A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

bandaged the maester’s wounds,under Luwin’s terse instruction. “This is folly,” the small grey man said while she dabbed at the wolf bites with a stinging ointment. “I agree that it is odd that both you boys dreamed the same dream, yet when you stop to consider it, it’s only natural. You miss your lord father, and you know that he is a captive. Fear can fever a man’s mind and give him queer thoughts. Rickon is too young to comprehend—”
    â€œI’m four now,” Rickon said. He was peeking through the lens tube at the gargoyles on the First Keep. The direwolves sat on opposite sides of the large round room, licking their wounds and gnawing on bones.
    â€œâ€”too young, and—
ooh
, seven hells, that burns, no, don’t stop, more. Too young, as I say, but you, Bran, you’re old enough to know that dreams are only dreams.”
    â€œSome are, some aren’t.” Osha poured pale red firemilk into a long gash. Luwin gasped. “The children of the forest could tell you a thing or two about dreaming.”
    Tears were streaming down the maester’s face, yet he shook his head doggedly. “The children … live only in dreams. Now. Dead and gone. Enough, that’s enough. Now the bandages. Pads and then wrap, and make it tight, I’ll be bleeding.”
    â€œOld Nan says the children knew the songs of the trees, that they could fly like birds and swim like fish and talk to the animals,” Bran said. “She says that they made music so beautiful that it made you cry like a little baby just to hear it.”
    â€œAnd all this they did with magic,” Maester Luwin said, distracted. “I wish they were here now. A spell would heal my arm less painfully, and they could talk to Shaggy dog and tell him not to bite.” He gave the big black wolf an angry glance out of the corner of his eye. “Take a lesson, Bran. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.” He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. “Have a look at these,” he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads.
    Bran picked one up. “It’s made of glass.” Curious, Rickon drifted closer to peer over the table.
    â€œDragonglass,” Osha named it as she sat down beside Luwin, bandagings in hand.
    â€œObsidian,” Maester Luwin insisted, holding out his wounded arm. “Forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of swords, they carried blades of obsidian.”
    â€œAnd still do.” Osha placed soft pads over the bites on the maester’s forearm and bound them tight with long strips of linen.
    Bran held the arrowhead up close. The black glass was slick and shiny. He thought it beautiful. “Can I keep one?”
    â€œAs you wish,” the maester said.
    â€œI want one too,” Rickon said. “I want four.
I’m
four.”
    Luwin made him count them out. “Careful, they’re still sharp. Don’t cut yourself.”
    â€œTell me about the children,” Bran said. It was important.
    â€œWhat do you wish to know?”
    â€œEverything.”
    Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. “They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,” he said. “In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.
    â€œThey were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called
greenseers
, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the