A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

camp. The long ranks of man and horse were armored in
darkness, as black as if the Smith had hammered night itself into steel. There
were banners to her right, banners to her left, and rank on rank of banners
before her, but in the predawn gloom, neither colors nor sigils could be
discerned.
A grey army,
Catelyn thought.
Grey men on grey horses
beneath grey banners.
As they sat their horses waiting, Renly’s shadow
knights pointed their lances upward, so she rode through a forest of tall naked
trees, bereft of leaves and life. Where Storm’s End stood was only a deeper
darkness, a wall of black through which no stars could shine, but she could see
torches moving across the fields where Lord Stannis had made his
camp.
    The candles within Renly’s pavilion made the shimmering silken walls seem to
glow, transforming the great tent into a

magical castle alive with emerald light. Two of the Rainbow Guard stood sentry
at the door to the royal pavilion. The green light shone strangely against the
purple plums of Ser Parmen’s surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers
that covered every inch of Ser Emmon’s enameled yellow plate. Long silken
plumes flew from their helms, and rainbow cloaks draped their
shoulders.
    Within, Catelyn found Brienne armoring the king for battle while the Lords
Tarly and Rowan spoke of dispositions and tactics. It was pleasantly warm
inside, the heat shimmering off the coals in a dozen small iron braziers. “I
must speak with you, Your Grace,” she said, granting him a king’s style for
once, anything to make him heed her.
    â€œIn a moment, Lady Catelyn,” Renly replied. Brienne fit backplate to
breastplate over his quilted tunic. The king’s armor was a deep green, the
green of leaves in a summer wood, so dark it drank the candlelight. Gold
highlights gleamed from inlay and fastenings like distant fires in that wood,
winking every time he moved. “Pray continue, Lord Mathis.”
    â€œYour Grace,” Mathis Rowan said with a sideways glance at Catelyn. “As I was
saying, our battles are well drawn up. Why wait for daybreak? Sound the
advance.”
    â€œAnd have it said that I won by treachery, with an unchivalrous attack? Dawn
was the chosen hour.”
    â€œChosen by Stannis,” Randyll Tarly pointed out. “He’d have us charge into
the teeth of the rising sun. We’ll be half-blind.”
    â€œOnly until first shock,” Renly said confidently. “Ser

Loras will break them, and after that it will be chaos.” Brienne tightened
green leather straps and buckled golden buckles. “When my brother falls, see
that no insult is done to his corpse. He is my own blood, I will not have his
head paraded about on a spear.”
    â€œAnd if he yields?” Lord Tarly asked.
    â€œYields?” Lord Rowan laughed. “When Mace Tyrell laid siege to Storm’s End,
Stannis ate rats rather than open his gates.”
    â€œWell I remember.” Renly lifted his chin to allow Brienne to fasten his
gorget in place. “Near the end, Ser Gawen Wylde and three of his knights tried
to steal out a postern gate to surrender. Stannis caught them and ordered them
flung from the walls with catapults. I can still see Gawen’s face as they
strapped him down. He had been our master-at-arms.”
    Lord Rowan appeared puzzled. “No men were hurled from the walls. I would
surely remember that.”
    â€œMaester Cressen told Stannis that we might be forced to eat our dead, and
there was no gain in flinging away good meat.” Renly pushed back his hair.
Brienne bound it with a velvet tie and pulled a padded cap down over his ears,
to cushion the weight of his helm. “Thanks to the Onion Knight we were never
reduced to dining on corpses, but it was a close thing. Too close for Ser
Gawen, who died in his cell.”
    â€œYour Grace.” Catelyn had waited patiently, but time grew short. “You
promised me a word.”
    Renly nodded. “See to your battles, my lords . . . oh, and if
Barristan Selmy is at my brother’s side, I want him spared.”
    â€œThere’s been no word of Ser Barristan since Joffrey cast him out,”
Lord Rowan objected.
    â€œI know that old man. He needs a king to guard, or who is he? Yet he never
came to me, and Lady Catelyn says he is not with Robb Stark at Riverrun. Where
else but with