A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

true.
    â€œYou expect her to sleep with all the noise?” Clegane said. “What was the
trouble?”
    â€œFools at the gate,” Ser Boros admitted. “Some loose tongues spread tales of
the preparations for Tyrek’s wedding feast, and these wretches got it in their
heads they should be feasted too. His Grace led a sortie and sent them
scurrying.”
    â€œA brave boy,” Clegane said, mouth twitching.
    Let us see how brave he is when he faces my brother,
Sansa thought.
The Hound escorted her across the drawbridge. As they were winding their way up
the steps, she said, “Why do you let people call you a dog? You won’t let
anyone
call you a knight.”
    â€œI like dogs better than knights. My father’s father was kennelmaster at the
Rock. One autumn year, Lord Tytos came between a lioness and her prey. The
lioness didn’t give a shit that she was Lannister’s own sigil. Bitch tore into
my lord’s horse and would have done for my lord too, but my grandfather came up
with the hounds. Three of his dogs died running her off. My grandfather lost a
leg, so Lannister paid him for it with lands and a towerhouse, and took his son
to squire. The three dogs on our banner are the three that died, in the yellow
of autumn grass. A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he’ll look
you straight in the face.” He cupped her under the jaw, raising her chin, his
fingers pinching her painfully. “And that’s more than little birds can
do, isn’t it? I never got my song.”
    â€œI . . . I know a song about Florian and Jonquil.”
    â€œFlorian and Jonquil? A fool and his cunt. Spare me. But one day I’ll have a
song from you, whether you will it or no.”
    â€œI will sing it for you gladly.”
    Sandor Clegane snorted. “Pretty thing, and such a bad liar. A dog can smell a
lie, you know. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars
here . . . and every one better than you.”

ARYA
    W hen she climbed all the way up to the highest branch, Arya could see
chimneys poking through the trees. Thatched roofs clustered along the shore of
the lake and the small stream that emptied into it, and a wooden pier jutted
out into the water beside a low long building with a slate roof.
    She skinnied farther out, until the branch began to sag under her weight. No
boats were tied to the pier, but she could see thin tendrils of smoke rising
from some of the chimneys, and part of a wagon jutting out behind a
stable.
    Someone’s there.
Arya chewed her lip. All the other places
they’d come upon had been empty and desolate. Farms, villages, castles, septs,
barns, it made no matter. If it could burn, the Lannisters had burned it; if it
could die, they’d killed it. They had even set the woods ablaze where they
could, though the leaves were still green and wet from recent rains, and the
fires had not spread. “They would have burned the lake if they could have,”
Gendry had said, and Arya knew he was right. On the night of their escape, the
flames of the burning town had shimmered so brightly on the water that it had
seemed that the lake
was
afire.
    When they finally summoned the nerve to steal back into the ruins the next
night, nothing remained but blackened stones, the hollow shells of houses, and
corpses. In some places wisps of

pale smoke still rose from the ashes. Hot Pie had pleaded with them not to go
back, and Lommy called them fools and swore that Ser Amory would catch them and
kill them too, but Lorch and his men had long gone by the time they reached the
holdfast. They found the gates broken down, the walls partly demolished, and
the inside strewn with the unburied dead. One look was enough for Gendry.
“They’re killed, every one,” he said. “And dogs have been at them too,
look.”
    â€œOr wolves.”
    â€œDogs, wolves, it makes no matter. It’s done here.”
    But Arya would not leave until they found Yoren. They couldn’t have killed
him,
she told herself, he was too hard and tough, and a brother of
the Night’s Watch besides. She said as much to Gendry as they searched among
the corpses.
    The axe blow that had killed him had split his skull apart, but the great
tangled beard could be no one else’s, or the garb, patched and unwashed and so
faded it was more grey than black. Ser Amory Lorch