George RR Martin - Ice and Fire 3 - A Storm of Swords

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A Storm of Swords V1.0

Book Three of A Song of Ice and Fire

By George R.R. Martin

scanned 3/17/02 by sliph

A NOTE ON CHRONOLOGY

A Song of Ice and Fire is told through the eyes of characters who are

sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles apart from one another. Some

chapters cover a day, some only an hour; others might span a fortnight, a

month, half a year. With such a structure, the narrative cannot be strictly

sequential; sometimes important things are happening simultaneously, a

thousand leagues apart.

In the case of the volume now in hand, the reader should realize that the

opening chapters of A Storm of Swords do not follow the closing chapters of A

Clash of Kings so much as overlap them. I open with a look at some of the

things that were happening on the Fist of the First Men, at Riverrun,

Harrenhal, and on the Trident while the Battle of the Blackwater was being

fought at King's Landing, and during its aftermath ...

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

PROLOGUE

The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent.

The big black bitch had taken one sniff at the bear tracks, backed off, and

skulked back to the pack with her tail between her legs. The dogs huddled

together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. Chett felt it

too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather. It was too

bloody cold for man or beast, but here they were. His mouth twisted, and he

could almost feel the boils that covered his cheeks and neck growing red and

angry. I should be safe back at the Wall, tending the bloodyravens and making

fires for old MaesterAemon. It was the bastard Jon Snow who had taken that

from him, him and his fat friend Sam Tarly. it was their fault he was here,

freezing his bloody balls off with a pack of hounds deep in the haunted

forest.

"Seven hells." He gave the leashes a hard yank to get the dogs' attention.

"Track, you bastards. That's a bear print. You want some meat or no? Find!"

But the hounds only huddled closer, whining. Chett snapped his short lash

above their heads, and the black bitch snarled at him. "Dog meat would taste

as good as bear," he warned her, his breath frosting with every word.

Lark the Sisterman stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands

tucked up into his armpits. He wore black wool gloves, but he was always

complaining how his fingers were frozen. "It's too bloody cold to hunt," he

said. "Bugger this bear, he's not worth freezing over."

"We can't go back emptyhand, Lark," rumbled Small Paul through the brown

whiskers that covered most of his face. "The Lord Commander

wouldn't like that." There was ice under the big man's squashed pug nose,

where his snot had frozen. A huge hand in a thick fur glove clenched tight

around the shaft of a spear.

"Bugger that Old Bear too," said the Sisterman, a thin man with sharp features

and nervous eyes. "Mormont will be dead before daybreak, remember? Who cares

what he likes?"

Small Paul blinked his black little eyes. Maybe he had forgotten, Chett

thought; he was stupid enough to forget most anything. "Why do we have to kill

the Old Bear? Why don't we just go off and let him be?"

"You think he'll let us be?" said Lark. "He'll hunt us down. You want to be

hunted, you great muttonhead?"

"No," said Small Paul. "I don't want that. I don't."

"So you'll kill him?" said Lark.

"Yes." The huge man stamped the butt of his spear on the frozen riverbank. "I

will. He shouldn't hunt us."

The Sisterman took his hands from his armpits and turned to Chett. "We need to

kill all the officers, I say."

Chett was sick of hearing it. "We been over this. The Old Bear dies, and Blane

from the Shadow Tower. Grubbs and Aethan as well, their ill luck for drawing

the watch, Dywen and Barmen for their tracking, and Ser Piggy for the ravens.

That's all. We kill them quiet, while they sleep. One scream and we're

wormfood, every one of us." His boils were red with rage. "Just do your bit

and see that your cousins do theirs. And Paul, try and remember, it's third

watch, not second."

"Third watch," the big man said, through hair and frozen snot. "Me and

Softfoot. I remember, Chett."

The moon would be black tonight, and they had jiggered the watches so as to

have eight of their own standing sentry, with two more guarding the horses. It

wasn't going to get much riper than that. Besides, the wildlings could be upon

them any day now. Chett meant to be well away from here before that happened.

He meant to live.

Three hundred sworn brothers of the Night's Watch had ridden north, two

hundred from Castle Black and another hundred from the Shadow Tower. It was

the biggest ranging in living memory, near a third of the Watch's strength.

They meant to find Ben Stark, Ser Waymar Royce, and the other rangers who'd

gone missing, and discover why the wildlings were leaving their villages.

Well, they were no closer to Stark and Royce than when they'd left the Wall,

but they'd learned where all the wildlings had gone - up into the icy heights

of the godsforsaken Frostfangs. They could squat up there till the end of time

and it wouldn't prick Chett's boils none.

But no. They were coming down. Down the Milkwater.

Chett raised his eyes and there it was. The river's stony banks were

bearded by ice, its pale milky waters flowing endlessly down out of the

Frostfangs. And now Mance Rayder and his wildlings were flowing down the same

way. Thoren Smallwood had returned in a lather three days past. While he was

telling the Old Bear what his scouts had seen, his man Kedge Whiteye told the

rest of them. "They're still well up the foothills, but they're coming," Kedge

said, warming his hands over the fire. "Harma the Dogshead has the van, the

poxy bitch. Goady crept up on her camp and saw her plain by the fire. That

fool Tumberjon wanted to pick her off with an arrow, but Smallwood had better

sense."

Chett spat. "How many were there, could you tell?"

"Many and more. Twenty, thirty thousand, we didn't stay to count. Harma had

five hundred in the van, every one ahorse."

The men around the fire exchanged uneasy looks. It was a rare thing to find

even a dozen mounted wildlings, and five hundred ...

"Smallwood sent Bannen and me wide around the van to catch a peek at the main

body," Kedge went on. "There was no end of them. They're moving slow as a

frozen river, four, five miles a day, but they don't look like they mean to go

back to their villages neither. More'n half were women and children, and they

were driving their animals before them, goats, sheep, even aurochs dragging

sledges. They'd loaded up with bales of fur and sides of meat, cages of

chickens, butter chums and spinning wheels, every damn thing they own. The

mules and garrons was so heavy laden you'd think their backs would break. The

women as well."

"And they follow the Milkwater?" Lark the Sisterman asked.

"I said so, didn't I?"

The Milkwater would take them past the Fist of the First Men, the ancient

ringfort where the Night's Watch had made its camp. Any man with a thimble of

sense could see that it was time to pull up stakes and fall back on the Wall.

The Old Bear had strengthened the Fist with spikes and pits and caltrops, but

against such a host all that was pointless. If they stayed here, they would be

engulfed and overwhelmed.

And Thoren Smallwood wanted to attack. Sweet Donnel Hill was squire to Ser

Mallador Locke, and the night before last Smallwood had come to Locke's tent.

Ser Mallador had been of the same mind as old Ser Ottyn Wythers, urging a

retreat on the Wall, but Smallwood wanted to convince him otherwise. "This

King-beyond-the-Wall will never look for us so far north," Sweet Donnel

reported him saying. "And this great host of his is a shambling horde, full of

useless mouths who won't know what end of a sword to hold. One blow will take

all the fight out of them and send them howling back to their hovels for

another fifty years."

Three hundred against thirty thousand. Chett called that rank madness, and

what was madder still was that Ser Mallador had been persuaded, and the two of

them together were on the point of persuading

the Old Bear. "If we wait too Ion& this chance may be lost, never to come

again," Smallwood was saying to anyone who would listen. Against that, Ser

Ottyn Wythers said, "We are the shield that guards the realms of men. You do

not throw away your shield for no good purpose," but to that Thoren Smallwood

said, "In a swordfight, a man's surest defense is the swift stroke that slays

his foe, not cringing behind a shield."

Neither Smallwood nor Wythers had the command, though. Lord Mormont did, and

Mormont was waiting for his other scouts, for Jarman Buckwell and the men

who'd climbed the Giant's Stair, and for Qhorin Halfhand and Jon Snow, who'd

gone to probe the Skirling Pass. Buckwell and the Halfhand were late in

returning, though. Dead, most like. Chett pictured Jon Snow lying blue and

frozen on some bleak mountaintop with a wildling spear up his bastard's arse.

The thought made him smile. I hope they killed his bloody wolf as well.

"There's no bear here," he decided abruptly. "Just an old print, that's all.

Back to the Fist." The dogs almost yanked him off his feet, as eager to get

back as he was. Maybe they thought they were going to get fed. Chett had to

laugh. He hadn't fed them for three days now, to turn them mean and hungry.

Tonight, before slipping off into the dark, he'd turn them loose among the

horse lines, after Sweet Donnel Hill and Clubfoot Karl cut the tethers.

They'll have snarling hounds and panicked horses all over the Fist, running

through fires, jumping the ringwall, and trampling down tents. With all the

confusion, it might be hours before anyone noticed that fourteen brothers were

missing.

Lark had wanted to bring in twice that number, but what could you expect from

some stupid fishbreath Sisterman? Whisper a word in the wrong ear and before

you knew it you'd be short a head. No, fourteen was a good number, enough to

do what needed doing but not so many that they couldn't keep the secret. Chett

had recruited most of them himself. Small Paul was one of his; the strongest

man on the Wall, even if he was slower than a dead snail. He'd once broken a

wildling's back with a hug. They had Dirk as well, named for his favorite

weapon, and the little grey man the brothers called Softfoot, who'd raped a

hundred women in his youth, and liked to boast how none had never seen nor

heard him until he shoved it up inside them.

The plan was Chett's. He was the clever one; he'd been steward to old Maester

Aemon for four good years before that bastard Jon Snow had done him out so his

job could be handed to his fat pig of a friend. When he killed Sam Tarly

tonight, he planned to whisper, "Give my love to Lord Snow," right in his ear

before he sliced Ser Piggy's throat open to let the blood come bubbling out

through all those layers of suet. Chett knew the ravens, so he wouldn't have

no trouble there, no more than he would with Tarly. One touch of the knife and

that craven would

piss his pants and start blubbering for his life. Let him beg, it won't do him

no good. After he opened his throat, he'd open the cages and shoo the birds

away, so no messages reached the Wall. Softfoot and Small Paul would kill the

Old Bear, Dirk would do Blane, and Lark and his cousins would silence Bannen

and old Dywen, to keep them from sniffing after their trail. They'd been

caching food for a fortnight, and Sweet Donnel and Clubfoot Karl would have

the horses ready. With Mormont dead, command would pass to Ser Ottyn Wythers,

an old done man, and failing. He'll be running for the Wall before sundown,

and he won't waste no men sending them after us neither.

The dogs pulled at him as they made their way through the trees. Chett could

see the Fist punching its way up through the green. The day was so dark that

the Old Bear had the torches lit, a great circle of them burning all along the

ringwall that crowned the top of the steep stony hill. The three of them waded

across a brook. The water was icy cold, and patches of ice were spreading

across its surface. "I'm going to make for the coast," Lark the Sisterman

confided. "Me and my cousins. We'll build us a boat, sail back home to the

Sisters."

And at home they'll know you for deserters and lop off your fool heads,

thought Chett. There was no leaving the Night's Watch, once you said your

words. Anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, they'd take you and kill you.

Ollo Lophand now, he was talking about sailing back to Tyrosh, where he

claimed men didn't lose their hands for a bit of honest thievery, nor get sent

off to freeze their life away for being found in bed with some knight's wife.

Chett had weighed going with him, but he didn't speak their wet girly tongue.

And what could he do in Tyrosh? He had no trade to speak of, growing up in

Hag's Mire. His father had spent his life grubbing in other men's fields and

collecting leeches. He'd strip down bare but for a thick leather clout, and go

wading in the murky waters. When he climbed out he'd be covered from nipple to

ankle. Sometimes he made Chett help pull the leeches off. One had attached

itself to his palm once, and he'd smashed it against a wall in revulsion. His

father beat him bloody for that. The maesters bought the leeches at twelve-

for-apenny.

Lark could go home if he liked, and the damn Tyroshi too, but not Chett. If he

never saw Hag's Mire again, it would be too bloody soon. He had liked the look

of Craster's Keep, himself . Craster lived high as a lord there, so why

shouldn't he do the same? That would be a laugh. Chett the leechman's son, a

lord with a keep. His banner could be a dozen leeches on a field of pink. But

why stop at lord? Maybe he should be a king. Mance Rayder started out a crow.

I could be a king same as him, and have me some wives. Craster had nineteen,

not even counting the

young ones, the daughters he hadn't gotten around to bedding yet. Half them

wives were as old and ugly as Craster, but that didn't matter. The old ones

Chett could put to work cooking and cleaning for him, pulling carrots and

slopping pigs, while the young ones warmed his bed and bore his children.

Craster wouldn't object, not once Small Paul gave him a hug.

The only women Chett had ever known were the whores he'd bought in Mole's

Town. When he'd been younger, the village girls took one look at his face,

with its boils and its wen, and turned away sickened. The worst was that

slattern Bessa. She'd spread her legs for every boy in Hag's Mire so he'd

figured why not him too? He even spent a morning picking wildflowers when he

heard she liked them, but she'd just laughed in his face and told him she'd

crawl in a bed with his father's leeches before she'd crawl in one with him.

She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her. That was sweet, the look on

her face, so he pulled the knife out and put it in her again. When they caught

him down near Sevenstrearns, old Lord Walder Frey hadn't even bothered to come

himself to do the judging. He'd sent one of his bastards, that Walder Rivers,

and the next thing Chett had known he was walking to the Wall with that

foulsmelling black devil Yoren. To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his

whole life.

But now he meant to take it back, and Craster's women too. That twisted old

wildling has the right of it. If you want a woman to wife you take her, and

none of this giving her flowers so that maybe she don't notice your bloody

boils. Chett didn't mean to make that mistake again.

It would work, he promised himself for the hundredth time. So long as we get

away clean. Ser Ottyn would strike south for the Shadow Tower, the shortest

way to the Wall. He won't bother with us, not Wythers, all he'll want is to

get back whole. Thoren Smallwood now, he'd want to press on with the attack,

but Ser Ottyn's caution ran too deep, and he was senior. It won't matter

anyhow Once we're gone, Smallwood can attack anyone he likes. What do we care?

If none of them ever returns to the Wall, no one will ever come looking for

us, they'll think we died with the rest. That was a new thought, and for a

moment it tempted him. But they would need to kill Ser Ottyn and Ser Mallador

Locke as well to give Smallwood the command, and both of them were well-

attended day and night ... no, the risk was too great.

"Chett," said Small Paul as they trudged along a stony game trail through

sentinels and soldier pines, "what about the bird?"

"What bloody bird?" The last thing he needed now was some muttonhead going on

about a bird.

"The Old Bear's raven," Small Paul said. "if we kill him, who's going to feed

his bird?"

"Who bloody well cares? Kill the bird too if you like."

"I don't want to hurt no bird," the big man said. "But that's a talking bird.

What if it tells what we did?"

Lark the Sisterman laughed. "Small Paul, thick as a castle wall," he mocked.

"You shut up with that," said Small Paul dangerously.

"Paul," said Chett, before the big man got too angry, "when they find the old

man lying in a pool of blood with his throat slit, they won't need no bird to

tell them someone killed him."

Small Paul chewed on that a moment. "That's true," he allowed. "Can I keep the

bird, then? I like that bird."

"He's yours," said Chett, just to shut him up.

"We can always eat him if we get hungry," offered Lark.

Small Paul clouded up again. "Best not try and eat my bird, Lark. Best not."

Chett could hear voices drifting through the trees. "Close your bloody mouths,

both of you. We're almost to the Fist."

They emerged near the west face of the hill, and walked around south where the

slope was gentler. Near the edge of the forest a dozen men were taking archery

practice. They had carved outlines on the trunks of trees, and were loosing

shafts at them. "Look," said Lark. "A pig with a bow."

Sure enough, the nearest bowman was Ser Piggy himself, the fat boy who had

stolen his place with Maester Aemon. just the sight of Samwell Tarly filled

him with anger. Stewarding for Maester Aemon had been as good a life as he'd

ever known. The old blind man was undemanding, and Clydas had taken care of

most of his wants anyway. Chett's duties were easy: cleaning the rookery, a

few fires to build, a few meals to fetch ... and Aemon never once hit him.

Thinks he can just walk in and shove me out, on account of being highborn and

knowing how to read. Might be IT ask him to read my knife before I open his

throat with it. "You go on," he told the others, "I want to watch this." The

dogs were pulling, anxious to go with them, to the food they thought would be

waiting at the top. Chett kicked the bitch with the toe of his boot, and that

settled them down some.

He watched from the trees as the fat boy wrestled with a longbow as tall as he

was, his red moon face screwed up with concentration. Three arrows stood in

the ground before him. Tarly nocked and drew, held the draw a long moment as

he tried to aim, and let fly. The shaft vanished into the greenery. Chett

laughed loudly, a snort of sweet disgust.

"We'll never find that one, and I'll be blamed," announced Edd Tollett, the

dour grey-haired squire everyone called Dolorous Edd. "Nothing ever goes

missing that they don't look at me, ever since that time I lost my

horse. As if that could be helped. He was white and it was snowing, what did

they expect?"

"The wind took that one," said Grenn, another friend of Lord Snow's. "Try to

hold the bow steady, Sam."

"It's heavy," the fat boy complained, but he pulled the second arrow all the

same. This one went high, sailing through the branches ten feet above the

target.

"I believe you knocked a leaf off that tree," said Dolorous Edd. "Fall is

falling fast enough, there's no need to help it." He sighed. "And we all know

what follows fall. Gods, but I am cold. Shoot the last arrow, Samwell, I

believe my tongue is freezing to the roof of my mouth."

Ser Piggy lowered the bow, and Chett thought he was going to start bawling.

"It's too hard."

"Notch, draw, and loose," said Grenn. "Go on."

Dutifully, the fat boy plucked his final arrow from the earth, notched it to

his longbow, drew, and released. He did it quickly, without squinting along

the shaft painstakingly as he had the first two times. The arrow struck the

charcoal outline low in the chest and hung quivering. "I hit him." Ser Piggy

sounded shocked. "Grenn, did you see? Edd, look, I hit him!"

"Put it between his ribs, Id say," said Grenn.

"Did I kill him?" the fat boy wanted to know.

Tollett shrugged. "Might have punctured a lung, if he had a lung. Most trees

don't, as a rule." He took the bow from Sam's hand. "I've seen worse shots,

though. Aye, and made a few."

Ser Piggy was beaming. To look at him you'd think he'd actually done

something. But when he saw Chett and the dogs, his smile curled up and died

squeaking.

"You hit a tree," Chett said. "Let's see how you shoot when it's Mance

Rayder's lads. They won't stand there with their arms out and their leaves

rustling, oh no. They'll come right at you, screaming in your face, and I bet

you'll piss those breeches. one o' them will plant his axe right between those

little pig eyes. The last thing you'll hear will be the thunk it makes when it

bites into your skull."

The fat boy was shaking. Dolorous Edd put a hand on his shoulder. "Brother,"

he said solemnly, "just because it happened that way for you doesn't mean

Samwell will suffer the same."

"What are you talking about, Tollett?"

"The axe that split your skull. Is it true that half your wits leaked out on

the ground and your dogs ate them?"

The big lout Grenn laughed, and even Samwell Tarly managed a weak little

smile. Chett kicked the nearest dog, yanked on their leashes, and started up

the hill. Smile all you want, Ser Piggy. We'll see who laughs

tonight. He only wished he had time to kill Tollett as well. Gloomy horsefaced

fool, that's what he is.

The climb was steep, even on this side of the Fist, which had the gentlest

slope. Partway up the dogs started barking and pulling at him, figuring that

they'd get fed soon. He gave them a taste of his boot instead, and a crack of

the whip for the big ugly one that snapped at him. Once they were tied up, he

went to report. "The prints were there like Giant said, but the dogs wouldn't

track," he told Mormont in front of his big black tent. "Down by the river

like that, could be old prints."

"A pity." Lord Commander Mormont had a bald head and a great shaggy grey

beard, and sounded as tired as he looked. "We might all have been better for a

bit of fresh meat." The raven on his shoulder bobbed its head and echoed,

"Meat. Meat. Meat."

We could cook the bloody dogs, Chett thought, but he kept his mouth shut until

the Old Bear sent him on his way. And that's the last time I'll need to bow my

head to that one, he thought to himself with satisfaction. it seemed to him

that it was growing even colder, which he would have swom. wasn't possible.

The dogs huddled together miserably in the hard frozen mud, and Chett was half

tempted to crawl in with them. instead he wrapped a black wool scarf round the

lower part of his face, leaving a slit for his mouth between the winds. It was

warmer if he kept moving, he found, so he made a slow circuit of the perimeter

with a wad of sourleaf, sharing a chew or two with the black brothers on guard

and hearing what they had to say. None of the men on the day watch were part

of his scheme; even so, he figured it was good to have some sense of what they

were thinking.

Mostly what they were thinking was that it was bloody cold.

The wind was rising as the shadows lengthened. it made a high thin sound as it

shivered through the stones of the ringwall. "I hate that sound," little Giant

said. "It sounds like a babe in the brush, wailing away for milk."

When he finished the circuit and returned to the dogs, he found Lark waiting

for him. "The officers are in the Old Bear's tent again, talking something

fierce."

"That's what they do," said Chett. "They're highborn, all but Blane, they get

drunk on words instead of wine."

Lark sidled closer. "Cheese-for-wits keeps going on about the bird," he

warned, glancing about to make certain no one was close. "Now he's asking if

we cached any seed for the damn thing."

"It's a raven," said Chett. "It eats corpses."

Lark grinned. "His, might be?"

Or yours. It seemed to Chett that they needed the big man more than they

needed Lark. "Stop fretting about Small Paul. You do your part, he'll do his."

Twilight was creeping through the woods by the time he rid himself of the

Sisterman and sat down to edge his sword. It was bloody hard work with his

gloves on, but he wasn't about to take them off. Cold as it was, any fool that

touched steel with a bare hand was going to lose a patch of skin.

The dogs whimpered when the sun went down. He gave them water and curses.

"Half a night more, and you can find your own feast." By then he could smell

supper.

Dywen was holding forth at the cookfire as Chett got his heel of hardbread and

a bowl of bean and bacon soup from Hake the cook. "The wood's too silent," the

old forester was saying. "No frogs near that river, no owls in the dark. I

never heard no deader wood than this."

"Them teeth of yours sound pretty dead," said Hake.

Dywen clacked his wooden teeth. "No wolves neither. There was, before, but no

more. Where'd they go, you figure?"

"Someplace warm," said Chett.

of the dozen odd brothers who sat by the fire, four were his. He gave each one

a hard squinty look as he ate, to see if any showed signs of breaking. Dirk

seemed calm enough, sitting silent and sharpening his blade, the way he did

every night. And Sweet Donnel Hill was all easy japes. He had white teeth and

fat red lips and yellow locks that he wore in an artful tumble about his

shoulders, and he claimed to be the bastard of some Lannister. Maybe he was at

that. Chett had no use for pretty boys, nor for bastards neither, but Sweet

Donnel seemed like to hold his own.

He was less certain about the forester the brothers called Sawwood, more for

his snoring than for anything to do with trees. just now he looked so restless

he might never snore again. And Maslyn was worse. Chett could see sweat

trickling down his face, despite the frigid wind. The beads of moisture

sparkled in the firelight, like so many little wet jewels. Maslyn wasn't

eating neither, only staring at his soup as if the smell of it was about to

make him sick. I'll need to watch that one, Chett thought.

"Assemble!" The shout came suddenly, from a dozen throats, and quickly spread

to every part of the hilltop camp. "Men of the Night's Watch! Assemble at the

central fire!"

Frowning, Chett finished his soup and followed the rest.

The Old Bear stood before the fire with Smallwood, Locke, Wythers, and Blane

ranged behind him in a row. Mormont wore a cloak of thick black fur, and his

raven perched upon his shoulder, preening its black feathers. This can't be

good. Chett squeezed between Brown Bemarr and some Shadow Tower men. When

everyone was gathered, save for the watchers in the woods and the guards on

the ringwall, Mormont cleared

his throat and spat. The spittle was frozen before it hit the ground.

"Brothers," he said, "men of the Night's Watch."

"Men!" his raven screamed. "Men! Men!"

"The wildlings are on the march, following the course of the Milkwater down

out of the mountains. Thoren believes their van will be upon us ten days

hence. Their most seasoned raiders will be with Harma Dogshead in that van.

The rest will likely form a rearguard, or ride in close company with Mance

Rayder himself. Elsewhere their fighters will be spread thin along the line of

march. They have oxen, mules, horses ... but few enough. Most will be afoot,

and ill-armed and untrained. Such weapons as they carry are more like to be

stone and bone than steel. They are burdened with women, children, herds of

sheep and goats, and all their worldly goods besides. In short, though they

are numerous, they are vulnerable ... and they do not know that we are here.

Or so we must pray."

They know, thought Chett. You bloody old pus bag, they know, certain as

sunrise. Qhorin Halfhand hasn't come back, has he? Nor Jarman Buckwell. lf any

of them got caught, you know damned well the wildlings will have wrung a song

or two out of them by now

Smallwood stepped forward. "Mance Rayder means to break the Wall and bring red

war to the Seven Kingdoms. Well, that's a game two can play. On the morrow

we'll bring the war to him."

"We ride at dawn with all our strength," the Old Bear said as a murmur went

through the assembly. "We will ride north, and loop around to the west.

Harma's van will be well past the Fist by the time we turn. The foothills of

the Frostfangs are full of narrow winding valleys made for ambush. Their line

of march will stretch for many miles. We shall fall on them in several places

at once, and make them swear we were three thousand, not three hundred."

"We'll hit hard and be away before their horsemen can form up to face us,"

Thoren Smallwood said. "If they pursue, we'll lead them a merry chase, then

wheel and hit again farther down the column. We'll burn their wagons, scatter

their herds, and slay as many as we can. Mance Rayder himself, if we find him.

If they break and return to their hovels, we've won. If not, we'll harry them

all the way to the Wall, and see to it that they leave a trail of corpses to

mark their progress."

"There are thousands," someone called from behind Chett.

"We'll die." That was Maslyn's voice, green with fear.

"Die," screamed Mormont's raven, flapping its black wings. "Die, die, die. "

"Many of us," the Old Bear said. "Mayhaps even all of us. But as another Lord

Commander said a thousand years ago, that is why they dress us in black.

Remember your words, brothers. For we are the swords in the darkness, the

watchers on the walls. . ."

"The fire that bums against the cold." Ser Mallador Locke drew his longsword.

"The light that brings the dawn," others answered, and more swords were pulled

from scabbards.

Then all of them were drawing, and it was near three hundred upraised swords

and as many voices crying, "The horn that wakes the sleepers! The shield that

guards the realms of men!" Chett had no choice but to join his voice to the

others. The air was misty with their breath, and firelight glinted off the

steel. He was pleased to see Lark and Softfoot and Sweet Donnel Hill joining

in, as if they were as big fools as the rest. That was good. No sense to draw

attention, when their hour was so close.

When the shouting died away, once more he heard the sound of the wind picking

at the ringwall. The flames swirled and shivered, as if they too were cold,

and in the sudden quiet the Old Bear's raven cawed loudly and once again said,

"Die."

Clever bird, thought Chett as the officers dismissed them, warning everyone to

get a good meal and a long rest tonight. Chett crawled under his furs near the

dogs, his head full of things that could go wrong. What if that bloody oath

gave one of his a change of heart? Or Small Paul forgot and tried to kill

Mormont during the second watch in place of the third? Or Maslyn lost his

courage, or someone turned informer, or ...

He found himself listening to the night. The wind did sound like a wailing

child, and from time to time he could hear men's voices, a horse's whinny, a

log spitting in the fire. But nothing else. So quiet.

He could see Bessa's face floating before him. It wasn't the knife I wanted to

put in you, he wanted to tell her. I picked you flowers, wild roses and tansy

and goldencups, it took me all morning. His heart was thumping like a drum, so

loud he feared it might wake the camp. Ice caked his beard all around his

mouth. Where did that come from, with Bessa? Whenever he'd thought of her

before, it had only been to remember the way she'd looked, dying. What was

wrong with him? He could hardly breathe. Had he gone to sleep? He got to his

knees, and something wet and cold touched his nose. Chett looked up.

Snow was falling.

He could feel tears freezing to his cheeks. It isn't fair, he wanted to

scream. Snow would ruin everything he'd worked for, all his careful plans. It

was a heavy fall, thick white flakes coming down all about him. How would they

find their food caches in the snow, or the game trail they meant to follow

east? They won't need Dywen nor Bannen to hunt us down neither, not if we're

tracking through fresh snow And snow hid the shape of the ground, especially

by night. A horse could stumble over a root, break a leg on a stone. We're

done, he realized. Done before we began. We're lost. There'd be no lord's life

for the leechman's son, no

keep to call his own, no wives nor crowns. Only a wildling's sword in his

belly, and then an unmarked grave. The snow's taken it all from me ... the

bloody snow...

Snow had ruined him once before. Snow and his pet pig.

Chett got to his feet. His legs were stiff, and the falling snowflakes turned

the distant torches to vague orange glows. He felt as though he were being

attacked by a cloud of pale cold bugs. They settled on his shoulders, on his

head, they flew at his nose and his eyes. Cursing, he brushed them off.

Samwell Tarly, he remembered. I can still deal with Ser Piggy. He wrapped his

scarf around his face, pulled up his hood, and went striding through the camp

to where the coward slept.

The snow was falling so heavily that he got lost among the tents, but finally

he spotted the snug little windbreak the fat boy had made for himself between

a rock and the raven cages. Tarly was buried beneath a mound of black wool

blankets and shaggy furs. The snow was drifting in to cover him. He looked

like some kind of soft round mountain. Steel whispered on leather faint as

hope as Chett eased his dagger from its sheath. One of the ravens quorked.

"Snow," another muttered, peering through the bars with black eyes. The first

added a "Snow" of its own. He edged past them, placing each foot carefully. He

would clap his left hand down over the fat boy's mouth to muffle his cries,

and then ...

Uuuuuuuhoooooooooo.

He stopped midstep, swallowing his curse as the sound of the horn shuddered

through the camp, faint and far, yet unmistakable. Not now Gods be damned, not

NOW! The Old Bear had hidden far-eyes in a ring of trees around the Fist, to

give warning of any approach. Jarman Buckwell's back from the Giant's Stair,

Chett figured, or Qhorin Halfhand from the Skirling Pass. A single blast of

the horn meant brothers returning. If it was the Halfhand, Jon Snow might be

with him, alive.

Sam Tarly sat up puffy-eyed and stared at the snow in confusion. The ravens

were cawing noisily, and Chett could hear his dogs baying. Half the bloody

camp's awake. His gloved fingers clenched around the dagger's hilt as he

waited for the sound to die away. But no sooner had it gone than it came

again, louder and longer.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooo.

"Gods," he heard Sam Tarly whimper. The fat boy lurched to his knees, his feet

tangled in his cloak and blankets. He kicked them away and reached for a

chain-mail hauberk he'd hung on the rock nearby. As he slipped the huge tent

of a garment down over his head and wriggled into it, he spied Chett standing

there. "Was it two?" he asked. "I dreamed I heard two blasts. . . "

"No dream," said Chett. "Two blasts to call the Watch to arms. Two blasts for

foes approaching. There's an axe out there with Piggy writ on

it, fat boy. Two blasts means wildlings. " The fear on that big moon face made

him want to laugh. "Bugger them all to seven hells. Bloody Harma. Bloody Mance

Rayder. Bloody Smallwood, he said they wouldn't be on us for another - "

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The sound went on and on and on, until it seemed it would never die. The

ravens were flapping and screaming, flying about their cages and banging off

the bars, and all about the camp the brothers of the Night's Watch were

rising, donning their armor, buckling on swordbelts, reaching for battleaxes

and bows. Samwell Tarly stood shaking, his face the same color as the snow

that swirled down all around them. "Three," he squeaked to Chett, "that was

three, I heard three. They never blow three. Not for hundreds and thousands of

years. Three means -"

" - Others." Chett made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob, and

suddenly his smallclothes were wet, and he could feel the piss running down

his leg, see steam rising off the front of his breeches.

Chapter 1

Jaime

An east wind blew through his tangled hair, as soft and fragrant as

Cersei's fingers. He could hear birds singing, and feel the river moving

beneath the boat as the sweep of the oars sent them toward the pale pink dawn.

After so long in darkness, the world was so sweet that Jaime Lannister felt

dizzy. I am alive, and drunk on sunlight. A laugh burst from his lips, sudden

as a quail flushed from cover.

"Quiet," the wench grumbled, scowling. Scowls suited her broad homely face

better than a smile. Not that Jaime had ever seen her smiling. He amused

himself by picturing her in one of Cersei's silken gowns in place of her

studded leather jerkin. As well dress a cow in silk as this one.

But the cow could row. Beneath her roughspun brown breeches were calves like

cords of wood, and the long muscles of her arms stretched and tightened with

each stroke of the oars. Even after rowing half the night, she showed no signs

of tiring, which was more than could be said for his cousin Ser Cleos,

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