A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

she’d
been in the city, she wouldn’t have let them cut off Father’s head.”
    â€œOrphan boys got no fathers,” Yoren said, “or did you forget that?”
The sourleaf had turned his spit red, so it looked like his mouth was bleeding.
“The only wolves we got to fear are the ones wear manskin, like those who done
for that village.”
    â€œI wish I was home,” she said miserably. She tried so hard to be brave, to be
fierce as a wolverine and all, but sometimes she felt like she was just a
little girl after all.
    The black brother peeled a fresh sourleaf from the bale in the wagon and
stuffed it into his mouth. “Might be I should of left you where I found you,
boy. All of you. Safer in the city, seems to me.”
    â€œI don’t care. I want to go home.”
    â€œBeen bringing men to the Wall for close on thirty years.” Froth shone on
Yoren’s lips, like bubbles of blood. “All that time, I only lost three. Old
man died of a fever, city boy got snakebit taking a shit, and one fool tried to
kill me in my sleep and got a red smile for his trouble.” He drew the dirk
across his throat, to show her. “Three in thirty years.” He spat out the old
sourleaf. “A ship now, might have been wiser. No chance o’ finding more men on
the way, but still . . . clever man, he’d go by ship, but
me . . . thirty years I been taking this kingsroad.” He
sheathed his dirk. “Go to sleep, boy. Hear me?”
    She did try. Yet as she lay under her thin blanket, she could hear the wolves
howling . . . and another sound, fainter, no more than a
whisper on the wind, that might have been screams.

DAVOS
    T he morning air was dark with the smoke of burning gods.
    They were all afire now, Maid and Mother, Warrior and Smith, the Crone with her
pearl eyes and the Father with his gilded beard; even the Stranger, carved to
look more animal than human. The old dry wood and countless layers of paint and
varnish blazed with a fierce hungry light. Heat rose shimmering through the
chill air; behind, the gargoyles and stone dragons on the castle walls seemed
blurred, as if Davos were seeing them through a veil of tears.
Or as if
the beasts were trembling, stirring . . .
    â€œAn ill thing,” Allard declared, though at least he had the sense to
keep his voice low. Dale muttered agreement.
    â€œSilence,” said Davos. “Remember where you are.” His sons were good men,
but young, and Allard especially was rash.
Had I stayed a smuggler, Allard
would have ended on the Wall. Stannis spared him from that end, something else
I owe him . . .
    Hundreds had come to the castle gates to bear witness to the burning of the
Seven. The smell in the air was ugly. Even for soldiers, it was hard not to
feel uneasy at such an affront to the gods most had worshiped all their
lives.
    The red woman walked round the fire three times, praying once in the speech of
Asshai, once in High Valyrian, and once in the Common Tongue. Davos understood
only the last. “R’hllor,

come to us in our darkness,” she called. “Lord of Light, we offer you these
false gods, these seven who are one, and him the enemy. Take them and cast your
light upon us, for the night is dark and full of terrors.” Queen Selyse echoed
the words. Beside her, Stannis watched impassively, his jaw hard as stone under
the blue-black shadow of his tight-cropped beard. He had dressed more richly
than was his wont, as if for the sept.
    Dragonstone’s sept had been where Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night
before he sailed. That had not saved it from the queen’s men. They had
overturned the altars, pulled down the statues, and smashed the stained glass
with warhammers. Septon Barre could only curse them, but Ser Hubard Rambton led
his three sons to the sept to defend their gods. The Rambtons had slain four of
the queen’s men before the others overwhelmed them. Afterward Guncer Sunglass,
mildest and most pious of lords, told Stannis he could no longer support his
claim. Now he shared a sweltering cell with the septon and Ser Hubard’s two
surviving sons. The other lords had not been slow to take the lesson.
    The gods had never meant much to Davos the smuggler, though like most men he
had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith
when he launched a