A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Arya XI
Arya reaches the Twins as the slaughter spills outward; the Hound's axe-flat puts her down before the camp can ÔÇö and that night she wears Nymeria's skin and finds a body in the river.
The chapter retold
Arya Stark arrives at the Twins just as the slaughter spills out of the hall and into the yards beyond it, close enough to hear what is happening and too late by minutes to change any of it. The Hound, understanding faster than she does what they have ridden into, knocks her senseless with the flat of his axe rather than let her run toward a massacre that would swallow her too, dragging her unconscious body clear of the carnage while the camp burns and screams behind them.
That night, in the strange half-dream state of her wolf-bond, Arya runs the riverbank as Nymeria and finds a body drifting in the water ÔÇö unidentified to her in the moment, though the reader has every reason to suspect whose it is. The chapter denies Arya both the reunion she spent the book chasing and even the clean grief of confirmed loss, leaving her instead with a half-glimpsed horror and a captor who, however brutal his methods, has just saved her life for reasons that are no longer entirely mercenary.
This movement: The Wall Holds
- Mance's host hits Castle Black from both sides; Donal Noye trades his life for a giant's in the gate.
- Jon commands the Wall with quips and a crossbow ÔÇö until the Watch arrests him for oath-breaking.
- Stannis lands at the Wall with the fury of the one king who answered the letters.
- In King's Landing, the realm dresses for a royal wedding no god intends to bless.