A light snow was falling. Bran could feel the
flakes on his face, melting as they touched his skin like the
gentlest of rains. He sat straight atop his horse, watching as the
iron portcullis was winched upward. Try as he might to keep calm,
his heart was fluttering in his chest.
“Are you ready?” Robb asked.
Bran nodded, trying not to let his fear show. He had not been
outside Winterfell since his fall, but he was determined to ride
out as proud as any knight.
“Let’s ride, then.” Robb put his heels into
his big grey-and-white gelding, and the horse walked under the
portcullis.
“Go,” Bran whispered to his own horse. He touched
her neck lightly, and the small chestnut filly started forward.
Bran had named her Dancer. She was two years old, and Joseth said
she was smarter than any horse had a right to be. They had trained
her special, to respond to rein and voice and touch. Up to now,
Bran had only ridden her around the yard. At first Joseth or Hodor
would lead her, while Bran sat strapped to her back in the oversize
saddle the Imp had drawn up for him, but for the past fortnight he
had been riding her on his own, trotting her round and round, and
growing bolder with every circuit.
They passed beneath the gatehouse, over the drawbridge, through
the outer walls. Summer and Grey Wind came loping beside them,
sniffing at the wind. Close behind came Theon Greyjoy, with his
longbow and a quiver of broadheads; he had a mind to take a deer,
he had told them. He was followed by four guardsmen in mailed
shirts and coifs, and Joseth, a stick-thin stableman whom Robb had
named master of horse while Hullen was away. Maester Luwin brought
up the rear, riding on a donkey. Bran would have liked it better if
he and Robb had gone off alone, just the two of them, but Hal
Mollen would not hear of it, and Maester Luwin backed him. If Bran
fell off his horse or injured himself, the maester was determined
to be with him.
Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls
deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past
rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one
in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from
their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew
colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the
north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant
holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came
alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the
day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at
hand. Winter is coming.
A few villagers eyed the direwolves anxiously as the riders went
past, and one man dropped the wood he was carrying as he shrank
away in fear, but most of the townfolk had grown used to the sight.
They bent the knee when they saw the boys, and Robb greeted each of
them with a lordly nod.
With his legs unable to grip, the swaying motion of the horse
made Bran feel unsteady at first, but the huge saddle with its
thick horn and high back cradled him comfortingly, and the straps
around his chest and thighs would not allow him to fall. After a
time the rhythm began to feel almost natural. His anxiety faded,
and a tremulous smile crept across his face.
Two serving wenches stood beneath the sign of the Smoking Log,
the local alehouse. When Theon Greyjoy called out to them, the
younger girl turned red and covered her face. Theon spurred his
mount to move up beside Robb. “Sweet Kyra,” he said
with a laugh. “She squirms like a weasel in bed, but say a
word to her on the street, and she blushes pink as a maid. Did I
ever tell you about the night that she and Bessa—”
“Not where my brother can hear, Theon,” Robb warned
him with a glance at Bran.
Bran looked away and pretended not to have heard, but he could
feel Greyjoy’s eyes on him. No doubt he was smiling. He
smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was
clever enough to understand. Robb seemed to admire Theon and enjoy
his company, but Bran had never warmed to his father’s
ward.
Robb rode closer. “You are doing well, Bran.”
“I want to go faster,” Bran replied.
Robb smiled. “As you will.” He sent his gelding into
a trot. The wolves raced after him. Bran snapped the reins sharply,
and Dancer picked up her pace. He heard a shout from Theon Greyjoy,
and the hoofbeats of the other horses behind him.
Bran’s cloak billowed out, rippling in the wind, and the
snow seemed to rush at his face. Robb was well ahead, glancing back
over his shoulder from time to time to make sure Bran and the
others were following. He snapped the reins again. Smooth as silk,
Dancer slid into a gallop. The distance closed. By the time he
caught Robb on the edge of the wolfswood, two miles beyond the
winter town, they had left the others well behind. “I can
ride!” Bran shouted, grinning. It felt almost as good as
flying.
“I’d race you, but I fear you’d win.”
Robb’s tone was light and joking, yet Bran could tell that
something was troubling his brother underneath the smile.
“I don’t want to race.” Bran looked around for
the direwolves. Both had vanished into the wood. “Did you
hear Summer howling last night?”
“Grey Wind was restless too,” Robb said. His auburn
hair had grown shaggy and unkempt, and a reddish stubble covered
his jaw, making him look older than his fifteen years.
“Sometimes I think they know things . . . sense things . . . ” Robb sighed. “I never know how much to tell you,
Bran. I wish you were older.”
“I’m eight now!” Bran said. “Eight
isn’t so much younger than fifteen, and I’m the heir to
Winterfell, after you.”
“So you are.” Robb sounded sad, and even a little
scared. “Bran, I need to tell you something. There was a bird
last night. From King’s Landing. Maester Luwin woke
me.”
Bran felt a sudden dread. Dark wings, dark words, Old Nan always
said, and of late the messenger ravens had been proving the truth
of the proverb. When Robb wrote to the Lord Commander of the
Night’s Watch, the bird that came back brought word that
Uncle Benjen was still missing. Then a message had arrived from the
Eyrie, from Mother, but that had not been good news either. She did
not say when she meant to return, only that she had taken the Imp
as prisoner. Bran had sort of liked the little man, yet the name
Lannister sent cold fingers creeping up his spine. There was
something about the Lannisters, something he ought to remember, but
when he tried to think what, he felt dizzy and his stomach clenched
hard as a stone. Robb spent most of that day locked behind closed
doors with Maester Luwin, Theon Greyjoy, and Hallis Mollen.
Afterward, riders were sent out on fast horses, carrying
Robb’s commands throughout the north. Bran heard talk of Moat
Cailin, the ancient stronghold the First Men had built at the top
of the Neck. No one ever told him what was happening, yet he knew
it was not good.
And now another raven, another message. Bran clung to hope.
“Was the bird from Mother? Is she coming home?”
“The message was from Alyn in King’s Landing. Jory
Cassel is dead. And Wyl and Heward as well. Murdered by the
Kingslayer.” Robb lifted his face to the snow, and the flakes
melted on his cheeks. “May the gods give them
rest.”
Bran did not know what to say. He felt as if he’d been
punched. Jory had been captain of the household guard at Winterfell
since before Bran was born. “They killed Jory?” He
remembered all the times Jory had chased him over the roofs. He
could picture him striding across the yard in mail and plate, or
sitting at his accustomed place on the bench in the Great Hall,
joking as he ate. “Why would anyone kill Jory?”
Robb shook his head numbly, the pain plain in his eyes. “I
don’t know, and . . . Bran, that’s not the worst of it.
Father was caught beneath a falling horse in the fight. Alyn says
his leg was shattered, and . . . Maester Pycelle has given him the
milk of the poppy, but they aren’t sure when . . . when he .
. .” The sound of hoofbeats made him glance down the road, to
where Theon and the others were coming up. “When he will
wake,” Robb finished. He laid his hand on the pommel of his
sword then, and went on in the solemn voice of Robb the Lord.
“Bran, I promise you, whatever might happen, I will not let
this be forgotten.”
Something in his tone made Bran even more fearful. “What
will you do?” he asked as Theon Greyjoy reined in beside
them.
“Theon thinks I should call the banners,” Robb
said.
“Blood for blood.” For once Greyjoy did not smile.
His lean, dark face had a hungry look to it, and black hair fell
down across his eyes.
“Only the lord can call the banners,” Bran said as
the snow drifted down around them.
“If your father dies,” Theon said, “Robb will
be Lord of Winterfell.”
“He won’t die!” Bran screamed at him.
Robb took his hand. “He won’t die, not
Father,” he said calmly. “Still . . . the honor of the north is in my hands now. When
our lord father took his leave of us, he told me to be strong for
you and for Rickon. I’m almost a man grown, Bran.”
Bran shivered. “I wish Mother was back,” he said
miserably. He looked around for Maester Luwin; his donkey was
visible in the far distance, trotting over a rise. “Does
Maester Luwin say to call the banners too?”
“The maester is timid as an old woman,” said
Theon.
“Father always listened to his counsel,” Bran
reminded his brother. “Mother too.”
“I listen to him,” Robb insisted. “I listen to
everyone.”
The joy Bran had felt at the ride was gone, melted away like the
snowflakes on his face. Not so long ago, the thought of Robb
calling the banners and riding off to war would have filled him
with excitement, but now he felt only dread. “Can we go back
now?” he asked. “I’m cold.”
Robb glanced around. “We need to find the wolves. Can you
stand to go a bit longer?”
“I can go as long as you can.” Maester Luwin had
warned him to keep the ride short, for fear of saddle sores, but
Bran would not admit to weakness in front of his brother. He was
sick of the way everyone was always fussing over him and asking how
he was.
“Let’s hunt down the hunters, then,” Robb
said. Side by side, they urged their mounts off the kingsroad and
struck out into the wolfswood. Theon dropped back and followed well
behind them, talking and joking with the guardsmen.
It was nice under the trees. Bran kept Dancer to a walk, holding
the reins lightly and looking all around him as they went. He knew
this wood, but he had been so long confined to Winterfell that he
felt as though he were seeing it for the first time. The smells
filled his nostrils; the sharp fresh tang of pine needles, the
earthy odor of wet rotting leaves, the hints of animal musk and
distant cooking fires. He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel
moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to
study the silvery web of an empress spider.
Theon and the others fell farther and farther behind, until Bran
could no longer hear their voices. From ahead came the faint sound
of rushing waters. It grew louder until they reached the stream.
Tears stung his eyes.
“Bran?” Robb asked. “What’s
wrong?”
Bran shook his head. “I was just remembering,” he
said. “Jory brought us here once, to fish for trout. You and
me and Jon. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Robb said, his voice quiet and
sad.
“I didn’t catch anything,” Bran said,
“but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will
we ever see Jon again?”
“We saw Uncle Benjen when the king came to visit,”
Robb pointed out. “Jon will visit too, you’ll
see.”
The stream was running high and fast. Robb dismounted and led
his gelding across the ford. In the deepest part of the crossing,
the water came up to midthigh. He tied his horse to a tree on the
far side, and waded back across for Bran and Dancer. The current
foamed around rock and root, and Bran could feel the spray on his
face as Robb led him over. It made him smile. For a moment he felt
strong again, and whole. He looked up at the trees and dreamed of
climbing them, right up to the very top, with the whole forest
spread out beneath him.
They were on the far side when they heard the howl, a long
rising wail that moved through the trees like a cold wind. Bran
raised his head to listen. “Summer,” he said. No sooner
had he spoken than a second voice joined the first.
“They’ve made a kill,” Robb said as he
remounted. “I’d best go and bring them back. Wait here,
Theon and the others should be along shortly.”
“I want to go with you,” Bran said.
“I’ll find them faster by myself.” Robb
spurred his gelding and vanished into the trees.
Once he was gone, the woods seemed to close in around Bran. The
snow was falling more heavily now. Where it touched the ground it
melted, but all about him rock and root and branch wore a thin
blanket of white. As he waited, he was conscious of how
uncomfortable he felt. He could not feel his legs, hanging useless
in the stirrups, but the strap around his chest was tight and
chafing, and the melting snow had soaked through his gloves to
chill his hands. He wondered what was keeping Theon and Maester
Luwin and Joseth and the rest.
When he heard the rustle of leaves, Bran used the reins to make
Dancer turn, expecting to see his friends, but the ragged men who
stepped out onto the bank of the stream were strangers.
“Good day to you,” he said nervously. One look, and
Bran knew they were neither foresters nor farmers. He was suddenly
conscious of how richly he was dressed. His surcoat was new, dark
grey wool with silver buttons, and a heavy silver pin fastened his
fur-trimmed cloak at the shoulders. His boots and gloves were lined
with fur as well.
“All alone, are you?” said the biggest of them, a
bald man with a raw windburnt face. “Lost in the wolfswood,
poor lad.”
“I’m not lost.” Bran did not like the way the
strangers were looking at him. He counted four, but when he turned
his head, he saw two others behind him. “My brother rode off
just a moment ago, and my guard will be here shortly.”
“Your guard, is it?” a second man said. Grey stubble
covered his gaunt face. “And what would they be guarding, my
little lord? Is that a silver pin I see there on your
cloak?”
“Pretty,” said a woman’s voice. She scarcely
looked like a woman; tall and lean, with the same hard face as the
others, her hair hidden beneath a bowl-shaped halfhelm. The spear
she held was eight feet of black oak, tipped in rusted steel.
“Let’s have a look,” said the big bald
man.
Bran watched him anxiously. The man’s clothes were filthy,
fallen almost to pieces, patched here with brown and here with blue
and there with a dark green, and faded everywhere to grey, but once
that cloak might have been black. The grey stubbly man wore black
rags too, he saw with a sudden start. Suddenly Bran remembered the
oathbreaker his father had beheaded, the day they had found the
wolf pups; that man had worn black as well, and Father said he had
been a deserter from the Night’s Watch. No man is more
dangerous, he remembered Lord Eddard saying. The deserter knows his
life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any
crime, no matter how vile or cruel.
“The pin, lad,” the big man said. He held out his
hand.
“We’ll take the horse too,” said another of
them, a woman shorter than Robb, with a broad fiat face and lank
yellow hair. “Get down, and be quick about it.” A knife
slid from her sleeve into her hand, its edge jagged as a saw.
“No,” Bran blurted. “I can’t . . . ”
The big man grabbed his reins before Bran could think to wheel
Dancer around and gallop off. “You can, lordling . . . and
will, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Stiv, look how he’s strapped on.” The tall
woman pointed with her spear. “Might be it’s the truth
he’s telling.”
“Straps, is it?” Stiv said. He drew a dagger from a
sheath at his belt. “There’s ways to deal with
straps.”
“You some kind of cripple?” asked the short
woman.
Bran flared. “I’m Brandon Stark of Winterfell, and
you better let go of my horse, or I’ll see you all
dead.”
The gaunt man with the grey stubbled face laughed. “The
boy’s a Stark, true enough. Only a Stark would be fool enough
to threaten where smarter men would beg.”
“Cut his little cock off and stuff it in his mouth,”
suggested the short woman. “That should shut him
up.”
“You’re as stupid as you are ugly, Hali,” said
the tall woman. “The boy’s worth nothing dead, but
alive . . . gods be damned, think what Mance would give to have
Benjen Stark’s own blood to hostage!”
“Mance be damned,” the big man cursed. “You
want to go back there, Osha? More fool you. Think the white walkers
will care if you have a hostage?” He turned back to Bran and
slashed at the strap around his thigh. The leather parted with a
sigh.
The stroke had been quick and careless, biting deep. Looking
down, Bran glimpsed pale flesh where the wool of his leggings had
parted. Then the blood began to flow. He watched the red stain
spread, feeling light-headed, curiously apart; there had been no
pain, not even a hint of feeling. The big man grunted in
surprise.
“Put down your steel now, and I promise you shall have a
quick and painless death,” Robb called out.
Bran looked up in desperate hope, and there he was. The strength
of the words were undercut by the way his voice cracked with
strain. He was mounted, the bloody carcass of an elk slung across
the back of his horse, his sword in a gloved hand.
“The brother,” said the man with the grey stubbly
face.
“He’s a fierce one, he is,” mocked the short
woman. Hali, they called her. “You mean to fight us,
boy?”
“Don’t be a fool, lad. You’re one against
six.” The tall woman, Osha, leveled her spear. “Off the
horse, and throw down the sword. We’ll thank you kindly for
the mount and for the venison, and you and your brother can be on
your way.”
Robb whistled. They heard the faint sound of soft feet on wet
leaves. The undergrowth parted, low-hanging branches giving up
their accumulation of snow, and Grey Wind and Summer emerged from
the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled.
“Wolves,” gasped Hali.
“Direwolves,” Bran said. Still half-grown, they were
as large as any wolf he had ever seen, but the differences were
easy to spot, if you knew what to look for. Maester Luwin and
Farlen the kennelmaster had taught him. A direwolf had a bigger
head and longer legs in proportion to its body, and its snout and
jaw were markedly leaner and more pronounced. There was something
gaunt and terrible about them as they stood there amid the gently
falling snow. Fresh blood spotted Grey Wind’s muzzle.
“Dogs,” the big bald man said contemptuously.
“Yet I’m told there’s nothing like a wolfskin
cloak to warm a man by night.” He made a sharp gesture.
“Take them.”
Robb shouted, “Winterfell!” and kicked his horse.
The gelding plunged down the bank as the ragged men closed. A man
with an axe rushed in, shouting and heedless. Robb’s sword
caught him full in the face with a sickening crunch and a spray of
bright blood. The man with the gaunt stubbly face made a grab for
the reins, and for half a second he had them . . . and then Grey
Wind was on him, bearing him down. He fell back into the stream
with a splash and a shout, flailing wildly with his knife as his
head went under. The direwolf plunged in after him, and the white
water turned red where they had vanished.
Robb and Osha matched blows in midstream. Her long spear was a
steel-headed serpent, flashing out at his chest, once, twice, three
times, but Robb parried every thrust with his longsword, turning
the point aside. On the fourth or fifth thrust, the tall woman
overextended herself and lost her balance, just for a second. Robb
charged, riding her down.
A few feet away, Summer darted in and snapped at Hali. The knife
bit at his flank. Summer slid away, snarling, and came rushing in
again. This time his jaws closed around her calf. Holding the knife
with both hands, the small woman stabbed down, but the direwolf
seemed to sense the blade coming. He pulled free for an instant,
his mouth full of leather and cloth and bloody flesh. When Hali
stumbled and fell, he came at her again, slamming her backward,
teeth tearing at her belly.
The sixth man ran from the carnage . . . but not far. As he went
scrambling up the far side of the bank, Grey Wind emerged from the
stream, dripping wet. He shook the water off and bounded after the
running man, hamstringing him with a single snap of his teeth, and
going for the throat as the screaming man slid back down toward the
water.
And then there was no one left but the big man, Stiv. He slashed
at Bran’s chest strap, grabbed his arm, and yanked. Suddenly
Bran was falling. He sprawled on the ground, his legs tangled under
him, one foot in the stream. He could not feel the cold of the
water, but he felt the steel when Stiv pressed his dagger to his
throat. “Back away,” the man warned, “or
I’ll open the boy’s windpipe, I swear it.”
Robb reined his horse in, breathing hard. The fury went out of
his eyes, and his sword arm dropped.
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali,
pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide
and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead. The
grey stubbly man and the one with the axe lay unmoving, but Osha
was on her knees, crawling toward her fallen spear. Grey Wind
padded toward her, dripping wet. “Call him off!” the
big man shouted. “Call them both off, or the cripple boy dies
now!”
“Grey Wind, Summer, to me,” Robb said.
The direwolves stopped, turned their heads. Grey Wind loped back
to Robb. Summer stayed where he was, his eyes on Bran and the man
beside him. He growled. His muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes
burned.
Osha used the butt end of her spear to lever herself back to her
feet. Blood leaked from a wound on the upper arm where Robb had cut
her. Bran could see sweat trickling down the big man’s face.
Stiv was as scared as he was, he realized. “Starks,”
the man muttered, “bloody Starks.” He raised his voice.
“Osha, kill the wolves and get his sword.”
“Kill them yourself,” she replied. “I’ll
not be getting near those monsters.”
For a moment Stiv was at a loss. His hand trembled; Bran felt a
trickle of blood where the knife pressed against his neck. The
stench of the man filled his nose; he smelled of fear.
“You,” he called out to Robb. “You have a
name?”
“I am Robb Stark, the heir to Winterfell.”
“This is your brother?”
“Yes.”
“You want him alive, you do what I say. Off the
horse.”
Robb hesitated a moment. Then, slowly and deliberately, he
dismounted and stood with his sword in hand.
“Now kill the wolves.”
Robb did not move.
“You do it. The wolves or the boy.”
“No!” Bran screamed. If Robb did as they asked, Stiv
would kill them both anyway, once the direwolves were dead.
The bald man took hold of his hair with his free hand and
twisted it cruelly, till Bran sobbed in pain. “You shut your
mouth, cripple, you hear me?” He twisted harder. “You
hear me?”
A low thrum came from the woods behind them. Stiv gave a choked
gasp as a half foot of razor-tipped broadhead suddenly exploded out
of his chest. The arrow was bright red, as if it had been painted
in blood.
The dagger fell away from Bran’s throat. The big man
swayed and collapsed, facedown in the stream. The arrow broke
beneath him. Bran watched his life go swirling off in the
water.
Osha glanced around as Father’s guardsmen appeared from
beneath the trees, steel in hand. She threw down her spear.
“Mercy, m’lord,” she called to Robb.
The guardsmen had a strange, pale look to their faces as they
took in the scene of slaughter. They eyed the wolves uncertainly,
and when Summer returned to Hali’s corpse to feed, Joseth
dropped his knife and scrambled for the bush, heaving. Even Maester
Luwin seemed shocked as he stepped from behind a tree, but only for
an instant. Then he shook his head and waded across the stream to
Bran’s side. “Are you hurt?”
“He cut my leg,” Bran said, “but I
couldn’t feel it.”
As the maester knelt to examine the wound, Bran turned his head.
Theon Greyjoy stood beside a sentinel tree, his bow in hand. He was
smiling. Ever smiling. A half-dozen arrows were thrust into the
soft ground at his feet, but it had taken only one. “A dead
enemy is a thing of beauty,” he announced.
“Jon always said you were an ass, Greyjoy,” Robb
said loudly. “I ought to chain you up in the yard and let
Bran take a few practice shots at you.”
“You should be thanking me for saving your brother’s
life.”
“What if you had missed the shot?” Robb said.
“What if you’d only wounded him? What if you had made
his hand jump, or hit Bran instead? For all you knew, the man might
have been wearing a breastplate, all you could see was the back of
his cloak. What would have happened to my brother then? Did you
ever think of that, Greyjoy?”
Theon’s smile was gone. He gave a sullen shrug and began
to pull his arrows from the ground, one by one.
Robb glared at his guardsmen. “Where were you?” he
demanded of them. “I was sure you were close behind
us.”
The men traded unhappy glances. “We were following,
m’lord,” said Quent, the youngest of them, his beard a
soft brown fuzz. “Only first we waited for Maester Luwin and
his ass, begging your pardons, and then, well, as it were . . . ” He
glanced over at Theon and quickly looked away, abashed.
“I spied a turkey,” Theon said, annoyed by the
question. “How was I to know that you’d leave the boy
alone?”
Robb turned his head to look at Theon once more. Bran had never
seen him so angry, yet he said nothing. Finally he knelt beside
Maester Luwin. “How badly is my brother wounded?”
“No more than a scratch,” the maester said. He wet a
cloth in the stream to clean the cut. “Two of them wear the
black,” he told Robb as he worked.
Robb glanced over at where Stiv lay sprawled in the stream, his
ragged black cloak moving fitfully as the rushing waters tugged at
it. “Deserters from the Night’s Watch,” he said
grimly. “They must have been fools, to come so close to
Winterfell.”
“Folly and desperation are ofttimes hard to tell
apart,” said Maester Luwin.
“Shall we bury them, m’lord?” asked Quent.
“They would not have buried us,” Robb said.
“Hack off their heads, we’ll send them back to the
Wall. Leave the rest for the carrion crows.”
“And this one?” Quent jerked a thumb toward
Osha.
Robb walked over to her. She was a head taller than he was, but
she dropped to her knees at his approach. “Give me my life,
m’lord of Stark, and I am yours.”
“Mine? What would I do with an oathbreaker?”
“I broke no oaths. Stiv and Wallen flew down off the Wall,
not me. The black crows got no place for women.”
Theon Greyjoy sauntered closer. “Give her to the
wolves,” he urged Robb. The woman’s eyes went to what
was left of Hali, and just as quickly away. She shuddered. Even the
guardsmen looked queasy.
“She’s a woman,” Robb said.
“A wildling,” Bran told him. “She said they
should keep me alive so they could take me to Mance
Rayder.”
“Do you have a name?” Robb asked her.
“Osha, as it please the lord,” she muttered
sourly.
Maester Luwin stood. “We might do well to question
her.”
Bran could see the relief on his brother’s face. “As
you say, Maester. Wayn, bind her hands. She’ll come back to
Winterfell with us . . . and live or die by the truths she gives
us.”
A light snow was falling. Bran could feel the
flakes on his face, melting as they touched his skin like the
gentlest of rains. He sat straight atop his horse, watching as the
iron portcullis was winched upward. Try as he might to keep calm,
his heart was fluttering in his chest.
“Are you ready?” Robb asked.
Bran nodded, trying not to let his fear show. He had not been
outside Winterfell since his fall, but he was determined to ride
out as proud as any knight.
“Let’s ride, then.” Robb put his heels into
his big grey-and-white gelding, and the horse walked under the
portcullis.
“Go,” Bran whispered to his own horse. He touched
her neck lightly, and the small chestnut filly started forward.
Bran had named her Dancer. She was two years old, and Joseth said
she was smarter than any horse had a right to be. They had trained
her special, to respond to rein and voice and touch. Up to now,
Bran had only ridden her around the yard. At first Joseth or Hodor
would lead her, while Bran sat strapped to her back in the oversize
saddle the Imp had drawn up for him, but for the past fortnight he
had been riding her on his own, trotting her round and round, and
growing bolder with every circuit.
They passed beneath the gatehouse, over the drawbridge, through
the outer walls. Summer and Grey Wind came loping beside them,
sniffing at the wind. Close behind came Theon Greyjoy, with his
longbow and a quiver of broadheads; he had a mind to take a deer,
he had told them. He was followed by four guardsmen in mailed
shirts and coifs, and Joseth, a stick-thin stableman whom Robb had
named master of horse while Hullen was away. Maester Luwin brought
up the rear, riding on a donkey. Bran would have liked it better if
he and Robb had gone off alone, just the two of them, but Hal
Mollen would not hear of it, and Maester Luwin backed him. If Bran
fell off his horse or injured himself, the maester was determined
to be with him.
Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls
deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past
rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one
in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from
their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew
colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the
north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant
holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came
alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the
day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at
hand. Winter is coming.
A few villagers eyed the direwolves anxiously as the riders went
past, and one man dropped the wood he was carrying as he shrank
away in fear, but most of the townfolk had grown used to the sight.
They bent the knee when they saw the boys, and Robb greeted each of
them with a lordly nod.
With his legs unable to grip, the swaying motion of the horse
made Bran feel unsteady at first, but the huge saddle with its
thick horn and high back cradled him comfortingly, and the straps
around his chest and thighs would not allow him to fall. After a
time the rhythm began to feel almost natural. His anxiety faded,
and a tremulous smile crept across his face.
Two serving wenches stood beneath the sign of the Smoking Log,
the local alehouse. When Theon Greyjoy called out to them, the
younger girl turned red and covered her face. Theon spurred his
mount to move up beside Robb. “Sweet Kyra,” he said
with a laugh. “She squirms like a weasel in bed, but say a
word to her on the street, and she blushes pink as a maid. Did I
ever tell you about the night that she and Bessa—”
“Not where my brother can hear, Theon,” Robb warned
him with a glance at Bran.
Bran looked away and pretended not to have heard, but he could
feel Greyjoy’s eyes on him. No doubt he was smiling. He
smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was
clever enough to understand. Robb seemed to admire Theon and enjoy
his company, but Bran had never warmed to his father’s
ward.
Robb rode closer. “You are doing well, Bran.”
“I want to go faster,” Bran replied.
Robb smiled. “As you will.” He sent his gelding into
a trot. The wolves raced after him. Bran snapped the reins sharply,
and Dancer picked up her pace. He heard a shout from Theon Greyjoy,
and the hoofbeats of the other horses behind him.
Bran’s cloak billowed out, rippling in the wind, and the
snow seemed to rush at his face. Robb was well ahead, glancing back
over his shoulder from time to time to make sure Bran and the
others were following. He snapped the reins again. Smooth as silk,
Dancer slid into a gallop. The distance closed. By the time he
caught Robb on the edge of the wolfswood, two miles beyond the
winter town, they had left the others well behind. “I can
ride!” Bran shouted, grinning. It felt almost as good as
flying.
“I’d race you, but I fear you’d win.”
Robb’s tone was light and joking, yet Bran could tell that
something was troubling his brother underneath the smile.
“I don’t want to race.” Bran looked around for
the direwolves. Both had vanished into the wood. “Did you
hear Summer howling last night?”
“Grey Wind was restless too,” Robb said. His auburn
hair had grown shaggy and unkempt, and a reddish stubble covered
his jaw, making him look older than his fifteen years.
“Sometimes I think they know things . . . sense things . . . ” Robb sighed. “I never know how much to tell you,
Bran. I wish you were older.”
“I’m eight now!” Bran said. “Eight
isn’t so much younger than fifteen, and I’m the heir to
Winterfell, after you.”
“So you are.” Robb sounded sad, and even a little
scared. “Bran, I need to tell you something. There was a bird
last night. From King’s Landing. Maester Luwin woke
me.”
Bran felt a sudden dread. Dark wings, dark words, Old Nan always
said, and of late the messenger ravens had been proving the truth
of the proverb. When Robb wrote to the Lord Commander of the
Night’s Watch, the bird that came back brought word that
Uncle Benjen was still missing. Then a message had arrived from the
Eyrie, from Mother, but that had not been good news either. She did
not say when she meant to return, only that she had taken the Imp
as prisoner. Bran had sort of liked the little man, yet the name
Lannister sent cold fingers creeping up his spine. There was
something about the Lannisters, something he ought to remember, but
when he tried to think what, he felt dizzy and his stomach clenched
hard as a stone. Robb spent most of that day locked behind closed
doors with Maester Luwin, Theon Greyjoy, and Hallis Mollen.
Afterward, riders were sent out on fast horses, carrying
Robb’s commands throughout the north. Bran heard talk of Moat
Cailin, the ancient stronghold the First Men had built at the top
of the Neck. No one ever told him what was happening, yet he knew
it was not good.
And now another raven, another message. Bran clung to hope.
“Was the bird from Mother? Is she coming home?”
“The message was from Alyn in King’s Landing. Jory
Cassel is dead. And Wyl and Heward as well. Murdered by the
Kingslayer.” Robb lifted his face to the snow, and the flakes
melted on his cheeks. “May the gods give them
rest.”
Bran did not know what to say. He felt as if he’d been
punched. Jory had been captain of the household guard at Winterfell
since before Bran was born. “They killed Jory?” He
remembered all the times Jory had chased him over the roofs. He
could picture him striding across the yard in mail and plate, or
sitting at his accustomed place on the bench in the Great Hall,
joking as he ate. “Why would anyone kill Jory?”
Robb shook his head numbly, the pain plain in his eyes. “I
don’t know, and . . . Bran, that’s not the worst of it.
Father was caught beneath a falling horse in the fight. Alyn says
his leg was shattered, and . . . Maester Pycelle has given him the
milk of the poppy, but they aren’t sure when . . . when he .
. .” The sound of hoofbeats made him glance down the road, to
where Theon and the others were coming up. “When he will
wake,” Robb finished. He laid his hand on the pommel of his
sword then, and went on in the solemn voice of Robb the Lord.
“Bran, I promise you, whatever might happen, I will not let
this be forgotten.”
Something in his tone made Bran even more fearful. “What
will you do?” he asked as Theon Greyjoy reined in beside
them.
“Theon thinks I should call the banners,” Robb
said.
“Blood for blood.” For once Greyjoy did not smile.
His lean, dark face had a hungry look to it, and black hair fell
down across his eyes.
“Only the lord can call the banners,” Bran said as
the snow drifted down around them.
“If your father dies,” Theon said, “Robb will
be Lord of Winterfell.”
“He won’t die!” Bran screamed at him.
Robb took his hand. “He won’t die, not
Father,” he said calmly. “Still . . . the honor of the north is in my hands now. When
our lord father took his leave of us, he told me to be strong for
you and for Rickon. I’m almost a man grown, Bran.”
Bran shivered. “I wish Mother was back,” he said
miserably. He looked around for Maester Luwin; his donkey was
visible in the far distance, trotting over a rise. “Does
Maester Luwin say to call the banners too?”
“The maester is timid as an old woman,” said
Theon.
“Father always listened to his counsel,” Bran
reminded his brother. “Mother too.”
“I listen to him,” Robb insisted. “I listen to
everyone.”
The joy Bran had felt at the ride was gone, melted away like the
snowflakes on his face. Not so long ago, the thought of Robb
calling the banners and riding off to war would have filled him
with excitement, but now he felt only dread. “Can we go back
now?” he asked. “I’m cold.”
Robb glanced around. “We need to find the wolves. Can you
stand to go a bit longer?”
“I can go as long as you can.” Maester Luwin had
warned him to keep the ride short, for fear of saddle sores, but
Bran would not admit to weakness in front of his brother. He was
sick of the way everyone was always fussing over him and asking how
he was.
“Let’s hunt down the hunters, then,” Robb
said. Side by side, they urged their mounts off the kingsroad and
struck out into the wolfswood. Theon dropped back and followed well
behind them, talking and joking with the guardsmen.
It was nice under the trees. Bran kept Dancer to a walk, holding
the reins lightly and looking all around him as they went. He knew
this wood, but he had been so long confined to Winterfell that he
felt as though he were seeing it for the first time. The smells
filled his nostrils; the sharp fresh tang of pine needles, the
earthy odor of wet rotting leaves, the hints of animal musk and
distant cooking fires. He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel
moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to
study the silvery web of an empress spider.
Theon and the others fell farther and farther behind, until Bran
could no longer hear their voices. From ahead came the faint sound
of rushing waters. It grew louder until they reached the stream.
Tears stung his eyes.
“Bran?” Robb asked. “What’s
wrong?”
Bran shook his head. “I was just remembering,” he
said. “Jory brought us here once, to fish for trout. You and
me and Jon. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Robb said, his voice quiet and
sad.
“I didn’t catch anything,” Bran said,
“but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will
we ever see Jon again?”
“We saw Uncle Benjen when the king came to visit,”
Robb pointed out. “Jon will visit too, you’ll
see.”
The stream was running high and fast. Robb dismounted and led
his gelding across the ford. In the deepest part of the crossing,
the water came up to midthigh. He tied his horse to a tree on the
far side, and waded back across for Bran and Dancer. The current
foamed around rock and root, and Bran could feel the spray on his
face as Robb led him over. It made him smile. For a moment he felt
strong again, and whole. He looked up at the trees and dreamed of
climbing them, right up to the very top, with the whole forest
spread out beneath him.
They were on the far side when they heard the howl, a long
rising wail that moved through the trees like a cold wind. Bran
raised his head to listen. “Summer,” he said. No sooner
had he spoken than a second voice joined the first.
“They’ve made a kill,” Robb said as he
remounted. “I’d best go and bring them back. Wait here,
Theon and the others should be along shortly.”
“I want to go with you,” Bran said.
“I’ll find them faster by myself.” Robb
spurred his gelding and vanished into the trees.
Once he was gone, the woods seemed to close in around Bran. The
snow was falling more heavily now. Where it touched the ground it
melted, but all about him rock and root and branch wore a thin
blanket of white. As he waited, he was conscious of how
uncomfortable he felt. He could not feel his legs, hanging useless
in the stirrups, but the strap around his chest was tight and
chafing, and the melting snow had soaked through his gloves to
chill his hands. He wondered what was keeping Theon and Maester
Luwin and Joseth and the rest.
When he heard the rustle of leaves, Bran used the reins to make
Dancer turn, expecting to see his friends, but the ragged men who
stepped out onto the bank of the stream were strangers.
“Good day to you,” he said nervously. One look, and
Bran knew they were neither foresters nor farmers. He was suddenly
conscious of how richly he was dressed. His surcoat was new, dark
grey wool with silver buttons, and a heavy silver pin fastened his
fur-trimmed cloak at the shoulders. His boots and gloves were lined
with fur as well.
“All alone, are you?” said the biggest of them, a
bald man with a raw windburnt face. “Lost in the wolfswood,
poor lad.”
“I’m not lost.” Bran did not like the way the
strangers were looking at him. He counted four, but when he turned
his head, he saw two others behind him. “My brother rode off
just a moment ago, and my guard will be here shortly.”
“Your guard, is it?” a second man said. Grey stubble
covered his gaunt face. “And what would they be guarding, my
little lord? Is that a silver pin I see there on your
cloak?”
“Pretty,” said a woman’s voice. She scarcely
looked like a woman; tall and lean, with the same hard face as the
others, her hair hidden beneath a bowl-shaped halfhelm. The spear
she held was eight feet of black oak, tipped in rusted steel.
“Let’s have a look,” said the big bald
man.
Bran watched him anxiously. The man’s clothes were filthy,
fallen almost to pieces, patched here with brown and here with blue
and there with a dark green, and faded everywhere to grey, but once
that cloak might have been black. The grey stubbly man wore black
rags too, he saw with a sudden start. Suddenly Bran remembered the
oathbreaker his father had beheaded, the day they had found the
wolf pups; that man had worn black as well, and Father said he had
been a deserter from the Night’s Watch. No man is more
dangerous, he remembered Lord Eddard saying. The deserter knows his
life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any
crime, no matter how vile or cruel.
“The pin, lad,” the big man said. He held out his
hand.
“We’ll take the horse too,” said another of
them, a woman shorter than Robb, with a broad fiat face and lank
yellow hair. “Get down, and be quick about it.” A knife
slid from her sleeve into her hand, its edge jagged as a saw.
“No,” Bran blurted. “I can’t . . . ”
The big man grabbed his reins before Bran could think to wheel
Dancer around and gallop off. “You can, lordling . . . and
will, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Stiv, look how he’s strapped on.” The tall
woman pointed with her spear. “Might be it’s the truth
he’s telling.”
“Straps, is it?” Stiv said. He drew a dagger from a
sheath at his belt. “There’s ways to deal with
straps.”
“You some kind of cripple?” asked the short
woman.
Bran flared. “I’m Brandon Stark of Winterfell, and
you better let go of my horse, or I’ll see you all
dead.”
The gaunt man with the grey stubbled face laughed. “The
boy’s a Stark, true enough. Only a Stark would be fool enough
to threaten where smarter men would beg.”
“Cut his little cock off and stuff it in his mouth,”
suggested the short woman. “That should shut him
up.”
“You’re as stupid as you are ugly, Hali,” said
the tall woman. “The boy’s worth nothing dead, but
alive . . . gods be damned, think what Mance would give to have
Benjen Stark’s own blood to hostage!”
“Mance be damned,” the big man cursed. “You
want to go back there, Osha? More fool you. Think the white walkers
will care if you have a hostage?” He turned back to Bran and
slashed at the strap around his thigh. The leather parted with a
sigh.
The stroke had been quick and careless, biting deep. Looking
down, Bran glimpsed pale flesh where the wool of his leggings had
parted. Then the blood began to flow. He watched the red stain
spread, feeling light-headed, curiously apart; there had been no
pain, not even a hint of feeling. The big man grunted in
surprise.
“Put down your steel now, and I promise you shall have a
quick and painless death,” Robb called out.
Bran looked up in desperate hope, and there he was. The strength
of the words were undercut by the way his voice cracked with
strain. He was mounted, the bloody carcass of an elk slung across
the back of his horse, his sword in a gloved hand.
“The brother,” said the man with the grey stubbly
face.
“He’s a fierce one, he is,” mocked the short
woman. Hali, they called her. “You mean to fight us,
boy?”
“Don’t be a fool, lad. You’re one against
six.” The tall woman, Osha, leveled her spear. “Off the
horse, and throw down the sword. We’ll thank you kindly for
the mount and for the venison, and you and your brother can be on
your way.”
Robb whistled. They heard the faint sound of soft feet on wet
leaves. The undergrowth parted, low-hanging branches giving up
their accumulation of snow, and Grey Wind and Summer emerged from
the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled.
“Wolves,” gasped Hali.
“Direwolves,” Bran said. Still half-grown, they were
as large as any wolf he had ever seen, but the differences were
easy to spot, if you knew what to look for. Maester Luwin and
Farlen the kennelmaster had taught him. A direwolf had a bigger
head and longer legs in proportion to its body, and its snout and
jaw were markedly leaner and more pronounced. There was something
gaunt and terrible about them as they stood there amid the gently
falling snow. Fresh blood spotted Grey Wind’s muzzle.
“Dogs,” the big bald man said contemptuously.
“Yet I’m told there’s nothing like a wolfskin
cloak to warm a man by night.” He made a sharp gesture.
“Take them.”
Robb shouted, “Winterfell!” and kicked his horse.
The gelding plunged down the bank as the ragged men closed. A man
with an axe rushed in, shouting and heedless. Robb’s sword
caught him full in the face with a sickening crunch and a spray of
bright blood. The man with the gaunt stubbly face made a grab for
the reins, and for half a second he had them . . . and then Grey
Wind was on him, bearing him down. He fell back into the stream
with a splash and a shout, flailing wildly with his knife as his
head went under. The direwolf plunged in after him, and the white
water turned red where they had vanished.
Robb and Osha matched blows in midstream. Her long spear was a
steel-headed serpent, flashing out at his chest, once, twice, three
times, but Robb parried every thrust with his longsword, turning
the point aside. On the fourth or fifth thrust, the tall woman
overextended herself and lost her balance, just for a second. Robb
charged, riding her down.
A few feet away, Summer darted in and snapped at Hali. The knife
bit at his flank. Summer slid away, snarling, and came rushing in
again. This time his jaws closed around her calf. Holding the knife
with both hands, the small woman stabbed down, but the direwolf
seemed to sense the blade coming. He pulled free for an instant,
his mouth full of leather and cloth and bloody flesh. When Hali
stumbled and fell, he came at her again, slamming her backward,
teeth tearing at her belly.
The sixth man ran from the carnage . . . but not far. As he went
scrambling up the far side of the bank, Grey Wind emerged from the
stream, dripping wet. He shook the water off and bounded after the
running man, hamstringing him with a single snap of his teeth, and
going for the throat as the screaming man slid back down toward the
water.
And then there was no one left but the big man, Stiv. He slashed
at Bran’s chest strap, grabbed his arm, and yanked. Suddenly
Bran was falling. He sprawled on the ground, his legs tangled under
him, one foot in the stream. He could not feel the cold of the
water, but he felt the steel when Stiv pressed his dagger to his
throat. “Back away,” the man warned, “or
I’ll open the boy’s windpipe, I swear it.”
Robb reined his horse in, breathing hard. The fury went out of
his eyes, and his sword arm dropped.
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali,
pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide
and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead. The
grey stubbly man and the one with the axe lay unmoving, but Osha
was on her knees, crawling toward her fallen spear. Grey Wind
padded toward her, dripping wet. “Call him off!” the
big man shouted. “Call them both off, or the cripple boy dies
now!”
“Grey Wind, Summer, to me,” Robb said.
The direwolves stopped, turned their heads. Grey Wind loped back
to Robb. Summer stayed where he was, his eyes on Bran and the man
beside him. He growled. His muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes
burned.
Osha used the butt end of her spear to lever herself back to her
feet. Blood leaked from a wound on the upper arm where Robb had cut
her. Bran could see sweat trickling down the big man’s face.
Stiv was as scared as he was, he realized. “Starks,”
the man muttered, “bloody Starks.” He raised his voice.
“Osha, kill the wolves and get his sword.”
“Kill them yourself,” she replied. “I’ll
not be getting near those monsters.”
For a moment Stiv was at a loss. His hand trembled; Bran felt a
trickle of blood where the knife pressed against his neck. The
stench of the man filled his nose; he smelled of fear.
“You,” he called out to Robb. “You have a
name?”
“I am Robb Stark, the heir to Winterfell.”
“This is your brother?”
“Yes.”
“You want him alive, you do what I say. Off the
horse.”
Robb hesitated a moment. Then, slowly and deliberately, he
dismounted and stood with his sword in hand.
“Now kill the wolves.”
Robb did not move.
“You do it. The wolves or the boy.”
“No!” Bran screamed. If Robb did as they asked, Stiv
would kill them both anyway, once the direwolves were dead.
The bald man took hold of his hair with his free hand and
twisted it cruelly, till Bran sobbed in pain. “You shut your
mouth, cripple, you hear me?” He twisted harder. “You
hear me?”
A low thrum came from the woods behind them. Stiv gave a choked
gasp as a half foot of razor-tipped broadhead suddenly exploded out
of his chest. The arrow was bright red, as if it had been painted
in blood.
The dagger fell away from Bran’s throat. The big man
swayed and collapsed, facedown in the stream. The arrow broke
beneath him. Bran watched his life go swirling off in the
water.
Osha glanced around as Father’s guardsmen appeared from
beneath the trees, steel in hand. She threw down her spear.
“Mercy, m’lord,” she called to Robb.
The guardsmen had a strange, pale look to their faces as they
took in the scene of slaughter. They eyed the wolves uncertainly,
and when Summer returned to Hali’s corpse to feed, Joseth
dropped his knife and scrambled for the bush, heaving. Even Maester
Luwin seemed shocked as he stepped from behind a tree, but only for
an instant. Then he shook his head and waded across the stream to
Bran’s side. “Are you hurt?”
“He cut my leg,” Bran said, “but I
couldn’t feel it.”
As the maester knelt to examine the wound, Bran turned his head.
Theon Greyjoy stood beside a sentinel tree, his bow in hand. He was
smiling. Ever smiling. A half-dozen arrows were thrust into the
soft ground at his feet, but it had taken only one. “A dead
enemy is a thing of beauty,” he announced.
“Jon always said you were an ass, Greyjoy,” Robb
said loudly. “I ought to chain you up in the yard and let
Bran take a few practice shots at you.”
“You should be thanking me for saving your brother’s
life.”
“What if you had missed the shot?” Robb said.
“What if you’d only wounded him? What if you had made
his hand jump, or hit Bran instead? For all you knew, the man might
have been wearing a breastplate, all you could see was the back of
his cloak. What would have happened to my brother then? Did you
ever think of that, Greyjoy?”
Theon’s smile was gone. He gave a sullen shrug and began
to pull his arrows from the ground, one by one.
Robb glared at his guardsmen. “Where were you?” he
demanded of them. “I was sure you were close behind
us.”
The men traded unhappy glances. “We were following,
m’lord,” said Quent, the youngest of them, his beard a
soft brown fuzz. “Only first we waited for Maester Luwin and
his ass, begging your pardons, and then, well, as it were . . . ” He
glanced over at Theon and quickly looked away, abashed.
“I spied a turkey,” Theon said, annoyed by the
question. “How was I to know that you’d leave the boy
alone?”
Robb turned his head to look at Theon once more. Bran had never
seen him so angry, yet he said nothing. Finally he knelt beside
Maester Luwin. “How badly is my brother wounded?”
“No more than a scratch,” the maester said. He wet a
cloth in the stream to clean the cut. “Two of them wear the
black,” he told Robb as he worked.
Robb glanced over at where Stiv lay sprawled in the stream, his
ragged black cloak moving fitfully as the rushing waters tugged at
it. “Deserters from the Night’s Watch,” he said
grimly. “They must have been fools, to come so close to
Winterfell.”
“Folly and desperation are ofttimes hard to tell
apart,” said Maester Luwin.
“Shall we bury them, m’lord?” asked Quent.
“They would not have buried us,” Robb said.
“Hack off their heads, we’ll send them back to the
Wall. Leave the rest for the carrion crows.”
“And this one?” Quent jerked a thumb toward
Osha.
Robb walked over to her. She was a head taller than he was, but
she dropped to her knees at his approach. “Give me my life,
m’lord of Stark, and I am yours.”
“Mine? What would I do with an oathbreaker?”
“I broke no oaths. Stiv and Wallen flew down off the Wall,
not me. The black crows got no place for women.”
Theon Greyjoy sauntered closer. “Give her to the
wolves,” he urged Robb. The woman’s eyes went to what
was left of Hali, and just as quickly away. She shuddered. Even the
guardsmen looked queasy.
“She’s a woman,” Robb said.
“A wildling,” Bran told him. “She said they
should keep me alive so they could take me to Mance
Rayder.”
“Do you have a name?” Robb asked her.
“Osha, as it please the lord,” she muttered
sourly.
Maester Luwin stood. “We might do well to question
her.”
Bran could see the relief on his brother’s face. “As
you say, Maester. Wayn, bind her hands. She’ll come back to
Winterfell with us . . . and live or die by the truths she gives
us.”