The Song Of Ice and Fire (255 page)
Read The Song Of Ice and Fire Online
Authors: George R. R. Martin
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Epic, #Media Tie-In, #Action & Adventure
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eISBN: 978-0-553-89787-6
v3.0
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note on Chronology
Maps
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Epilogue
Appendix
The Kings and Their Courts
The King on the Iron Throne
The King in the North The King of the Trident
The King in the Narrow Sea
The Queen Across the Water
King of the Isles and the North
Other Houses Great and Small
House Arryn
House Florent
House Frey
House Lannister
House Martell
House Tully
House Tyrell
Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers
The Sworn Brothers of the Night’s Watch
The Brotherhood Without Banners: An Outlaw Fellowship
The Wildlings, or the Free Folk
Acknowledgments
for Phyllis
who made me put the dragons in
A NOTE ON CHRONOLOGY
A Song of Ice and Fire is told through the eyes of characters who are sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles apart from one another. Some chapters cover a day, some only an hour; others might span a fortnight, a month, half a year. With such a structure, the narrative cannot be strictly sequential; sometimes important things are happening simultaneously, a thousand leagues apart.
In the case of the volume now in hand, the reader should realize that the opening chapters of
A Storm of Swords
do not follow the closing chapters of
A Clash of Kings
so much as overlap them. I open with a look at some of the things that were happening on the Fist of the First Men, at Riverrun, Harrenhal, and on the Trident while the Battle of the Blackwater was being fought at King’s Landing, and during its aftermath …
George R. R. Martin
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PROLOGUE
T
he day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent.
The big black bitch had taken one sniff at the bear tracks, backed off, and skulked back to the pack with her tail between her legs. The dogs huddled together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. Chett felt it too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather. It was too bloody cold for man or beast, but here they were. His mouth twisted, and he could almost feel the boils that covered his cheeks and neck growing red and angry.
I should be safe back at the Wall, tending the bloody ravens and making fires for old Maester Aemon
. It was the bastard Jon Snow who had taken that from him, him and his fat friend Sam Tarly. It was their fault he was here, freezing his bloody balls off with a pack of hounds deep in the haunted forest.
“Seven hells.” He gave the leashes a hard yank to get the dogs’ attention. “
Track
, you bastards. That’s a bear print. You want some meat or no?
Find!
” But the hounds only huddled closer, whining. Chett snapped his short lash above their heads, and the black bitch snarled at him. “Dog meat would taste as good as bear,” he warned her, his breath frosting with every word.
Lark the Sisterman stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands tucked up into his armpits. He wore black wool gloves, but he was always complaining how his fingers were frozen. “It’s too bloody cold to hunt,” he said. “Bugger this bear, he’s not worth freezing over.”
“We can’t go back emptyhand, Lark,” rumbled Small Paul through the brown whiskers that covered most of his face. “The Lord Commander wouldn’t like that.” There was ice under the big man’s squashed pug nose, where his snot had frozen. A huge hand in a thick fur glove clenched tight around the shaft of a spear.
“Bugger that Old Bear too,” said the Sisterman, a thin man with sharp features and nervous eyes. “Mormont will be dead before daybreak, remember? Who cares what he likes?”
Small Paul blinked his black little eyes. Maybe he
had
forgotten, Chett thought; he was stupid enough to forget most anything. “Why do we have to kill the Old Bear? Why don’t we just go off and let him be?”
“You think he’ll let
us
be?” said Lark. “He’ll hunt us down. You want to be hunted, you great muttonhead?”