A Clash of Kings-Chapter 14

From A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Revision as of 19:14, 16 March 2013 by SerKeplan (talk | contribs) (Synopsis)
Jump to: navigation, search
Arya IV
A Clash of Kings chapter
AClashOfKings.jpg
POV Arya
Place On the shore of the God's Eye
Page 156 UK HC (Other versions)
Chapter chronology (All)
Arya III
Jon II  ← Arya IV →  Tyrion III

Arya V

Yoren’s band arrives at a river and there is no way to cross with the wagons. The head towards a town Yorren remembers. Along the way they see no one, and when they arrive at the town, it is deserted. They spend the night in the easily defended holdfast. That night Lannister soldiers arrive and demand Yoren open the gate. He refuses, and there is a fight. Yoren, seeing they are lost, orders Arya to get everyone that survived out through the trop door they found in the barn. Before she leaves, she throws an axe to the three men chained in the wagon.

Synopsis

Yoren’s band arrives at a river. Koss find a dead man in the reeds and Yoren orders Dobber to strip the man. Yoren and Koss go upriver, and Yoren sends Woth and Gerren downriver to search for a crossing. While Yoren is gone, Kurz catches a fish with his bare hands, and, thinking it can’t be as hard as catching cats, which have claws, Arya tries her hand at it. Lommy and Tarber strip and go wading, and at one point throwing mud at Hot Pie. Rorge, chained in the wagon, shouts to be freed, but nobody pays him any attention. The scouts return having only found a burned bridge. Yoren decides to make for a town he knows of since there is no way to get the wagons over the river. There should be boats there and be able to sail across the Gods Eye to Harrentown where they can get new mounts, or take refuge in Harrenhal, Lady Whent’s seat.

Hot Pie exclaims that there ghosts in Harrenhal, to which Yoren just spits. Arya thinks of Old Nan’s stories Harrenhal: ”Evil King Harren had walled himself up inside, so Aegon unleashed his dragons and turned the castle into a pyre.” Old Nan told how men who slept there would found in the morning burnt alive. There would be no ghosts, Hot Pie was silly. She did think that she could reveal herself to Lady Whent and get an escort home.

At the first house they found Yoren investigated with Reysen (Rey) and Dobber and it appeared the people had run. Tarber finds a garden behind the house, and they picked some vegetables. They passed fields of grain, but saw no one. When they reached the town it was also empty. Arya goes exploring the town with Gendry, Hot Pie, Lommy and Woth, who had pulled an galley oar once, to search for boats. The emptiness of the town frightens Arya—what scared people so much to leave. At the lake shore, the biggest lake Arya had ever seen, all they find is a rowboat beneath the inn with its bottom rotten. No one finds any boats, and Gendry's idea of a raft will not work because the lake is too deep. Yoren thinks maybe it will be best to leave the wagons behind; he will sleep on the idea. He does state that he likes the idea of stone walls, so will stare there that night. Arya is not sure that is a good idea since there was something that made the people leave, and Yoren says that Arya is right, but they are the Night’s Watch, and the war is nothing to them.

They explore the town. There is a holdfast which is surrounded by a 10 foot stone wall. Gerren discovers a trap door in a barn hiding an escape passage. They drive the wagons into the barn after Yoren sets the first watch of Tarber, Kurz, and Cutjack who watch from a high townhouse. Koss finds a goose and two chickens, and Gendry, Dobber, and Arya draw cook duty. Gendry goes off to polish his helmet. As she hones Needle, Hot Pie asks about it, and is told her brother gave it to her. He is surprised since she never mentioned a brother, and she tells him she has many, all bigger than her with big longswords and they showed her how to kill people that were bothering her.

She suddenly wakes up when she hears a wolf, and tells the others, who had not heard it. They are not sure about her warning since she says it’s a wolf, and she is insistent that something is wrong. They then hear Kurz’s horn. As Arya dashes by, Jaqen H'ghar calls to her that he can fight, but she ignores him. She climbs a parapet to see men with torches in the town, and they are setting the houses on fire. Gendry asks her how many she can see and she says a hundred, and then two hundred. Then riders rein up to the gate and a knight with the spiked helm demands that they open in the name of the king. Reysen asks which king. Yoren tells them the townfolk are gone and they are part of the Watch. When Yoren shows his black cloak, the knight says it could be the black of House Dondarrion. The knight then announces himself as Ser Amory Lorch, bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister. Yoren continues to refuse to open the gates, and when a spear takes Woth in the throat, Yoren orders them to defend the walls. Soon Arya and Hot Pie were busy cutting at those that tried to climb the wall. She sees Yoren tangle with the knight with the spiked helm, shoving his dirk through the armor. Koss shoots arrows at the attackers. Lommy smashes a rock on the head of a man wrestling with Dobber, who has a knife in his belly. She hears Qyle beg for mercy before being killed. She sees Gendry smash his sword on a man’s helmet that she and Hot Pie fell upon. Gendry takes the dead man’s sword and jumps to the yard, and Arya joins him. Then Yoren is screaming at her that they have lost, and to herd everyone she can and get them out through the trap door in the barn. She grabs Gendry and tells him what to do, they call to Hot Pie on the wall, and then they find Lommy with a spear through his calf, and Gerren to badly injured to move. As they are running to the barn she sees the crying girl, and has to drag her. At the barn Hot Pie tells her to leave the girl, but Gendry arrives and carries the girl over his shoulder.

In the barn Rorge is screaming, and Jaqen H’ghar calls to her. She asks Gendry where he left the axe from chopping the wood for dinner, and tells him to go ahead. Outside she sees Koss throw down his sword and them killing him. The axe is where Gendry left it. When she grabs it and a mailed hand grabs her. She reactively drives the axe between the man’s legs. It is really hard for her to go back into the barn. Inside the smoke is thick and she can smell burning hair and hear the animals and Biter screaming. She crawls to the wagon and throws the axe in. She runs to the trap door as she hears steel crash through wood. She is well into the tunnel when a blast from behind catches her. Arya cries but she does not know who for.

References and Notes