A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

cloak and
clambered awkwardly back onto his horse. It was a plow horse, big and slow and
clumsy, but better able to bear his weight than the little garrons the rangers
rode. “I had hoped we might stay the night in the village,” he said
wistfully. “It would be nice to sleep under a roof again.”
    â€œToo few roofs for all of us.” Jon mounted again, gave Sam a parting smile,
and rode off. The column was well under way, so

he swung wide around the village to avoid the worst of the congestion. He had
seen enough of Whitetree.
    Ghost emerged from the undergrowth so suddenly that the garron shied and
reared. The white wolf hunted well away from the line of march, but he was not
having much better fortune than the foragers Smallwood sent out after game. The
woods were as empty as the villages, Dywen had told him one night around the
fire. “We’re a large party,” Jon had said. “The game’s probably been
frightened away by all the noise we make on the march.”
    â€œFrightened away by
something,
no doubt,” Dywen said.
    Once the horse had settled, Ghost loped along easily beside him. Jon caught up
to Mormont as he was wending his way around a hawthorn thicket. “Is the bird
away?” the Old Bear asked.
    â€œYes, my lord. Sam is teaching them to talk.”
    The Old Bear snorted. “He’ll regret that. Damned things make a lot of noise,
but they never say a thing worth hearing.”
    They rode in silence, until Jon said, “If my uncle found all these villages
empty as well—”
    â€œâ€”he would have made it his purpose to learn why,” Lord Mormont
finished for him, “and it may well be someone or something did not want that
known. Well, we’ll be three hundred when Qhorin joins us. Whatever enemy waits
out here will not find us so easy to deal with. We will find them, Jon, I
promise you.”
    Or they will find us,
thought Jon.

ARYA
    T he river was a blue-green ribbon shining in the morning sun. Reeds grew
thick in the shallows along the banks, and Arya saw a water snake skimming
across the surface, ripples spreading out behind it as it went. Overhead a hawk
flew in lazy circles.
    It seemed a peaceful place . . . until Koss spotted the dead
man. “There, in the reeds.” He pointed, and Arya saw it. The body of a
soldier, shapeless and swollen. His sodden green cloak had hung up on a rotted
log, and a school of tiny silver fishes were nibbling at his face. “I told you
there was bodies,” Lommy announced. “I could taste them in that
water.”
    When Yoren saw the corpse, he spat. “Dobber, see if he’s got anything
worth the taking. Mail, knife, a bit o’ coin, what have you.” He spurred his
gelding and rode out into the river, but the horse struggled in the soft mud
and beyond the reeds the water deepened. Yoren rode back angry, his horse
covered in brown slime up to the knees. “We won’t be crossing here. Koss,
you’ll come with me upriver, look for a ford. Woth, Gerren, you go downstream.
The rest o’ you wait here. Put a guard out.”
    Dobber found a leather purse in the dead man’s belt. Inside were four coppers
and a little hank of blond hair tied up with a red ribbon. Lommy and Tarber
stripped naked and went wading, and Lommy scooped up handfuls of slimy mud and
threw them at Hot Pie,

shouting, “Mud Pie! Mud Pie!” In the back of their wagon, Rorge cursed and
threatened and told them to unchain him while Yoren was gone, but no one paid
him any mind. Kurz caught a fish with his bare hands. Arya saw how he did it,
standing over a shallow pool, calm as still water, his hand darting out quick
as a snake when the fish swam near. It didn’t look as hard as catching cats.
Fish didn’t have claws.
    It was midday when the others returned. Woth reported a wooden bridge half a
mile downstream, but someone had burned it up. Yoren peeled a sourleaf off the
bale. “Might be we could swim the horses over, maybe the donkeys, but there’s
no way we’ll get those wagons across. And there’s smoke to the north and west,
more fires, could be this side o’ the river’s the place we want to be.” He
picked up a long stick and drew a circle in the mud, a line trailing down from
it. “That’s Gods Eye, with the river flowing south. We’re here.” He poked a
hole