A Storm of Swords. Part 1 Steel and Snow

A Storm of Swords. Part 1 Steel and Snow
George Raymond Richard Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire #3
HBO’s hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin’s internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age.

A STORM OF SWORDS: STEEL AND SNOW is the FIRST part of the third volume in the series.

Winter approaches Westeros like an angry beast.

The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb’s defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his younger sisters in their power.

Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

A STORM OF SWORDS

PART ONE: STEEL AND SNOW

BOOK THREE OF

A Song of Ice and Fire

Copyright

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.com (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/)

Previously published in paperback by Voyager in 2001, 2003, 2011

First published in Great Britain by Voyager in 2000

Copyright © George R.R. Martin 2000

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014. HBO and related service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

Cover photographs © Scott S. Warren / National Geographic Society / Corbis

George R.R. Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780006479901

Ebook Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 9780007447756

Version: 2016-09-27

Praise for A Song of Ice and Fire:

‘This is one of those rare and effortless reads.’

    ROBIN HOBB

‘George R. R. Martin is one of our very best writers, and this is one of his very best books.’

    RAYMOND E. FEIST

‘Such a splendid tale. I read my eyes out – I couldn’t stop till I’d finished and it was dawn.’

    ANNE MCCAFFREY

‘George Martin is assuredly a new master craftsman in the guild of heroic fantasy.’

    KATHARINE KERR

‘Few created worlds are as imaginative and diverse.’

    JANNY WURTS

Dedication

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

MAPS

PROLOGUE

The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent. The big black bitch had taken one sniff at the bear tracks, backed off, and skulked back to the pack with her tail between her legs. The dogs huddled together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. Chett felt it too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather. It was too bloody cold for man or beast, but here they were. His mouth twisted, and he could almost feel the boils that covered his cheeks and neck growing red and angry. I should be safe back at the Wall, tending the 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.