Free A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin Page B

her hands around her mouth and howled down at them, “
Ahooooooooo, ahooooooooo
.” When the largest of the wolves lifted its head and howled back, the sound made Arya shiver.
    By midday Hot Pie had begun to complain. His arse was sore, he told them, and the saddle was rubbing him raw inside his legs, and besides he had to get some sleep. “I’m so tired I’m going to fall off the horse.”
    Arya looked at Gendry. “If he falls off, who do you think will find him first, the wolves or the Mummers?”
    â€œThe wolves,” said Gendry. “Better noses.”
    Hot Pie opened his mouth and closed it. He did not fall off his horse. The rain began again a short time later. They still had not seen so much as a glimpse of the sun. It was growing colder, and pale white mists were threading between the pines and blowing across the bare burned fields.
    Gendry was having almost as bad a time of it as Hot Pie, though he was too stubborn to complain. He sat awkwardly in the saddle, a determined look on his face beneath his shaggy black hair, but Arya could tell he was no horseman.
I should have remembered
, she thought to herself. She had been riding as long as she could remember, ponies when she was little and later horses, but Gendry and Hot Pie were city-born, and in the city smallfolk walked. Yoren had given them mounts when he took them from King’s Landing, but sitting on a donkey and plodding up the kingsroad behind a wagon was one thing. Guiding a hunting horse through wild woods and burned fields was something else.
    She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens.
If the Mummers catch us, I’ll tell them that I’m Ned Stark’s daughter and sister to the King in the North. I’ll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry
. They might not believe her, though, and even if they did . . . Lord Bolton was her brother’s bannerman, but he frightened her all the same.
I won’t let them take us
, she vowed silently, reaching back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of the sword that Gendry had stolen for her.
I won’t
.
    Late that afternoon, they emerged from beneath the trees and found themselves on the banks of a river. Hot Pie gave a whoop of delight. “The
Trident
! Now all we have to do is go upstream, like you said. We’re almost there!”
    Arya chewed her lip. “I don’t think this is the Trident.” The river was swollen by the rain, but even so it couldn’t be much more than thirty feet across. She remembered the Trident as being much wider. “It’s too little to be the Trident,” she told them, “and we didn’t come far enough.”
    â€œYes we did,” Hot Pie insisted. “We rode all day, and hardly stopped at all. We must have come a long way.”
    â€œLet’s have a look at that map again,” said Gendry.
    Arya dismounted, took out the map, unrolled it. The rain pattered against the sheepskin and ran off in rivulets. “We’re someplace here, I think,” she said, pointing, as the boys peered over her shoulders.
    â€œBut,” said Hot Pie, “that’s hardly any ways at all. See, Harrenhal’s there by your finger, you’re almost
touching
it. And we rode all day!”
    â€œThere’s miles and miles before we reach the Trident,” she said. “We won’t be there for
days
. This must be some different river, one of these, see.” She showed him some of the thinner blue lines the mapmaker had painted in, each with a name painted in fine script beneath it. “The Darry, the Greenapple, the Maiden . . . here, this one, the Little Willow, it might be that.”
    Hot Pie looked from the line