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Bran

The oldest were hteen years fro One was past twenty Most were younger, sixteen or less

Bran watched the to the their staves and wooden swords The yard was alive to the clack of wood on wood, punctuated all too often by thwacks and yowls of pain when a blow struck leather or flesh Ser Rodrik strode a beneath his white whiskers,at theht look so fierce "No," he kept saying "No No No"

"They don’t fight very well," Bran said dubiously He scratched Summer idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat Bones crunched between his teeth

"For a certainty," Maester Luwin agreed with a deep sigh TheMyrish lens tube,the position of the coiven timeSer Rodrik has the truth of it, we need men to walk the walls Your lord father took the crea, and your brother took the rest, along with all the likely lads for leagues around Many will not come back to us, and we must needs find the men to take their places"

Bran stared resentfully at the sweating boys below "If I still had s, I could beat them all" He remembered the last ti had come to Winterfell It was only a wooden sword, yet he’d knocked Prince Tommen down half a hundred times "Ser Rodrik should teachhaft, Hodor could be ether"

"I think thatunlikely," Maester Luwin said "Bran, when a hts must be as one"

Below in the yard, Ser Rodrik was yelling "You fight like a goose He pecks you and you peck hi will not suffice If those were real swords, the first peck would take your arht rounded on hiehog"

"There was a knight once who couldn’t see," Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below "Old Nan toldstaff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once"

"Symeon Star-Eyes," Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book "When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the eers claim Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool A fable froe of Heroes" The maester tsked "You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart"

The ain last night The one with three eyes He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did We went down to the crypts Father was there, and we talked He was sad"

"And as that?" Luwin peered through his tube

"It was so to do about Jon, I think" The drea, o down into the crypts"

The , Bran could tell He lifted his eye fro "Hodor won’t"

"Go down into the crypts When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was truly there At first he didn’t knohat I was saying, but I got hio there, only then he wouldn’t go down He just stood on the top step and said ‘Hodor,’ like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch It ave hi" He saw the way the h"

"Good Hodor is a man, not a mule to be beaten"

"In the dream I fleith the crow, but I can’t do that when I’m awake," Bran explained

"Why would you want to go down to the crypts?"

"I told you To look for Father"

The ed at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable "Bran, sweet child, one day Lord Eddard will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father’s father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the Northbut that will not be for ood Your father is a prisoner of the queen in King’s Landing You will not find hiht I talked to hi his book aside "Would you like to go see?"

"I can’t Hodor won’t go, and the steps are too narrow and twisty for Dancer"

"I believe I can solve that difficulty"

In place of Hodor, the wildling woh and uncoo wherever she was coround won’t fret me none, m’lords," she said

"Su arms The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth Maester Luent ahead with a torch Bran did not even mind--too badly--that she carried him in her arms and not on her back Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles--a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted--but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps

Bran could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts It had been before, for certain When he was little, he used to play down here with Robb and Jon and his sisters

He wished they were here now; the vault ht not have seeloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable "Gri row of granite Starks on their stone thrones

"They were the Kings of Winter," Bran whispered So to talk too loudly in this place

Osha s If you’d seen it, you’d know that, sus in the North for thousands of years," Maester Luwin said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces Soy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet Others were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps "Hard men for a hard time Come" He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went

The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried It would not do to lose the light Summer refused to move from the steps, even when Osha followed the torch, Bran in her arms

"Do you recall your history, Bran?" the maester said as they walked "Tell Osha who they were and what they did, if you can"

He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive "That one is Jon Stark When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor His son was Rickard Stark, not my father’s father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away frohter Theon Stark’s the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard They called hiry Wolf,’ because he was always at war That’s a Brandon, the tall one with the dreaht, because he loved the sea His tomb is empty He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father’s ships in grief There’s Rodrik Stark, on Bear Island in a wrestling ave it to the Mor Who Knelt He was the last King in the North and the first Lord of Winterfell, after he yielded to Aegon the Conqueror Oh, there, he’s Cregan Stark He fought with Prince Aeht said he’d never faced a finer swordsman" They were al over hirandfather, Lord Rickard, as beheaded by Mad King Aerys His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him Not me, another Brandon, my father’s brother They’re not supposed to have statues, that’s only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done"

"The maid’s a fair one," Osha said

"Robert was betrothed to ar carried her off and raped her," Bran explained "Robert fought a war to win her back He killed Rhaegar on the Trident with his haot her back at all"

"A sad tale," said Osha, "but those empty holes are sadder"

"Lord Eddard’s tomb, for when his time comes," Maester Luwin said "Is this where you saw your father in your dream, Bran?"

"Yes" The memory made him shiver He looked around the vault uneasily, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling Had he heard a noise? Was there someone here?

Maester Luwin stepped toward the open sepulchre, torch in hand "As you see, he’s not here Nor will he be, for many a year Dreams are only dreams, child" He thrust his arm into the blackness inside the toreat beast "Do you see? It’s quite e

Bran saw eyes like green fire, a flash of teeth, fur as black as the pit around them Maester Luwin yelled and threw up his hands The torch went flying froers, caromed off the stone face of Brandon Stark, and tus In the drunken shifting torchlight, they sain struggling with the direwolf, beating at his muzzle with one hand while the jaws closed on the other

"Su fro shadow He sla and knocked hile of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arainst Lord Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist thetorch, shadoolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof

"Shaggy," a small voice called When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s to broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side "You let my father be," Rickon warned Luwin "You let him be"

"Rickon," Bran said softly "Father’s not here"

"Yes he is I saw hiht"

"In your dream?"

Rickon nodded "You leave hi ho home"

Bran had never seen Maester Luwin took so uncertain before Blood dripped down his ar had shredded the wool of his sleeve and the flesh beneath "Osha, the torch," he said, biting through his pain, and she snatched it up before it went out Soot stains blackened both legs of his uncle’s likeness "Thatthat beast," Luent on, "is supposed to be chained up in the kennels"

Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood "I let hiers