A Storm of Swords — Samwell I

The shattered Watch retreats from the Fist through snow and dead men; Sam the Slayer earns his name with a dragonglass dagger in an Other's throat.

The chapter retold

The shattered remnant of the Night's Watch expedition falls back from the Fist of the First Men through a killing snowstorm with the dead on its heels, and Samwell Tarly — fat, frightened, certain of his own uselessness — becomes, in one desperate motion, the man who ends an Other. Cornered and carrying Small Paul's failing body through the drifts, Sam drives a dragonglass dagger into the creature bearing down on them and watches it come apart like smoke and frost; the name Sam the Slayer, half-mocking when it starts, will follow him for the rest of the book whether he wants it or not.

Small Paul does not survive the retreat — he dies giving Sam the chance to strike, one more nameless casualty of a battle the Seven Kingdoms south of the Wall still refuses to believe is happening. The chapter is the book's proof of concept for its own prologue: dragonglass kills Others, ordinary men can do it, and the Watch's survival now depends on getting that fact south before winter arrives to make the argument moot.

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.

The fallen — spoilers

• Small Paul — Carried Sam through the snow and was killed by the Other for it.