A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

on the gate. When they slotted the bars through the brackets, they
made a huge X brace.

It was no Red Keep, Yoren announced when they’d explored the holdfast top to
bottom, but it was better than most, and should do for a night well enough. The
walls were rough unmortared stone ten feet high, with a wooden catwalk inside
the battlements. There was a postern gate to the north, and Gerren discovered a
trap under the straw in the old wooden barn, leading to a narrow, winding
tunnel. He followed it a long way under the earth and came out by the lake.
Yoren had them roll a wagon on top of the trap, to make certain no one came in
that way. He divided them into three watches, and sent Tarber, Kurz, and
Cutjack off to the abandoned towerhouse to keep an eye out from on high. Kurz
had a hunting horn to sound if danger threatened.
    They drove their wagons and animals inside and barred the gates behind them.
The barn was a ramshackle thing, large enough to hold half the animals in the
town. The haven, where the townfolk would shelter in times of trouble, was even
larger, low and long and built of stone, with a thatched roof. Koss went out
the postern gate and brought the goose back, and two chickens as well, and
Yoren allowed a cookfire. There was a big kitchen inside the holdfast, though
all the pots and kettles had been taken. Gendry, Dobber, and Arya drew cook
duty. Dobber told Arya to pluck the fowl while Gendry split wood. “Why can’t I
split the wood?” she asked, but no one listened. Sullenly, she set to plucking
a chicken while Yoren sat on the end of the bench sharpening the edge of his
dirk with a whetstone.
    When the food was ready, Arya ate a chicken leg and a bit of

onion. No one talked much, not even Lommy. Gendry went off by himself
afterward, polishing his helm with a look on his face like he wasn’t even
there. The crying girl whimpered and wept, but when Hot Pie offered her a bit
of goose she gobbled it down and looked for more.
    Arya drew second watch, so she found a straw pallet in the haven. Sleep did not
come easy, so she borrowed Yoren’s stone and set to honing Needle. Syrio Forel
had said that a dull blade was like a lame horse. Hot Pie squatted on the
pallet beside her, watching her work. “Where’d you get a good sword like
that?” he asked. When he saw the look she gave him, he raised his hands
defensively. “I never said you stole it, I just wanted to know where you got
it, is all.”
    â€œMy brother gave it to me,” she muttered.
    â€œI never knew you had no brother.”
    Arya paused to scratch under her shirt. There were fleas in the straw, though
she couldn’t see why a few more would bother her. “I have lots of
brothers.”
    â€œYou do? Are they bigger than you, or littler?”
    I shouldn’t be talking like this. Yoren said I should keep my mouth
shut.
“Bigger,” she lied. “They have swords too, big longswords, and
they showed me how to kill people who bother me.”
    â€œI was talking, not bothering.” Hot Pie went off and let her alone and Arya
curled up on her pallet. She could hear the crying girl from the far side of
the haven.
I wish she’d just be quiet. Why does she have to cry all the
time?
    She must have slept, though she never remembered closing her eyes. She
dreamed a wolf was howling, and the sound was so terrible that it woke her at
once. Arya sat up on her pallet with her heart thumping. “Hot Pie, wake up.”
She scrambled to her feet. “Woth, Gendry, didn’t you hear?” She pulled on a
boot.
    All around her, men and boys stirred and crawled from their pallets. “What’s
wrong?” Hot Pie asked. “Hear what?” Gendry wanted to know. “Arry had a bad
dream,” someone else said.
    â€œNo, I heard it,” she insisted. “A wolf.”
    â€œArry has wolves in his head,” sneered Lommy. “Let them howl,” Gerren said,
“they’re out there, we’re in here.” Woth agreed. “Never saw no wolf could
storm a holdfast.” Hot Pie was saying, “I never heard nothing.”
    â€œIt was a
wolf,
” she shouted at them as she yanked on her second
boot. “Something’s wrong, someone’s coming, get
up!
”
    Before they could hoot her down again, the sound came shuddering through the
night—only it was no wolf this time, it was Kurz