A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

seven hells is it?” Greyjoy was saying.
    â€œA wolf,” Robb told him.
    â€œA freak,” Greyjoy said. “Look at the
size
of it.”
    Bran’s heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers’ side.
    Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman’s perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father’s kennel.
    â€œIt’s no freak,” Jon said calmly. “That’s a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind.”
    Theon Greyjoy said, “There’s not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years.”
    â€œI see one now,” Jon replied.
    Bran tore his eyes away from the monster. That was when he noticed the bundle in Robb’s arms. He gave a cry of delight and moved closer. The pup was a tiny ball of grey-black fur, its eyes still closed. It nuzzled blindly against Robb’s chest as he cradled it, searching for milk among his leathers, making a sad little whimpery sound. Bran reached out hesitantly. “Go on,” Robb told him. “You can touch him.”
    Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, “Here you go.” His half brother put a second pup into his arms. “There are five of them.” Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face. Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
    â€œDirewolves loose in the realm, after so many years,” muttered Hullen, the master of horse. “I like it not.”
    â€œIt is a sign,” Jory said.
    Father frowned. “This is only a dead animal, Jory,” he said. Yet he seemed troubled. Snow crunched under his boots as he moved around the body. “Do we know what killed her?”
    â€œThere’s something in the throat,” Robb told him, proud to have found the answer before his father even asked. “There, just under the jaw.”
    His father knelt and groped under the beast’s head with his hand. He gave a yank and held it up for all to see. A foot of shattered antler, tines snapped off, all wet with blood.
    A sudden silence descended over the party. The men looked at the antler uneasily, and no one dared to speak. Even Bran could sense their fear, though he did not understand.
    His father tossed the antler to the side and cleansed his hands in the snow. “I’m surprised she lived long enough to whelp,” he said. His voice broke the spell.
    â€œMaybe she didn’t,” Jory said. “I’ve heard tales … maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came.”
    â€œBorn with the dead,” another man put in. “Worse luck.”
    â€œNo matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”
    Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
    â€œThe sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”
    The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood.
“No!”
Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”
    â€œPut away your sword, Greyjoy,” Robb said. For a moment he sounded as commanding as their father, like the lord he would someday be. “We will keep these pups.”
    â€œYou cannot do that, boy,” said Harwin, who was Hullen’s son.
    â€œIt be a mercy to kill them,” Hullen said.
    Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation.”
    â€œNo!”
He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.
    Robb resisted stubbornly. “Ser Rodrik’s red bitch whelped again last week,” he said. “It was a small litter, only two live pups. She’ll have milk enough.”
    â€œShe’ll rip them apart when they try to nurse.”
    â€œLord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”
    â€œWhat of it, Jon?”
    â€œYou have five trueborn