A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

in his saddlebag and

brought them to the Lord Commander.
At Whitetree,
Mormont scrawled.
The fourth village. All empty. The wildlings are gone.
“Find Tarly
and see that he gets this on its way,” he said as he handed Jon the message.
When he whistled, his raven came flapping down to land on his horse’s head.
“Corn,”
the raven suggested, bobbing. The horse
whickered.
    Jon mounted his garron, wheeled him about, and trotted off. Beyond the shade of
the great weirwood the men of the Night’s Watch stood beneath lesser trees,
tending their horses, chewing strips of salt beef, pissing, scratching, and
talking. When the command was given to move out again, the talk died, and they
climbed back into their saddles. Jarman Buckwell’s scouts rode out first, with
the vanguard under Thoren Smallwood heading the column proper. Then came the
Old Bear with the main force, Ser Mallador Locke with the baggage train and
packhorses, and finally Ser Ottyn Wythers and the rear guard. Two hundred men
all told, with half again as many mounts.
    By day they followed game trails and streambeds, the “ranger’s roads” that
led them ever deeper into the wilderness of leaf and root. At night they camped
beneath a starry sky and gazed up at the comet. The black brothers had left
Castle Black in good spirits, joking and trading tales, but of late the
brooding silence of the wood seemed to have sombered them all. Jests had grown
fewer and tempers shorter. No one would admit to being afraid—they were
men of the Night’s Watch, after all—but Jon could feel the unease. Four
empty villages, no wildlings

anywhere, even the game seemingly fled. The haunted forest had never seemed
more haunted, even veteran rangers agreed.
    As he rode, Jon peeled off his glove to air his burned fingers.
Ugly
things.
He remembered suddenly how he used to muss Arya’s hair. His little
stick of a sister. He wondered how she was faring. It made him a little sad to
think that he might never muss her hair again. He began to flex his hand,
opening and closing the fingers. If he let his sword hand stiffen and grow
clumsy, it well might be the end of him, he knew. A man needed his sword beyond
the Wall.
    Jon found Samwell Tarly with the other stewards, watering his horses. He had
three to tend: his own mount, and two packhorses, each bearing a large
wire-and-wicker cage full of ravens. The birds flapped their wings at Jon’s
approach and screamed at him through the bars. A few shrieks sounded
suspiciously like words. “Have you been teaching them to talk?” he asked
Sam.
    â€œA few words. Three of them can say
snow.
”
    â€œOne bird croaking my name was bad enough,” said Jon, “and snow’s nothing a
black brother wants to hear about.” Snow often meant death in the
north.
    â€œWas there anything in Whitetree?”
    â€œBones, ashes, and empty houses.” Jon handed Sam the roll of parchment. “The
Old Bear wants word sent back to Aemon.”
    Sam took a bird from one of the cages, stroked its feathers, attached the
message, and said, “Fly home now, brave one. Home.”

The raven
quorked
something unintelligible back at him, and Sam
tossed it into the air. Flapping, it beat its way skyward through the trees.
“I wish he could carry me with him.”
    â€œStill?”
    â€œWell,” said Sam, “yes, but . . . I’m not as frightened as I
was, truly. The first night, every time I heard someone getting up to make
water, I thought it was wildlings creeping in to slit my throat. I was afraid
that if I closed my eyes, I might never open them again,
only . . . well . . . dawn came after all.” He
managed a wan smile. “I may be craven, but I’m not
stupid.
I’m sore
and my back aches from riding and from sleeping on the ground, but I’m hardly
scared at all. Look.” He held out a hand for Jon to see how steady it was.
“I’ve been working on my maps.”
    The world is strange,
Jon thought. Two hundred brave men had left the
Wall, and the only one who was not growing more fearful was Sam, the
self-confessed coward. “We’ll make a ranger of you yet,” he joked. “Next
thing, you’ll want to be an outrider like Grenn. Shall I speak to the Old
Bear?”
    â€œDon’t you dare!” Sam pulled up the hood of his enormous black