. “I lost them at the Fist, though. It was my fault. I got us lost too. I couldn’t even find the Wall. It’s a hundred leagues long and seven hundred feet high and
I couldn’t find it!
”
    â€œWell, you’ve found it now,” said Meera. “Lift your rump off the ground, I want my net back.”
    â€œHow did you get through the Wall?” Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. “Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You’re not even wet . . .”
    â€œThere’s a gate,” said fat Sam. “A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself.
The Black Gate
, he called it.”
    The Reeds exchanged a look. “We’ll find this gate at the bottom of the well?” asked Jojen.
    Sam shook his head. “
You
won’t. I have to take you.”
    â€œWhy?” Meera demanded. “If there’s a gate . . .”
    â€œYou won’t find it. If you did it wouldn’t open. Not for you. It’s the
Black
Gate.” Sam plucked at the faded black wool of his sleeve. “Only a man of the Night’s Watch can open it, he said. A Sworn Brother who has said his words.”
    â€œ
He
said.” Jojen frowned. “This . . . Coldhands?”
    â€œThat wasn’t his true name,” said Gilly, rocking. “We only called him that, Sam and me. His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk.”
    â€œHis elk?” said Bran, wonderstruck.
    â€œHis elk?” said Meera, startled.
    â€œHis
ravens?
” said Jojen.
    â€œHodor?” said Hodor.
    â€œWas he green?” Bran wanted to know. “Did he have antlers?”
    The fat man was confused. “The elk?”
    â€œ
Coldhands
,” said Bran impatiently. “The green men ride on elks, Old Nan used to say. Sometimes they have antlers too.”
    â€œHe wasn’t a green man. He wore blacks, like a brother of the Watch, but he was pale as a wight, with hands so cold that at first I was afraid. The wights have blue eyes, though, and they don’t have tongues, or they’ve forgotten how to use them.” The fat man turned to Jojen. “He’ll be waiting. We should go. Do you have anything warmer to wear? The Black Gate is cold, and the other side of the Wall is even colder. You—”
    â€œWhy didn’t he come with you?” Meera gestured toward Gilly and her babe. “
They
came with you, why not him? Why didn’t you bring him through this Black Gate too?”
    â€œHe . . . he can’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThe Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall.”
    It grew very quiet in the castle kitchen then. Bran could hear the soft crackle of the flames, the wind stirring the leaves in the night, the creak of the skinny weirwood reaching for the moon.
Beyond the gates the monsters live, and the giants and the ghouls
, he remembered Old Nan saying,
but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong. So go to sleep, my little Brandon, my baby boy. You needn’t fear. There are no monsters here
.
    â€œI am not the one you were told to bring,” Jojen Reed told fat Sam in his stained and baggy blacks. “
He
is.”
    â€œOh.” Sam looked down at him uncertainly. It might have been just then that he realized Bran was crippled. “I don’t . . . I’m not strong enough to carry you, I . . .”
    â€œHodor can carry me.” Bran pointed at his basket. “I ride in that, up on his back.”
    Sam was staring at him. “You’re Jon Snow’s brother. The one who fell . . .”
    â€œNo,” said Jojen. “That boy is dead.”
    â€œDon’t tell,” Bran warned. “Please.”
    Sam looked confused for a moment, but finally he said, “I . . . I can keep a secret. Gilly too.” When he looked at her, the girl nodded. “Jon . . . Jon was
my
brother too. He was the best friend I ever had, but he went off with Qhorin Halfhand to scout the Frostfangs and