A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

else have a thirst?” No one replied.
“Good.” He kicked at Benfred’s fallen banner, clutched in the dead hand of
the squire who’d borne it. A rabbitskin had been tied below the flag.
Why
rabbitskins?
he had meant to ask, but being spat on had made him forget
his questions. He tossed his bow back to Wex and strode off, remembering how
elated he’d felt after the Whispering Wood, and wondering why this did not
taste as sweet.
Tallhart, you bloody overproud fool, you never even sent
out a scout.
    They’d been joking and even
singing
as they’d come on, the three
trees of Tallhart streaming above them while rabbitskins flapped stupidly from
the points of their lances. The archers concealed behind the gorse had spoiled
the song with a rain of arrows, and Theon himself had led his men-at-arms out
to finish

the butcher’s work with dagger, axe, and warhammer. He had ordered their leader
spared for questioning.
    Only he had not expected it to be Benfred Tallhart.
    His limp body was being dragged from the surf when Theon returned to his
Sea Bitch.
The masts of his longships stood outlined against the sky
along the pebbled beach. Of the fishing village, nothing remained but cold
ashes that stank when it rained. The men had been put to the sword, all but a
handful that Theon had allowed to flee to bring the word to Torrhen’s Square.
Their wives and daughters had been claimed for salt wives, those who were young
enough and fair. The crones and the ugly ones had simply been raped and killed,
or taken for thralls if they had useful skills and did not seem likely to cause
trouble.
    Theon had planned that attack as well, bringing his ships up to the shore in
the chill darkness before the dawn and leaping from the prow with a longaxe in
his hand to lead his men into the sleeping village. He did not like the taste
of any of this, but what choice did he have?
    His thrice-damned sister was sailing her
Black Wind
north even
now, sure to win a castle of her own. Lord Balon had let no word of the hosting
escape the Iron Islands, and Theon’s bloody work along the Stony Shore would be
put down to sea raiders out for plunder. The northmen would not realize their
true peril, not until the hammers fell on Deepwood Motte and Moat Cailin.
And after all is done and won, they will make songs for that bitch Asha,
and forget that I was even here.
That is, if he allowed it.
    Dagmer Cleftjaw stood by the high carved prow of his longship,
Foamdrinker.
Theon had assigned him the task of guarding the ships;
otherwise men would have called it Dagmer’s victory, not his. A more prickly
man might have taken that for a slight, but the Cleftjaw had only
laughed.
    â€œThe day is won,” Dagmer called down. “And yet you do not

smile, boy. The living should smile, for the dead cannot.” He smiled himself
to show how it was done. It made for a hideous sight. Under a snowy white mane
of hair, Dagmer Cleftjaw had the most gut-churning scar Theon had ever seen,
the legacy of the longaxe that had near killed him as a boy. The blow had
splintered his jaw, shattered his front teeth, and left him four lips where
other men had but two. A shaggy beard covered his cheeks and neck, but the hair
would not grow over the scar, so a shiny seam of puckered, twisted flesh
divided his face like a crevasse through a snowfield. “We could hear them
singing,” the old warrior said. “It was a good song, and they sang it
bravely.”
    â€œThey sang better than they fought. Harps would have done them as much good as
their lances did.”
    â€œHow many men are lost?”
    â€œOf ours?” Theon shrugged. “Todric. I killed him for getting drunk and
fighting over loot.”
    â€œSome men are born to be killed.” A lesser man might have been afraid to show
a smile as frightening as his, yet Dagmer grinned more often and more broadly
than Lord Balon ever had.
    Ugly as it was, that smile brought back a hundred memories. Theon had seen it
often as a boy, when he’d jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and
split a target square. He’d seen it when he blocked a blow from Dagmer’s sword,
when he put an arrow through a seagull on the wing, when he took the tiller in
hand and guided a longship safely through a snarl of foaming rocks.
He
gave me more smiles than my father and Eddard Stark

together.
Even Robb . . .