And Paul, try and remember, it's third watch, not second.' 'Just do your bit and see that your cousins do theirs. One scream and we're wormfood, every one of us.' His boils were red with rage. Grubbs and Aethan as well, their ill luck for drawing the watch, Dwyen and Bannen for their tracking, and Ser Piggy for the ravens.

The Old Bear dies, and Blane from the Shadow Tower. 'We need to kill all the officers, I say.'Ĭhett was sick of hearing it. The Sisterman took his hands from hi armpits and turned to Chett. 'Yes.' The huge man stamped the butt of his spear on the frozen riverbank. You want to be hunted, you great muttonhead?' 'Why do we have to kill the Old Bear? Why don't we just go off and let him be?' Maybe he had forgotten, Chett thought he was stupid enough to forget most anything. Small Paul blinked his black little eyes. 'Mormont will be dead before daybreak, remember? Who cares what he likes?' 'Bugger that Old Bear, too,' said the Sisterman, a thin man with sharp features and nervous eyes. A huge hand in a thick fur glove clenched tight around the shaft of a spear. 'The Lord Commander wouldn't like that.' There was ice under the big man's squashed pug nose, where his snot had frozen. 'We can't go back empty-handed, Lark,' rumbled Small Paul through the brown whiskers that covered most of his face. 'Bugger this bear, he's not worth freezing over.' He wore black wool gloves, but he was always complaining about how his fingers were frozen. Lark the Sisterman stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands tucked up into his armpits. 'Dog meat would taste as good as bear,' he warned her, his breath frosting with every word. Chett snapped his short lash above their heads, and the black bitch snarled at him. You want some meat or no? Find!' But the hounds only huddled closer, whining. 'Seven hells.' He gave the leashes a hard yank to get the dogs' attention. It was their fault he was here, freezing his bloody balls off with a pack of hounds deep in the haunted forest. It was the bastard Jon Snow who had taken that from him, him and his fat friend Sam Tarly. I should be safe back at the Wall, tending the bloody ravens and making fires for old Maester Aemon. His mouth twisted, and he could almost feel the boils that covered his cheeks and neck growing red and angry. It was too bloody cold for man or beast, but here they were. Chett felt it too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather. The dogs huddled together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. 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 day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent.

A storm of swords by george rr martin