A Storm of Swords — Arya III
Through fought-over towns the outlaws collect coin, news and prisoners; Arya measures the distance to Riverrun and finds it growing instead of shrinking.
The chapter retold
The Brotherhood Without Banners keeps moving through a landscape of fought-over towns, collecting coin, rumors and the occasional prisoner with the loose efficiency of men who have stopped expecting the war to end cleanly. Arya rides among them still calculating distance to Riverrun, still holding out hope that the outlaws' wandering justice will eventually deposit her somewhere near family — and finds, chapter by chapter, that the gap is widening rather than closing, the Brotherhood's business taking precedence over any promise to deliver her anywhere.
It is a quieter chapter than most of Arya's run, but it does real work establishing the outlaws' economy and code — ransoms, tithes taken from smallfolk and lords alike, a rough justice dispensed to soldiers of both colors — while sharpening Arya's growing, correct suspicion that she is cargo to these men before she is a person they are helping. Her patience is fraying exactly as fast as her chances of reaching Riverrun on her own terms.
This movement: Dracarys
- In Astapor Dany trades Drogon for the Unsullied — then speaks Valyrian, and the whip changes hands: Dracarys.
- Jaime loses his sword hand to Vargo Hoat's Brave Companions and learns what he is without it.
- Arya falls in with the Brotherhood Without Banners and watches a dead man rise from his seventh death.
- Tywin re-arranges the realm at his table: Tyrion to Sansa, Cersei to Willas — the children object; the Hand doesn't care.