A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

Author:George R. R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780553582024
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 2009-05-18T10:00:00+00:00

BRIENNE

It was Hyle Hunt who insisted that they take the heads. “Tarly will want them for the walls,” he said.

“We have no tar,” Brienne pointed out. “The flesh will rot. Leave them.” She did not want to travel through the green gloom of the piney woods with the heads of the men she’d killed.

Hunt would not listen. He hacked through the dead men’s necks himself, tied the three heads together by the hair, and slung them from his saddle. Brienne had no choice but to try and pretend they were not there, but sometimes, especially at night, she could feel their dead eyes on her back, and once she dreamed she heard them whispering to one another.

It was cold and wet on Crackclaw Point as they retraced their steps. Some days it rained and some days it threatened rain. They were never warm. Even when they made camp, it was hard to find enough dry wood for a fire.

By the time they reached the gates of Maidenpool, a host of flies attended them, a crow had eaten Shagwell’s eyes, and Pyg and Timeon were crawling with maggots. Brienne and Podrick had long since taken to riding a hundred yards ahead, to keep the smell of rot well behind them. Ser Hyle claimed to have lost all sense of smell by then. “Bury them,” she told him every time they made camp for a night, but Hunt was nothing if not stubborn. He will most like tell Lord Randyll that he slew all three of them.

To his honor, though, the knight did nothing of the sort.

“The stammering squire threw a rock,” he said, when he and Brienne were ushered into Tarly’s presence in the yard of Mooton’s castle. The heads had been presented to a serjeant of the guard, who was told to have them cleaned and tarred and mounted above the gate. “The swordswench did the rest.”

“All three?” Lord Randyll was incredulous.

“The way she fought, she could have killed three more.”

“And did you find the Stark girl?” Tarly demanded of her.

“No, my lord.”

“Instead you slew some rats. Did you enjoy it?”

“No, my lord.”

“A pity. Well, you’ve had your taste of blood. Proved whatever it is you meant to prove. It’s time you took off that mail and donned proper clothes again. There are ships in port. One’s bound to stop at Tarth. I’ll have you on it.”

“Thank you, my lord, but no.”

Lord Tarly’s face suggested he would have liked nothing better than to stick her own head on a spike and mount it above the gates of Maidenpool with Timeon, Pyg, and Shagwell. “You mean to continue with this folly?”

“I mean to find the Lady Sansa.”

“If it please my lord,” Ser Hyle said, “I watched her fight the Mummers. She is stronger than most men, and quick—”

“The sword is quick,” Tarly snapped. “That is the nature of Valyrian steel. Stronger than most men? Aye. She’s a freak of nature, far be it from me to deny it.”

His sort will never love me, Brienne thought, no matter what I do.

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