A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

attack. Thegirl, a scrawny thing in soiled leathers, was dodging and managing to get her stick in the way of most of the boy’s blows, but not all. When she tried to lunge at him, he caught her stick with his own, swept it aside, and slid his wood down hard on her fingers. She cried out and lost her weapon.
    Prince Joffrey laughed. The boy looked around, wide-eyed and startled, and dropped his stick in the grass. The girl glared at them, sucking on her knuckles to take the sting out, and Sansa was horrified.
“Arya?”
she called out incredulously.
    â€œGo away,” Arya shouted back at them, angry tears in her eyes. “What are you doing here? Leave us alone.”
    Joffrey glanced from Arya to Sansa and back again. “Your sister?” She nodded, blushing. Joffrey examined the boy, an ungainly lad with a coarse, freckled face and thick red hair. “And who are you, boy?” he asked in a commanding tone that took no notice of the fact that the other was a year his senior.
    â€œMycah,” the boy muttered. He recognized the prince and averted his eyes. “M’lord.”
    â€œHe’s the butcher’s boy,” Sansa said.
    â€œHe’s my friend,” Arya said sharply. “You leave him alone.”
    â€œA butcher’s boy who wants to be a knight, is it?” Joffrey swung down from his mount, sword in hand. “Pick up your sword, butcher’s boy,” he said, his eyes bright with amusement. “Let us see how good you are.”
    Mycah stood there, frozen with fear.
    Joffrey walked toward him. “Go on, pick it up. Or do you only fight little girls?”
    â€œShe ast me to, m’lord,” Mycah said. “She
ast
me to.”
    Sansa had only to glance at Arya and see the flush on her sister’s face to know the boy was telling the truth, but Joffrey was in no mood to listen. The wine had made him wild. “Are you going to pick up your sword?”
    Mycah shook his head. “It’s only a stick, m’lord. It’s not no sword, it’s only a stick.”
    â€œAnd you’re only a butcher’s boy, and no knight.” Joffrey lifted Lion’s Tooth and laid its point on Mycah’s cheek below the eye, as the butcher’s boy stood trembling. “That was my lady’s sister you were hitting, do you know that?” A bright bud of blood blossomed where hissword pressed into Mycah’s flesh, and a slow red line trickled down the boy’s cheek.
    â€œStop it!”
Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick.
    Sansa was afraid. “Arya, you stay out of this.”
    â€œI won’t hurt him … much,” Prince Joffrey told Arya, never taking his eyes off the butcher’s boy.
    Arya went for him.
    Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud
crack
as the wood split against the back of the prince’s head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa’s horrified eyes. Joffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring curses. Mycah ran for the trees as fast as his legs would take him. Arya swung at the prince again, but this time Joffrey caught the blow on Lion’s Tooth and sent her broken stick flying from her hands. The back of his head was all bloody and his eyes were on fire. Sansa was shrieking, “No, no, stop it, stop it, both of you, you’re spoiling it,” but no one was listening. Arya scooped up a rock and hurled it at Joffrey’s head. She hit his horse instead, and the blood bay reared and went galloping off after Mycah.
“Stop it, don’t, stop it!”
Sansa screamed. Joffrey slashed at Arya with his sword, screaming obscenities, terrible words, filthy words. Arya darted back, frightened now, but Joffrey followed, hounding her toward the woods, backing her up against a tree. Sansa didn’t know what to do. She watched helplessly, almost blind from her tears.
    Then a grey blur flashed past her, and suddenly Nymeria was there, leaping, jaws closing around Joffrey’s sword arm. The steel fell from his fingers as the wolf knocked him off his feet, and they rolled in the grass, the wolf snarling and ripping at him, the prince shrieking in pain. “Get it
off,”
he screamed. “Get it
off!”
    Arya’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Nymeria!”
    The direwolf let go of Joffrey and moved to Arya’s side. The prince lay in the grass, whimpering, cradling his