A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

piece of old leather covered with lines of faded paint. One end curled up from being rolled; he weighed it down with his dagger. “Both plans have virtues, but … look, if we try to swing around Lord Tywin’s host, we take the risk of being caught between him and the Kingslayer, and if we attack him … by all reports, he has more men than I do, and a lot more armored horse. The Greatjon says that won’t matter if we catch him with his breeches down, but it seems to me that a man who has fought as many battles as Tywin Lannister won’t be so easily surprised.”
    â€œGood,” she said. She could hear echoes of Ned in his voice, as he sat there, puzzling over the map. “Tell me more.”
    â€œI’d leave a small force here to hold Moat Cailin, archers mostly, and march the rest down the causeway,” he said, “but once we’re below the Neck, I’d split our host in two. The foot can continue down the kingsroad, while our horsemen cross the Green Fork at the Twins.” He pointed. “When Lord Tywin gets word that we’ve come south, he’ll march north to engage our main host, leaving our riders free to hurry down the west bank to Riverrun.” Robb sat back, not quite daring to smile, but pleased with himself and hungry for her praise.
    Catelyn frowned down at the map. “You’d put a river between the two parts of your army.”
    â€œAnd
between Jaime and Lord Tywin,” he said eagerly. The smile came at last. “There’s no crossing on the Green Fork above the ruby ford, where Robert won his crown. Not until the Twins, all the way up here, and Lord Frey controls that bridge. He’s your father’s bannerman, isn’t that so?”
    The Late Lord Frey
, Catelyn thought. “He is,” she admitted, “but my father has never trusted him. Nor should you.”
    â€œI won’t,” Robb promised. “What do you think?”
    She was impressed despite herself.
He looks like a Tully
, she thought,
yet he’s still his father’s son, and Ned taught him well
. “Which force would you command?”
    â€œThe horse,” he answered at once. Again like his father; Ned would always take the more dangerous task himself.
    â€œAnd the other?”
    â€œThe Greatjon is always saying that we should smash Lord Tywin. I thought I’d give him the honor.”
    It was his first misstep, but how to make him see it without wounding his fledgling confidence? “Your father once told me that the Greatjon was as fearless as any man he had ever known.”
    Robb grinned. “Grey Wind ate two of his fingers, and he
laughed
about it. So you agree, then?”
    â€œYour father is not fearless,” Catelyn pointed out. “He is brave, but that is very different.”
    Her son considered that for a moment. “The eastern host will be all that stands between Lord Tywin and Winterfell,” he said thoughtfully. “Well, them and whatever few bowmen I leave here at the Moat. So I don’t want someone fearless, do I?”
    â€œNo. You want cold cunning, I should think, not courage.”
    â€œRoose Bolton,” Robb said at once. “That man scares me.”
    â€œThen let us pray he will scare Tywin Lannister as well.”
    Robb nodded and rolled up the map. “I’ll give the commands, and assemble an escort to take you home to Winterfell.”
    Catelyn had fought to keep herself strong, for Ned’s sake and for this stubborn brave son of theirs. She had put despair and fear aside, as if they were garments she did not choose to wear … but now she saw that she had donned them after all.
    â€œI am not going to Winterfell,” she heard herself say, surprised at the sudden rush of tears that blurred her vision. “My father may be dying behind the walls of Riverrun. My brother is surrounded by foes. I must go to them.”

TYRION
    C hella daughter of Cheyk of the Black Ears had gone ahead to scout, and it was she who brought back word of the army at the crossroads. “By their fires I call them twenty thousand strong,” she said. “Their banners are red, with a golden lion.”
    â€œYour father?” Bronn asked.
    â€œOr my brother Jaime,” Tyrion said. “We shall know soon enough.” He surveyed his ragged band of brigands: near three hundred Stone Crows, Moon Brothers, Black Ears, and Burned Men, and those