A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

glow.
    â€œGhost,” Jon breathed, surprised. “So you came inside after all, eh?” The
white wolf often hunted all night; he had not expected to see him again till
daybreak. “Was the hunting so bad?” he asked. “Here. To me,
Ghost.”
    The direwolf circled the fire, sniffing Jon, sniffing the wind, never still. It
did not seem as if he were after meat right now.
When the dead came
walking, Ghost knew. He woke me, warned me.
Alarmed, he got to his feet.
“Is something out there? Ghost, do you have a scent?”
Dywen said he
smelled cold.
    The direwolf loped off, stopped, looked back.
He wants me to follow.
Pulling up the hood of his cloak, Jon walked away from the tents, away from the
warmth of his fire, past the lines of shaggy little garrons. One of the horses
whickered nervously when Ghost padded by. Jon soothed him with a word and
paused to stroke his muzzle. He could hear the wind whistling through cracks in
the rocks as they neared the ringwall. A voice called out a challenge. Jon
stepped into the torchlight. “I need to fetch water for the Lord
Commander.”
    â€œGo on, then,” the guard said. “Be quick about it.” Huddled beneath his
black cloak, with his hood drawn up against the wind, the man never even looked
to see if he had a bucket.
    Jon slipped sideways between two sharpened stakes while Ghost slid beneath
them. A torch had been thrust down into a crevice, its flames flying pale
orange banners when the gusts

came. He snatched it up as he squeezed through the gap between the stones.
Ghost went racing down the hill. Jon followed more slowly, the torch thrust out
before him as he made his descent. The camp sounds faded behind him. The night
was black, the slope steep, stony, and uneven. A moment’s inattention would be
a sure way to break an ankle . . . or his neck.
What am I
doing?
he asked himself as he picked his way down.
    The trees stood beneath him, warriors armored in bark and leaf, deployed in
their silent ranks awaiting the command to storm the hill. Black, they
seemed . . . it was only when his torchlight brushed against
them that Jon glimpsed a flash of green. Faintly, he heard the sound of water
flowing over rocks. Ghost vanished in the underbrush. Jon struggled after him,
listening to the call of the brook, to the leaves sighing in the wind. Branches
clutched at his cloak, while overhead thick limbs twined together and shut out
the stars.
    He found Ghost lapping from the stream.
“Ghost,”
he called, “to
me.
Now.
” When the direwolf raised his head, his eyes glowed red and
baleful, and water streamed down from his jaws like slaver. There was something
fierce and terrible about him in that instant. And then he was off, bounding
past Jon, racing through the trees. “Ghost,
no,
stay,” he shouted,
but the wolf paid no heed. The lean white shape was swallowed by the dark, and
Jon had only two choices—to climb the hill again, alone, or to
follow.
    He followed, angry, holding the torch out low so he could see the rocks that
threatened to trip him with every step,

the thick roots that seemed to grab at his feet, the holes where a man could
twist an ankle. Every few feet he called again for Ghost, but the night wind
was swirling amongst the trees and it drank the words.
This is madness,
he thought as he plunged deeper into the trees. He was about to turn back when
he glimpsed a flash of white off ahead and to the right, back toward the hill.
He jogged after it, cursing under his breath.
    A quarter way around the Fist he chased the wolf before he lost him again.
Finally he stopped to catch his breath amidst the scrub, thorns, and tumbled
rocks at the base of the hill. Beyond the torchlight, the dark pressed
close.
    A soft scrabbling noise made him turn. Jon moved toward the sound, stepping
carefully among boulders and thornbushes. Behind a fallen tree, he came on
Ghost again. The direwolf was digging furiously, kicking up dirt.
    â€œWhat have you found?” Jon lowered the torch, revealing a rounded mound of
soft earth.
A grave,
he thought.
But whose?
    He knelt, jammed the torch into the ground beside him. The soil was loose,
sandy. Jon pulled it out by the fistful. There were no stones, no roots.
Whatever was here had been put here recently. Two feet down, his fingers
touched cloth. He had been expecting a corpse, fearing a corpse, but