A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Lord Randyll had spoken of her, back at Maidenpool. “Lady Stoneheart.”
    â€œSome call her that. Some call her other things. The Silent Sister. Mother Merciless. The Hangwoman.”
    The Hangwoman.
When Brienne closed her eyes, she saw the corpses swaying underneath the bare brown limbs, their faces black and swollen. Suddenly she was desperately afraid. “Podrick. My squire. Where is Podrick? And the others . . . Ser Hyle, Septon Meribald. Dog. What did you do with Dog?”
    Gendry and the girl exchanged a look. Brienne fought to rise, and managed to get one knee under her before the world began to spin. “It was you killed the dog, m’lady,” she heard Gendry say, just before the darkness swallowed her again.
    Then she was back at the Whispers, standing amongst the ruins and facing Clarence Crabb. He was huge and fierce, mounted on an aurochs shaggier than he was. The beast pawed the ground in fury, tearing deep furrows in the earth. Crabb’s teeth had been filed into points. When Brienne went to draw her sword, she found her scabbard empty. “No,” she cried, as Ser Clarence charged. It wasn’t fair. She could not fight without her magic sword. Ser Jaime had given it to her. The thought of failing him as she had failed Lord Renly made her want to weep. “My sword. Please, I have to find my sword.”
    â€œThe wench wants her sword back,” a voice declared.
    â€œAnd I want Cersei Lannister to suck my cock. So what?”
    â€œJaime called it Oathkeeper.
Please.
” But the voices did not listen, and Clarence Crabb thundered down on her and swept off her head. Brienne spiraled down into a deeper darkness.
    She dreamed that she was lying in a boat, her head pillowed on someone’s lap. There were shadows all around them, hooded men in mail and leather, paddling them across a foggy river with muffled oars. She was drenched in sweat, burning, yet somehow shivering too. The fog was full of faces.
“Beauty,”
whispered the willows on the bank, but the reeds said,
“freak, freak.”
Brienne shuddered. “Stop,” she said. “Someone make them stop.”
    The next time she woke, Jeyne was holding a cup of hot soup to her lips.
Onion broth,
Brienne thought. She drank as much of it as she could, until a bit of carrot caught in her throat and made her choke. Coughing was agony. “Easy,” the girl said.
    â€œGendry,” she wheezed. “I have to talk with Gendry.”
    â€œHe turned back at the river, m’lady. He’s gone back to his forge, to Willow and the little ones, to keep them safe.”
    No one can keep them safe.
She began to cough again. “Ah, let her choke. Save us a rope.” One of the shadow men shoved the girl aside. He was clad in rusted rings and a studded belt. At his hip hung longsword and dirk. A yellow greatcloak was plastered to his shoulders, sodden and filthy. From his shoulders rose a steel dog’s head, its teeth bared in a snarl.
    â€œNo,”
Brienne moaned. “No, you’re dead, I killed you.”
    The Hound laughed. “You got that backwards. It’ll be me killing you. I’d do it now, but m’lady wants to see you hanged.”
    Hanged.
The word sent a jolt of fear through her. She looked at the girl, Jeyne.
She is too young to be so hard.
“Bread and salt,” Brienne gasped. “The inn . . . Septon Meribald fed the children . . . we broke bread with your sister . . .”
    â€œGuest right don’t mean so much as it used to,” said the girl. “Not since m’lady come back from the wedding. Some o’ them swinging down by the river figured they was guests too.”
    â€œWe figured different,” said the Hound. “They wanted beds. We gave ’em trees.”
    â€œWe got more trees, though,” put in another shadow, one-eyed beneath a rusty pothelm. “We always got more trees.”
    When it was time to mount again, they yanked a leather hood down over her face. There were no eyeholes. The leather muffled the sounds around her. The taste of onions lingered on her tongue, sharp as the knowledge of her failure.
They mean to hang me.
She thought of Jaime, of Sansa, of her father back on Tarth, and was glad for the hood. It helped hide the tears welling in her eyes. From time to time she heard the outlaws talking, but she could not make out their words. After a while she gave herself up to weariness and