A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

thing. That is where the fever came from, I am certain.” The grey man touched her bandaged face. “We had to cut away some of the flesh. Your face will not be pretty, I fear.”
    It has never been pretty.
“Scars, you mean?”
    â€œMy lady, that creature chewed off half your cheek.”
    Brienne could not help but flinch.
Every knight has battle scars,
Ser Goodwin had warned her, when she asked him to teach her the sword.
Is that what you want, child?
Her old master-at-arms had been talking about sword cuts, though; he could never have anticipated Biter’s pointed teeth. “Why set my bones and wash my wounds if you only mean to hang me?”
    â€œWhy indeed?” He glanced at the candle, as if he could no longer bear to look at her. “You fought bravely at the inn, they tell me. Lem should not have left the crossroads. He was told to stay close, hidden, to come at once if he saw smoke rising from the chimney . . . but when word reached him that the Mad Dog of Saltpans had been seen making his way north along the Green Fork, he took the bait. We have been hunting that lot for so long . . . still, he ought to have known better. As it was, it was half a day before he realized that the mummers had used a stream to hide their tracks and doubled back behind him, and then he lost more time circling around a column of Frey knights. If not for you, only corpses might have remained at the inn by the time that Lem and his men got back.
That
was why Jeyne dressed your wounds, mayhaps. Whatever else you may have done, you won those wounds honorably, in the best of causes.”
    Whatever else you may have done.
“What is it that you think I’ve done?” she said.
“Who are you?
”
    â€œWe were king’s men when we began,” the man told her, “but king’s men must have a king, and we have none. We were brothers too, but now our brotherhood is broken. I do not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going. I only know the road is dark. The fires have not shown me what lies at its end.”
    I know where it ends. I have seen the corpses in the trees.
“Fires,” Brienne repeated. All at once she understood. “You are the Myrish priest. The red wizard.”
    He looked down at his ragged robes, and smiled ruefully. “The pink pretender, rather. I am Thoros, late of Myr, aye . . . a bad priest and a worse wizard.”
    â€œYou ride with the Dondarrion. The lightning lord.”
    â€œLightning comes and goes and then is seen no more. So too with men. Lord Beric’s fire has gone out of this world, I fear. A grimmer shadow leads us in his place.”
    â€œThe Hound?”
    The priest pursed his lips. “The Hound is dead and buried.”
    â€œI saw him. In the woods.”
    â€œA fever dream, my lady.”
    â€œHe said that he would hang me.”
    â€œEven dreams can lie. My lady, how long has it been since you have eaten? Surely you are famished?”
    She was, she realized. Her belly felt hollow. “Food . . . food would be welcome, thank you.”
    â€œA meal, then. Sit. We will talk more, but first a meal. Wait here.” Thoros lit a taper from the sagging candle, and vanished into a black hole beneath a ledge of rock. Brienne found herself alone in the small cave.
For how long, though?
    She prowled the chamber, looking for a weapon. Any sort of weapon would have served; a staff, a club, a dagger. She found only rocks. One fit her fist nicely . . . but she remembered the Whispers, and what happened when Shagwell tried to pit a stone against a knife. When she heard the priest’s returning footsteps, she let the rock fall to the cavern floor and resumed her seat.
    Thoros had bread and cheese and a bowl of stew. “I am sorry,” he said. “The last of the milk had soured, and the honey is all gone. Food grows scant. Still, this will fill you.”
    The stew was cold and greasy, the bread hard, the cheese harder. Brienne had never eaten anything half so good. “Are my companions here?” she asked the priest, as she was spooning up the last of the stew.
    â€œThe septon was set free to go upon his way. There was no harm in him. The others are here, awaiting judgment.”
    â€œJudgment?” She frowned. “Podrick Payne is just a boy.”
    â€œHe says he is a squire.”
    â€œYou know how boys will boast.”
    â€œThe Imp’s squire. He has fought in