A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

speed.”
    Even now, long days later, the memory filled him with a bitter rage. All his life Tyrion had prided himself on his cunning, the only gift the gods had seen fit to give him, and yet this seven-times-damned she-wolf Catelyn Stark had outwitted him at every turn. The knowledge was more galling than the bare fact of his abduction.
    They stopped only as long as it took to feed and water the horses, and then they were off again. This time Tyrion was spared the hood. After the second night they no longer bound his hands, and once they had gained theheights they scarcely bothered to guard him at all. It seemed they did not fear his escape. And why should they? Up here the land was harsh and wild, and the high road little more than a stony track. If he did run, how far could he hope to go, alone and without provisions? The shadowcats would make a morsel of him, and the clans that dwelt in the mountain fastnesses were brigands and murderers who bowed to no law but the sword.
    Yet still the Stark woman drove them forward relentlessly. He knew where they were bound. He had known it since the moment they pulled off his hood. These mountains were the domain of House Arryn, and the late Hand’s widow was a Tully, Catelyn Stark’s sister … and no friend to the Lannisters. Tyrion had known the Lady Lysa slightly during her years at King’s Landing, and did not look forward to renewing the acquaintance.
    His captors were clustered around a stream a short ways down the high road. The horses had drunk their fill of the icy cold water, and were grazing on clumps of brown grass that grew from clefts in the rock. Jyck and Morrec huddled close, sullen and miserable. Mohor stood over them, leaning on his spear and wearing a rounded iron cap that made him look as if he had a bowl on his head. Nearby, Marillion the singer sat oiling his woodharp, complaining of what the damp was doing to his strings.
    â€œWe must have some rest, my lady,” the hedge knight Ser Willis Wode was saying to Catelyn Stark as Tyrion approached. He was Lady Whent’s man, stiff-necked and stolid, and the first to rise to aid Catelyn Stark back at the inn.
    â€œSer Willis speaks truly, my lady,” Ser Rodrik said. “This is the third horse we have lost—”
    â€œWe will lose more than horses if we’re overtaken by the Lannisters,” she reminded them. Her face was windburnt and gaunt, but it had lost none of its determination.
    â€œSmall chance of that here,” Tyrion put in.
    â€œThe lady did not ask your views, dwarf,” snapped Kurleket, a great fat oaf with short-cropped hair and a pig’s face. He was one of the Brackens, a man-at-arms in the service of Lord Jonos. Tyrion had made a special effort to learn all their names, so he might thank them later fortheir tender treatment of him. A Lannister always paid his debts. Kurleket would learn that someday, as would his friends Lharys and Mohor, and the good Ser Willis, and the sellswords Bronn and Chiggen. He planned an especially sharp lesson for Marillion, him of the woodharp and the sweet tenor voice, who was struggling so manfully to rhyme
imp
with
gimp
and
limp
so he could make a song of this outrage.
    â€œLet him speak,” Lady Stark commanded.
    Tyrion Lannister seated himself on a rock. “By now our pursuit is likely racing across the Neck, chasing your lie up the kingsroad … assuming there
is
a pursuit, which is by no means certain. Oh, no doubt the word has reached my father … but my father does not love me overmuch, and I am not at all sure that he will bother to bestir himself.” It was only half a lie; Lord Tywin Lannister cared not a fig for his deformed son, but he tolerated no slights on the honor of his House. “This is a cruel land, Lady Stark. You’ll find no succor until you reach the Vale, and each mount you lose burdens the others all the more. Worse, you risk losing
me
. I am small, and not strong, and if I die, then what’s the point?” That was no lie at all; Tyrion did not know how much longer he could endure this pace.
    â€œIt might be said that your death
is
the point, Lannister,” Catelyn Stark replied.
    â€œI think not,” Tyrion said. “If you wanted me dead, you had only to say the word, and one of these staunch friends of yours would gladly have given me a red smile.” He looked at Kurleket, but the man was too dim to taste the