A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

but she had to have a look.
Someone was here,
she thought.
Someone who needed to stay hidden.
“I’m going in,” she said. “Crabb, you’ll come with me. Podrick, I want you to watch the horses.”
    â€œI want to come too. I’m a squire. I can fight.”
    â€œThat’s why I want you to stay here. There may be outlaws in these woods. We dare not leave the horses unprotected.”
    Podrick scuffed at a rock with his boot. “As you say.”
    She shouldered through the blackberries and pulled at a rusted iron ring. The postern door resisted for a moment, then jerked open, its hinges screaming protest. The sound made the hairs on the back of Brienne’s neck stand up. She drew her sword. Even in mail and boiled leather, she felt naked.
    â€œGo on, m’lady,” urged Nimble Dick, behind her. “What are you waiting for? Old Crabb’s been dead a thousand years.”
    What
was
she waiting for? Brienne told herself that she was being foolish. The sound was just the sea, echoing endlessly through the caverns beneath the castle, rising and falling with each wave. It
did
sound like whispering, though, and for a moment she could almost see the heads, sitting on their shelves and muttering to one another.
“I should have used the sword”
one of them was saying.
“I should have used the magic sword.”
    â€œPodrick,” said Brienne. “There’s a sword and scabbard wrapped up in my bedroll. Bring them here to me.”
    â€œYes, ser. My lady. I will.” The boy went running off.
    â€œA sword?” Nimble Dick scratched behind his ear. “You got a sword in your hand. What do you need another for?”
    â€œThis one’s for you.” Brienne offered him the hilt.
    â€œFor true?” Crabb reached out hesitantly, as if the blade might bite him. “The mistrustful maid’s giving old Dick a sword?”
    â€œYou do know how to use one?”
    â€œI’m a Crabb.” He snatched the longsword from her hand. “I got the same blood as old Ser Clarence.” He slashed the air and grinned at her. “It’s the sword that makes the lord, some say.”
    When Podrick Payne returned, he held Oathkeeper as gingerly as if it were a child. Nimble Dick gave a whistle at the sight of the ornate scabbard with its row of lion’s heads, but grew quiet when she drew the blade and tried a cut.
Even the sound of it is sharper than an ordinary sword.
“With me,” she told Crabb. She slipped sideways through the postern, ducking her head to pass beneath the doorway’s arch.
    The bailey opened up before her, overgrown. To her left was the main gate, and the collapsed shell of what might have been a stable. Saplings were poking out of half the stalls and growing up through the dry brown thatch of its roof. To her right she saw rotted wooden steps descending into the darkness of a dungeon or a root cellar. Where the keep had been was a pile of collapsed stones, overgrown with green and purple moss. The yard was all weeds and pine needles. Soldier pines were everywhere, drawn up in solemn ranks. In their midst was a pale stranger; a slender young weirwood with a trunk as white as a cloistered maid. Dark red leaves sprouted from its reaching branches. Beyond was the emptiness of sky and sea where the wall had collapsed . . .
    . . . and the remnants of a fire.
    The whispers nibbled at her ears, insistent. Brienne knelt beside the fire. She picked up a blackened stick, sniffed at it, stirred the ashes.
Someone was trying to keep warm last night. Or else they were trying to send a signal to a passing ship.
    â€œHalloooooo,” called Nimble Dick. “Anyone here?”
    â€œBe quiet,” Brienne told him.
    â€œSomeone might be hiding. Wanting to get a look at us before they show themself.” He walked to where the steps went down beneath the ground, and peered down into the darkness.
“Hallooooo,”
he called again. “Anyone down there?”
    Brienne saw a sapling sway. From the bushes slid a man, so caked with dirt that he looked as if he had sprouted from the earth. A broken sword was in his hand, but it was his face that gave her pause, the small eyes and wide flat nostrils.
    She knew that nose. She knew those eyes.
Pyg,
his friends had called him.
    Everything seemed to happen in a heartbeat. A second man slipped over the lip of the well, making no more noise than a snake might make