The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone
and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines
and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the
ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.
He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping
easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up
the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by,
clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind
sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one
another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest
floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the
good green world.
Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet
to stand upon the crest. The sun hung above the tall pines huge and
red, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he
could see or smell. A kite was circling far above, dark against the
pink sky. Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could
feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the
wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived
in the good green world went in fear of him.
Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the
trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was
enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green
brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His
little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now the prince could see
more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.
He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who
stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had
given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their
sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and
his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but
each was different too.
His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince
felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun
that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others
were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.
Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still
with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of
trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet
he felt their presence at his back . . . all
but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered
her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no
voice.
These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills,
the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams
and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister
had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other
hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the
path back out. The wolf prince remembered.
The wind shifted suddenly. Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in
him. The prince sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was
off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far
side of the ridge was steeper than the one he’d come up, but
he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the
slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The
scent pulled him onward, ever faster.
The deer was down and dying when he reached her, ringed by eight
of his small grey cousins. The heads of the pack had begun to feed,
the male first and then his female, taking turns tearing flesh from
the red underbelly of their prey. The others waited patiently, all
but the tail, who paced in a wary circle a few strides from the
rest, his own tail tucked low. He would eat the last of all,
whatever his brothers left him.
The prince was downwind, so they did not sense him until he
leapt up upon a fallen log six strides from where they fed. The
tail saw him first, gave a piteous whine, and slunk away. His pack
brothers turned at the sound and bared their teeth, snarling, all
but the head male and female.
The direwolf answered the snarls with a low warning growl and
showed them his own teeth. He was bigger than his cousins, twice
the size of the scrawny tail, half again as large as the two pack
heads. He leapt down into their midst, and three of them broke,
melting away into the brush. Another came at him, teeth snapping. He met the attack head on,
caught the wolf’s leg in his jaws when they met, and flung
him aside yelping and limping.
And then there was only the head wolf to face, the great grey
male with his bloody muzzle fresh from the prey’s soft belly.
There was white on his muzzle as well, to mark him as an old wolf,
but when his mouth opened, red slaver ran from his teeth. He has no fear, the prince thought, no more than me. It would be
a good fight. They went for each other.
Long they fought, rolling together over roots and stones and
fallen leaves and the scattered entrails of the prey, tearing at
each other with tooth and claw, breaking apart, circling each round
the other, and bolting in to fight again. The prince was larger,
and much the stronger, but his cousin had a pack. The female
prowled around them closely, snuffing and snarling, and would
interpose herself whenever her mate broke off bloodied. From time
to time the other wolves would dart in as well, to snap at a leg or
an ear when the prince was turned the other way. One angered him so
much that he whirled in a black fury and tore out the
attacker’s throat. After that the others kept their
distance.
And as the last red light was filtering through green boughs and
golden, the old wolf lay down weary in the dirt, and rolled over to
expose his throat and belly. It was submission.
The prince sniffed at him and licked the blood from fur and torn
flesh. When the old wolf gave a soft whimper, the direwolf turned
away. He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.
“Hodor.”
The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded
him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day.
None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in
his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer’s belly and tore off
a mouthful of flesh.
“Hodor, hodor.” No, he thought. No, I won’t. It was a boy’s thought,
not a direwolf’s. The woods were darkening all about him,
until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his
cousins’ eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he
saw a big man’s grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls
were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his
tongue. No, don’t, don’t, I want to eat, I want to, I
want . . .
“Hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor,” Hodor chanted
as he shook him softly by the shoulders, back and forth and back
and forth. He was trying to be gentle, he always tried, but Hodor
was seven feet tall and stronger than he knew, and his huge hands
rattled Bran’s teeth together. “NO!” he shouted angrily.
“Hodor, leave off, I’m here, I’m here.”
Hodor stopped, looking abashed. “Hodor?”
The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the
damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned
thousands of years before. It wasn’t much of a tower now.
Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that
you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them.
“Tumbledown Tower”, Bran had named the place; it was
Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.
“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen,
only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger
either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn
way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really
was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little
grandfather.”
Bran frowned at him. “I wanted to eat.”
“Meera will be back soon with supper.”
“I’m sick of frogs.” Meera was a frogeater
from the Neck, so Bran couldn’t really blame her for catching
so many frogs, he supposed, but even
so . . . “I wanted to eat the
deer.” For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood
and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for
it. I won.
“Did you mark the trees?”
Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he
opened his third eye and put on Summer’s skin. To claw the
bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws
uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. “I
forgot,” he said.
“You always forget.”
It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but
once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always
things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And
he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was
running after prey. “I was a prince, Jojen,” he told
the older boy. “I was the prince of the woods.”
“You are a prince,” Jojen reminded him softly.
“You remember, don’t you? Tell me who you
are.”
“You know.” Jojen was his friend and his teacher, but
sometimes Bran just wanted to hit him.
“I want you to say the words. Tell me who you
are.”
“Bran,” he said sullenly. Bran the Broken.
“Brandon Stark.” The cripple boy. “The Prince of
Winterfell.” Of Winterfell burned and tumbled, its people
scattered and slain. The glass gardens were smashed, and hot water
gushed from the cracked walls to steam beneath the sun. How can you
be the prince of someplace you might never see again?
“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.
“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the
green.”
“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two,
then?”
“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated
Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to
dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always
calling me back.
“Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will
consume you. When you join, it is not enough to run and hunt and
howl in Summer’s skin.” It is for me, Bran thought. He liked Summer’s skin better
than his own. What good is it to be a skinchanger if you
can’t wear the skin you like?
“Will you remember? And next time, mark the tree. Any
tree, it doesn’t matter, so long as you do it.”
“I will. I’ll remember. I could go back and do it
now, if you like. I won’t forget this time.” But
I’ll eat my deer first, and fight with those little wolves
some more.
Jojen shook his head. “No. Best stay, and eat. With your
own mouth. A warg cannot live on what his beast
consumes.” How would you know? Bran thought resentfully. You’ve never
been a warg, you don’t know what it’s like.
Hodor jerked suddenly to his feet, almost hitting his head on
the barrel-vaulted ceiling. “HODOR!” he shouted, rushing
to the door. Meera pushed it open just before he reached it, and
stepped through into their refuge. “Hodor, hodor,” the
huge stableboy said, grinning.
Meera Reed was sixteen, a woman grown, but she stood no higher
than her brother. All the crannogmen were small, she told Bran once
when he asked why she wasn’t taller. Brown-haired,
green-eyed, and flat as a boy, she walked with a supple grace that
Bran could only watch and envy. Meera wore a long sharp dagger, but
her favorite way to fight was with a slender three-pronged frog
spear in one hand and a woven net in the other.
“Who’s hungry?” she asked, holding up her
catch: two small silvery trout and six fat green frogs.
“I am,” said Bran. But not for frogs. Back at
Winterfell before all the bad things had happened, the Walders used
to say that eating frogs would turn your teeth green and make moss
grow under your arms. He wondered if the Walders were dead. He
hadn’t seen their corpses at
Winterfell . . . but there had been a lot of
corpses, and they hadn’t looked inside the buildings.
“We’ll just have to feed you, then. Will you help me
clean the catch, Bran?”
He nodded. It was hard to sulk with Meera. She was much more
cheerful than her brother, and always seemed to know how to make
him smile. Nothing ever scared her or made her angry. Well, except
Jojen, sometimes . . . Jojen Reed could scare
most anyone. He dressed all in green, his eyes were murky as moss,
and he had green dreams. What Jojen dreamed came true. Except he
dreamed me dead, and I’m not. Only he was, in a way.
Jojen sent Hodor out for wood and built them a small fire while
Bran and Meera were cleaning the fish and frogs. They used
Meera’s helm for a cooking pot, chopping up the catch into
little cubes and tossing in some water and some wild onions Hodor
had found to make a froggy stew. It wasn’t as good as deer,
but it wasn’t bad either, Bran decided as he ate.
“Thank you, Meera,” he said. “My lady.”
“You are most welcome, Your Grace.”
“Come the morrow,” Jojen announced, “we had
best move on.”
Bran could see Meera tense. “Have you had a green
dream?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Why leave, then?” his sister demanded.
“Tumbledown Tower’s a good place for us. No villages
near, the woods are full of game, there’s fish and frogs in
the streams and lakes . . . and who is ever
going to find us here?”
“This is not the place we are meant to be.”
“It is safe, though.”
“It seems safe, I know,” said Jojen, “but for
how long? There was a battle at Winterfell, we saw the dead.
Battles mean wars. If some army should take us
unawares . . . ”
“It might be Robb’s army,” said Bran.
“Robb will come back from the south soon, I know he will.
He’ll come back with all his banners and chase the ironmen
away.”
“Your maester said naught of Robb when he lay
dying,” Jojen reminded him. “Ironmen on the Stony
Shore, he said, and, east, the Bastard of Bolton. Moat Cailin and
Deepwood Motte fallen, the heir to Cerwyn dead, and the castellan
of Torrhen’s Square. War everywhere, he said, each man
against his neighbor.”
“We have plowed this field before,” his sister said.
“You want to make for the Wall, and your three-eyed crow.
That’s well and good, but the Wall is a very long way and
Bran has no legs but Hodor. If we were
mounted . . . ”
“If we were eagles we might fly,” said Jojen
sharply, “but we have no wings, no more than we have
horses.”
“There are horses to be had,” said Meera.
“Even in the deep of the wolfswood there are foresters,
crofters, hunters. Some will have horses.”
“And if they do, should we steal them? Are we thieves? The
last thing we need is men hunting us.”
“We could buy them,” she said. “Trade for
them.”
“Look at us, Meera. A crippled boy with a direwolf, a
simpleminded giant, and two crannogmen a thousand leagues from the
Neck. We will be known. And word will spread. So long as Bran
remains dead, he is safe. Alive, he becomes prey for those who want
him dead for good and true.” Jojen went to the fire to prod
the embers with a stick. “Somewhere to the north, the
three-eyed crow awaits us. Bran has need of a teacher wiser than
me.”
“How, Jojen?” his sister asked.
“How?”
“Afoot,” he answered. “A step at a
time.”
“The road from Greywater to Winterfell went on forever,
and we were mounted then. You want us to travel a longer road on
foot, without even knowing where it ends. Beyond the Wall, you say.
I haven’t been there, no more than you, but I know that
Beyond the Wall’s a big place, Jojen. Are there many
three-eyed crows, or only one? How do we find him?”
“Perhaps he will find us.”
Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound;
the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night.
“Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.
“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.
“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.
“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and
would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he
can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all
listened to Jojen so much. He was not a prince like Bran, nor big
and strong like Hodor, nor as good a hunter as Meera, yet somehow
it was always Jojen telling them what to do. “We should steal
horses like Meera wants,” Bran said, “and ride to the
Umbers up at Last Hearth.” He thought a moment. “Or we
could steal a boat and sail down the White Knife to White Harbor
town. That fat Lord Manderly rules there, he was friendly at the
harvest feast. He wanted to build ships. Maybe he built some, and
we could sail to Riverrun and bring Robb home with all his army.
Then it wouldn’t matter who knew I was alive. Robb
wouldn’t let anyone hurt us.”
“Hodor!” burped Hodor. “Hodor,
hodor.”
He was the only one who liked Bran’s plan, though. Meera
just smiled at him and Jojen frowned. They never listened to what
he wanted, even though Bran was a Stark and a prince besides, and
the Reeds of the Neck were Stark bannermen.
“Hoooodor,” said Hodor, swaying. “Hooooooodor,
hoooooodor, hoDOR, hoDOR, hoDOR.” Sometimes he liked to do
this, just saying his name different ways, over and over and over.
Other times, he would stay so quiet you forgot he was there. There
was never any knowing with Hodor. “HODOR, HODOR,
HODOR!” he shouted. He is not going to stop, Bran realized. “Hodor,” he
said, “why don’t you go outside and train with your
sword?”
The stableboy had forgotten about his sword, but now he
remembered. “Hodor!” he burped. He went for his blade.
They had three tomb swords taken from the crypts of Winterfell
where Bran and his brother Rickon had hidden from Theon
Greyjoy’s ironmen. Bran claimed his uncle Brandon’s
sword, Meera the one she found upon the knees of his grandfather
Lord Rickard. Hodor’s blade was much older, a huge heavy
piece of iron, dull from centuries of neglect and well spotted with
rust. He could swing it for hours at a time. There was a rotted
tree near the tumbled stones that he had hacked half to pieces.
Even when he went outside they could hear him through the walls,
bellowing “HODOR!” as he cut and slashed at his tree.
Thankfully the wolfswood was huge, and there was not like to be
anyone else around to hear.
“Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?” Bran
asked. “You’re my teacher. I know I never marked the
tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you
wanted . . . ”
“So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and
live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with
Summer, you hunt with him, kill with
him . . . but you bend to his will more than
him to yours.”
“I just forget,” Bran complained. “I’m
only nine. I’ll be better when I’m older. Even Florian
the Fool and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight weren’t great
knights when they were nine.”
“That is true,” said Jojen, “and a wise thing
to say, if the days were still growing
longer . . . but they aren’t. You are a
summer child, I know. Tell me the words of House Stark.”
“Winter is coming.” Just saying it made Bran feel
cold.
Jojen gave a solemn nod. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound
to earth by chains of stone, and came to Winterfell to free him.
The chains are off you now, yet still you do not fly.”
“Then you teach me.” Bran still feared the
three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly
at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly.
“You’re a greenseer.”
“No,” said Jojen, “only a boy who dreams. The
greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you
are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast
that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of
the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the
world.
“The gods give many gifts, Bran. My sister is a hunter. It
is given to her to run swiftly, and stand so still she seems to
vanish. She has sharp ears, keen eyes, a steady hand with net and
spear. She can breathe mud and fly through trees. I could not do
these things, no more than you could. To me the gods gave the green
dreams, and to you . . . you could be more than
me, Bran. You are the winged wolf, and there is no saying how far
and high you might fly . . . if you had someone
to teach you. How can I help you master a gift I do not understand?
We remember the First Men in the Neck, and the children of the
forest who were their friends . . . but so much
is forgotten, and so much we never knew.”
Meera took Bran by the hand. “If we stay here, troubling
no one, you’ll be safe until the war ends. You will not
learn, though, except what my brother can teach you, and
you’ve heard what he says. If we leave this place to seek
refuge at Last Hearth or beyond the Wall, we risk being taken. You
are only a boy, I know, but you are our prince as well, our
lord’s son and our king’s true heir. We have sworn you
our faith by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire. The
risk is yours, Bran, as is the gift. The choice should be yours
too, I think. We are your servants to command.” She grinned.
“At least in this.”
“You mean,” Bran said, “you’ll do what I
say? Truly?”
“Truly, my prince,” the girl replied, “so
consider well.”
Bran tried to think it through, the way his father might have.
The Greatjon’s uncles Hother Whoresbane and Mors Crowfood
were fierce men, but he thought they would be loyal. And the
Karstarks, them too. Karhold was a strong castle, Father always
said. We would be safe with the Umbers or the Karstarks.
Or they could go south to fat Lord Manderly. At Winterfell,
he’d laughed a lot, and never seemed to look at Bran with so
much pity as the other lords. Castle Cerwyn was closer than White
Harbor, but Maester Luwin had said that Cley Cerwyn was dead. The
Umbers and the Karstarks and the Manderlys may all be dead as well,
he realized. As he would be, if he was caught by the ironmen or the
Bastard of Bolton.
If they stayed here, hidden down beneath Tumbledown Tower, no
one would find them. He would stay alive. And crippled.
Bran realized he was crying. Stupid baby, he thought at himself.
No matter where he went, to Karhold or White Harbor or Greywater
Watch, he’d be a cripple when he got there. He balled his
hands into fists. “I want to fly,” he told them.
“Please. Take me to the crow.”
The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone
and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines
and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the
ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.
He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping
easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up
the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by,
clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind
sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one
another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest
floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the
good green world.
Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet
to stand upon the crest. The sun hung above the tall pines huge and
red, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he
could see or smell. A kite was circling far above, dark against the
pink sky. Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could
feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the
wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived
in the good green world went in fear of him.
Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the
trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was
enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green
brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His
little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now the prince could see
more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.
He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who
stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had
given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their
sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and
his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but
each was different too.
His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince
felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun
that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others
were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.
Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still
with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of
trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet
he felt their presence at his back . . . all
but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered
her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no
voice.
These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills,
the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams
and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister
had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other
hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the
path back out. The wolf prince remembered.
The wind shifted suddenly. Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in
him. The prince sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was
off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far
side of the ridge was steeper than the one he’d come up, but
he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the
slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The
scent pulled him onward, ever faster.
The deer was down and dying when he reached her, ringed by eight
of his small grey cousins. The heads of the pack had begun to feed,
the male first and then his female, taking turns tearing flesh from
the red underbelly of their prey. The others waited patiently, all
but the tail, who paced in a wary circle a few strides from the
rest, his own tail tucked low. He would eat the last of all,
whatever his brothers left him.
The prince was downwind, so they did not sense him until he
leapt up upon a fallen log six strides from where they fed. The
tail saw him first, gave a piteous whine, and slunk away. His pack
brothers turned at the sound and bared their teeth, snarling, all
but the head male and female.
The direwolf answered the snarls with a low warning growl and
showed them his own teeth. He was bigger than his cousins, twice
the size of the scrawny tail, half again as large as the two pack
heads. He leapt down into their midst, and three of them broke,
melting away into the brush. Another came at him, teeth snapping. He met the attack head on,
caught the wolf’s leg in his jaws when they met, and flung
him aside yelping and limping.
And then there was only the head wolf to face, the great grey
male with his bloody muzzle fresh from the prey’s soft belly.
There was white on his muzzle as well, to mark him as an old wolf,
but when his mouth opened, red slaver ran from his teeth. He has no fear, the prince thought, no more than me. It would be
a good fight. They went for each other.
Long they fought, rolling together over roots and stones and
fallen leaves and the scattered entrails of the prey, tearing at
each other with tooth and claw, breaking apart, circling each round
the other, and bolting in to fight again. The prince was larger,
and much the stronger, but his cousin had a pack. The female
prowled around them closely, snuffing and snarling, and would
interpose herself whenever her mate broke off bloodied. From time
to time the other wolves would dart in as well, to snap at a leg or
an ear when the prince was turned the other way. One angered him so
much that he whirled in a black fury and tore out the
attacker’s throat. After that the others kept their
distance.
And as the last red light was filtering through green boughs and
golden, the old wolf lay down weary in the dirt, and rolled over to
expose his throat and belly. It was submission.
The prince sniffed at him and licked the blood from fur and torn
flesh. When the old wolf gave a soft whimper, the direwolf turned
away. He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.
“Hodor.”
The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded
him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day.
None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in
his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer’s belly and tore off
a mouthful of flesh.
“Hodor, hodor.” No, he thought. No, I won’t. It was a boy’s thought,
not a direwolf’s. The woods were darkening all about him,
until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his
cousins’ eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he
saw a big man’s grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls
were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his
tongue. No, don’t, don’t, I want to eat, I want to, I
want . . .
“Hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor,” Hodor chanted
as he shook him softly by the shoulders, back and forth and back
and forth. He was trying to be gentle, he always tried, but Hodor
was seven feet tall and stronger than he knew, and his huge hands
rattled Bran’s teeth together. “NO!” he shouted angrily.
“Hodor, leave off, I’m here, I’m here.”
Hodor stopped, looking abashed. “Hodor?”
The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the
damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned
thousands of years before. It wasn’t much of a tower now.
Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that
you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them.
“Tumbledown Tower”, Bran had named the place; it was
Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.
“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen,
only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger
either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn
way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really
was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little
grandfather.”
Bran frowned at him. “I wanted to eat.”
“Meera will be back soon with supper.”
“I’m sick of frogs.” Meera was a frogeater
from the Neck, so Bran couldn’t really blame her for catching
so many frogs, he supposed, but even
so . . . “I wanted to eat the
deer.” For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood
and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for
it. I won.
“Did you mark the trees?”
Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he
opened his third eye and put on Summer’s skin. To claw the
bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws
uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. “I
forgot,” he said.
“You always forget.”
It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but
once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always
things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And
he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was
running after prey. “I was a prince, Jojen,” he told
the older boy. “I was the prince of the woods.”
“You are a prince,” Jojen reminded him softly.
“You remember, don’t you? Tell me who you
are.”
“You know.” Jojen was his friend and his teacher, but
sometimes Bran just wanted to hit him.
“I want you to say the words. Tell me who you
are.”
“Bran,” he said sullenly. Bran the Broken.
“Brandon Stark.” The cripple boy. “The Prince of
Winterfell.” Of Winterfell burned and tumbled, its people
scattered and slain. The glass gardens were smashed, and hot water
gushed from the cracked walls to steam beneath the sun. How can you
be the prince of someplace you might never see again?
“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.
“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the
green.”
“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two,
then?”
“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated
Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to
dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always
calling me back.
“Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will
consume you. When you join, it is not enough to run and hunt and
howl in Summer’s skin.” It is for me, Bran thought. He liked Summer’s skin better
than his own. What good is it to be a skinchanger if you
can’t wear the skin you like?
“Will you remember? And next time, mark the tree. Any
tree, it doesn’t matter, so long as you do it.”
“I will. I’ll remember. I could go back and do it
now, if you like. I won’t forget this time.” But
I’ll eat my deer first, and fight with those little wolves
some more.
Jojen shook his head. “No. Best stay, and eat. With your
own mouth. A warg cannot live on what his beast
consumes.” How would you know? Bran thought resentfully. You’ve never
been a warg, you don’t know what it’s like.
Hodor jerked suddenly to his feet, almost hitting his head on
the barrel-vaulted ceiling. “HODOR!” he shouted, rushing
to the door. Meera pushed it open just before he reached it, and
stepped through into their refuge. “Hodor, hodor,” the
huge stableboy said, grinning.
Meera Reed was sixteen, a woman grown, but she stood no higher
than her brother. All the crannogmen were small, she told Bran once
when he asked why she wasn’t taller. Brown-haired,
green-eyed, and flat as a boy, she walked with a supple grace that
Bran could only watch and envy. Meera wore a long sharp dagger, but
her favorite way to fight was with a slender three-pronged frog
spear in one hand and a woven net in the other.
“Who’s hungry?” she asked, holding up her
catch: two small silvery trout and six fat green frogs.
“I am,” said Bran. But not for frogs. Back at
Winterfell before all the bad things had happened, the Walders used
to say that eating frogs would turn your teeth green and make moss
grow under your arms. He wondered if the Walders were dead. He
hadn’t seen their corpses at
Winterfell . . . but there had been a lot of
corpses, and they hadn’t looked inside the buildings.
“We’ll just have to feed you, then. Will you help me
clean the catch, Bran?”
He nodded. It was hard to sulk with Meera. She was much more
cheerful than her brother, and always seemed to know how to make
him smile. Nothing ever scared her or made her angry. Well, except
Jojen, sometimes . . . Jojen Reed could scare
most anyone. He dressed all in green, his eyes were murky as moss,
and he had green dreams. What Jojen dreamed came true. Except he
dreamed me dead, and I’m not. Only he was, in a way.
Jojen sent Hodor out for wood and built them a small fire while
Bran and Meera were cleaning the fish and frogs. They used
Meera’s helm for a cooking pot, chopping up the catch into
little cubes and tossing in some water and some wild onions Hodor
had found to make a froggy stew. It wasn’t as good as deer,
but it wasn’t bad either, Bran decided as he ate.
“Thank you, Meera,” he said. “My lady.”
“You are most welcome, Your Grace.”
“Come the morrow,” Jojen announced, “we had
best move on.”
Bran could see Meera tense. “Have you had a green
dream?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Why leave, then?” his sister demanded.
“Tumbledown Tower’s a good place for us. No villages
near, the woods are full of game, there’s fish and frogs in
the streams and lakes . . . and who is ever
going to find us here?”
“This is not the place we are meant to be.”
“It is safe, though.”
“It seems safe, I know,” said Jojen, “but for
how long? There was a battle at Winterfell, we saw the dead.
Battles mean wars. If some army should take us
unawares . . . ”
“It might be Robb’s army,” said Bran.
“Robb will come back from the south soon, I know he will.
He’ll come back with all his banners and chase the ironmen
away.”
“Your maester said naught of Robb when he lay
dying,” Jojen reminded him. “Ironmen on the Stony
Shore, he said, and, east, the Bastard of Bolton. Moat Cailin and
Deepwood Motte fallen, the heir to Cerwyn dead, and the castellan
of Torrhen’s Square. War everywhere, he said, each man
against his neighbor.”
“We have plowed this field before,” his sister said.
“You want to make for the Wall, and your three-eyed crow.
That’s well and good, but the Wall is a very long way and
Bran has no legs but Hodor. If we were
mounted . . . ”
“If we were eagles we might fly,” said Jojen
sharply, “but we have no wings, no more than we have
horses.”
“There are horses to be had,” said Meera.
“Even in the deep of the wolfswood there are foresters,
crofters, hunters. Some will have horses.”
“And if they do, should we steal them? Are we thieves? The
last thing we need is men hunting us.”
“We could buy them,” she said. “Trade for
them.”
“Look at us, Meera. A crippled boy with a direwolf, a
simpleminded giant, and two crannogmen a thousand leagues from the
Neck. We will be known. And word will spread. So long as Bran
remains dead, he is safe. Alive, he becomes prey for those who want
him dead for good and true.” Jojen went to the fire to prod
the embers with a stick. “Somewhere to the north, the
three-eyed crow awaits us. Bran has need of a teacher wiser than
me.”
“How, Jojen?” his sister asked.
“How?”
“Afoot,” he answered. “A step at a
time.”
“The road from Greywater to Winterfell went on forever,
and we were mounted then. You want us to travel a longer road on
foot, without even knowing where it ends. Beyond the Wall, you say.
I haven’t been there, no more than you, but I know that
Beyond the Wall’s a big place, Jojen. Are there many
three-eyed crows, or only one? How do we find him?”
“Perhaps he will find us.”
Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound;
the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night.
“Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.
“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.
“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.
“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and
would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he
can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all
listened to Jojen so much. He was not a prince like Bran, nor big
and strong like Hodor, nor as good a hunter as Meera, yet somehow
it was always Jojen telling them what to do. “We should steal
horses like Meera wants,” Bran said, “and ride to the
Umbers up at Last Hearth.” He thought a moment. “Or we
could steal a boat and sail down the White Knife to White Harbor
town. That fat Lord Manderly rules there, he was friendly at the
harvest feast. He wanted to build ships. Maybe he built some, and
we could sail to Riverrun and bring Robb home with all his army.
Then it wouldn’t matter who knew I was alive. Robb
wouldn’t let anyone hurt us.”
“Hodor!” burped Hodor. “Hodor,
hodor.”
He was the only one who liked Bran’s plan, though. Meera
just smiled at him and Jojen frowned. They never listened to what
he wanted, even though Bran was a Stark and a prince besides, and
the Reeds of the Neck were Stark bannermen.
“Hoooodor,” said Hodor, swaying. “Hooooooodor,
hoooooodor, hoDOR, hoDOR, hoDOR.” Sometimes he liked to do
this, just saying his name different ways, over and over and over.
Other times, he would stay so quiet you forgot he was there. There
was never any knowing with Hodor. “HODOR, HODOR,
HODOR!” he shouted. He is not going to stop, Bran realized. “Hodor,” he
said, “why don’t you go outside and train with your
sword?”
The stableboy had forgotten about his sword, but now he
remembered. “Hodor!” he burped. He went for his blade.
They had three tomb swords taken from the crypts of Winterfell
where Bran and his brother Rickon had hidden from Theon
Greyjoy’s ironmen. Bran claimed his uncle Brandon’s
sword, Meera the one she found upon the knees of his grandfather
Lord Rickard. Hodor’s blade was much older, a huge heavy
piece of iron, dull from centuries of neglect and well spotted with
rust. He could swing it for hours at a time. There was a rotted
tree near the tumbled stones that he had hacked half to pieces.
Even when he went outside they could hear him through the walls,
bellowing “HODOR!” as he cut and slashed at his tree.
Thankfully the wolfswood was huge, and there was not like to be
anyone else around to hear.
“Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?” Bran
asked. “You’re my teacher. I know I never marked the
tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you
wanted . . . ”
“So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and
live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with
Summer, you hunt with him, kill with
him . . . but you bend to his will more than
him to yours.”
“I just forget,” Bran complained. “I’m
only nine. I’ll be better when I’m older. Even Florian
the Fool and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight weren’t great
knights when they were nine.”
“That is true,” said Jojen, “and a wise thing
to say, if the days were still growing
longer . . . but they aren’t. You are a
summer child, I know. Tell me the words of House Stark.”
“Winter is coming.” Just saying it made Bran feel
cold.
Jojen gave a solemn nod. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound
to earth by chains of stone, and came to Winterfell to free him.
The chains are off you now, yet still you do not fly.”
“Then you teach me.” Bran still feared the
three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly
at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly.
“You’re a greenseer.”
“No,” said Jojen, “only a boy who dreams. The
greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you
are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast
that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of
the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the
world.
“The gods give many gifts, Bran. My sister is a hunter. It
is given to her to run swiftly, and stand so still she seems to
vanish. She has sharp ears, keen eyes, a steady hand with net and
spear. She can breathe mud and fly through trees. I could not do
these things, no more than you could. To me the gods gave the green
dreams, and to you . . . you could be more than
me, Bran. You are the winged wolf, and there is no saying how far
and high you might fly . . . if you had someone
to teach you. How can I help you master a gift I do not understand?
We remember the First Men in the Neck, and the children of the
forest who were their friends . . . but so much
is forgotten, and so much we never knew.”
Meera took Bran by the hand. “If we stay here, troubling
no one, you’ll be safe until the war ends. You will not
learn, though, except what my brother can teach you, and
you’ve heard what he says. If we leave this place to seek
refuge at Last Hearth or beyond the Wall, we risk being taken. You
are only a boy, I know, but you are our prince as well, our
lord’s son and our king’s true heir. We have sworn you
our faith by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire. The
risk is yours, Bran, as is the gift. The choice should be yours
too, I think. We are your servants to command.” She grinned.
“At least in this.”
“You mean,” Bran said, “you’ll do what I
say? Truly?”
“Truly, my prince,” the girl replied, “so
consider well.”
Bran tried to think it through, the way his father might have.
The Greatjon’s uncles Hother Whoresbane and Mors Crowfood
were fierce men, but he thought they would be loyal. And the
Karstarks, them too. Karhold was a strong castle, Father always
said. We would be safe with the Umbers or the Karstarks.
Or they could go south to fat Lord Manderly. At Winterfell,
he’d laughed a lot, and never seemed to look at Bran with so
much pity as the other lords. Castle Cerwyn was closer than White
Harbor, but Maester Luwin had said that Cley Cerwyn was dead. The
Umbers and the Karstarks and the Manderlys may all be dead as well,
he realized. As he would be, if he was caught by the ironmen or the
Bastard of Bolton.
If they stayed here, hidden down beneath Tumbledown Tower, no
one would find them. He would stay alive. And crippled.
Bran realized he was crying. Stupid baby, he thought at himself.
No matter where he went, to Karhold or White Harbor or Greywater
Watch, he’d be a cripple when he got there. He balled his
hands into fists. “I want to fly,” he told them.
“Please. Take me to the crow.”