Martin, R.R.: A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE

Book One: A Game of Thrones

Book Two: A Clash of Kings

Book Three: A Storm of Swords

Book Four: A Feast for Crows

Book Five: A Dance with Dragons

Dying of the Light

Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle)

Fevre Dream

The Armageddon Rag

Dead Man’s Hand (with John J. Miller)

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Dreamsongs, Volume I

Dreamsongs, Volume II

A Song of Lya and Other Stories

Songs of Stars and Shadows

Sandkings

Songs the Dead Men Sing

Nightflyers

Tuf Voyaging

Portraits of His Children

Quartet

EDITED BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

New Voices in Science Fiction, Volumes 1–4

The Science Fiction Weight-Loss Book

(with Isaac Asimov and Martin Harry Greenberg)

The John W. Campbell Awards, Volume 5

Night Visions 3

Wild Card I–XXI

A Dance with Dragons is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by George R. R. Martin.

Endpaper and interior maps

copyright © by Jeffrey L. Ward

Heraldic crests by Virginia Norey

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Martin, George R. R.

A dance with dragons / George R. R. Martin.

p. cm — (A song of ice and fire; bk. 5)

eISBN: 978-0-553-90565-6

I. Title.

PS3563.A7239D36 2011

813’.54—dc22 2011015508

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

this one is for my fans

for Lodey, Trebla, Stego, Pod ,

Caress, Yags, X-Ray and Mr. X ,

Kate, Chataya, Mormont, Mich ,

Jamie, Vanessa, Ro ,

for Stubby, Louise, Agravaine ,

Wert, Malt, Jo ,

Mouse, Telisiane, Blackfyre ,

Bronn Stone, Coyote’s Daughter ,

and the rest of the madmen and wild women of

the Brotherhood Without Banners

for my website wizards

Elio and Linda, lords of Westeros ,

Winter and Fabio of WIC ,

and Gibbs of Dragonstone, who started it all

for men and women of Asshai in Spain

who sang to us of a bear and a maiden fair

and the fabulous fans of Italy

who gave me so much wine

for my readers in Finland, Germany ,

Brazil, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands

and all the other distant lands

where you’ve been waiting for this dance

and for all the friends and fans

I have yet to meet

thanks for your patience

A CAVIL ON CHRONOLOGY

It has been a while between books, I know. So a reminder may be in order.

The book you hold in your hands is the fifth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire . The fourth volume was A Feast for Crows . However, this volume does not follow that one in the traditional sense, so much as run in tandem with it.

Both Dance and Feast take up the story immediately after the events of the third volume in the series, A Storm of Swords . Whereas Feast focused on events in and around King’s Landing, on the Iron Islands, and down in Dorne, Dance takes us north to Castle Black and the Wall (and beyond), and across the narrow sea to Pentos and Slaver’s Bay, to pick up the tales of Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and all the other characters you did not see in the preceding volume. Rather than being sequential, the two books are parallel … divided geographically, rather than chronologically.

But only up to a point.

A Dance with Dragons is a longer book than A Feast for Crows , and covers a longer time period. In the latter half of this volume, you will notice certain of the viewpoint characters from A Feast for Crows popping up again. And that means just what you think it means: the narrative has moved past the time frame of Feast , and the two streams have once again rejoined each other.

Next up, The Winds of Winter . Wherein, I hope, everybody will be shivering together once again.…

—George R. R. Martin

April 2011

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

A Cavil on Chronology

Map

Prologue

Tyrion

Daenerys

Jon

Bran

Tyrion

The Merchant’s Man

Jon

Tyrion

Davos

Jon

Daenerys

Reek

Bran

Tyrion

Davos

Daenerys

Jon

Tyrion

Davos

Reek

Jon

Tyrion

Daenerys

The Lost Lord

The Windblown

The Wayward Bride

Tyrion

Jon

Davos

Daenerys

Melisandre

Reek

Tyrion

Bran

Jon

Daenerys

The Prince Of Winterfell

The Watcher

Jon

Tyrion

The Turncloak

The King’s Prize

Daenerys

Jon

The Blind Girl

A Ghost in Winterfell

Tyrion

Jaime

Jon

Daenerys

Theon

Daenerys

Jon

Cersei

The Queensguard

The Iron Suitor

Tyrion

Jon

The Discarded Knight

The Spurned Suitor

The Griffin Reborn

The Sacrifice

Victarion

The Ugly Little Girl

Cersei

Tyrion

The Kingbreaker

The Dragontamer

Jon

The Queen’s Hand

Daenerys

Epilogue

Appendix

Acknowledgments

About the Author

PROLOGUE

The night was rank with the smell of man.

The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent to him, over fainter smells that spoke of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents of smoke and blood and rot. Only man stripped the skins from other beasts and wore their hides and hair.

Wargs have no fear of man, as wolves do. Hate and hunger coiled in his belly, and he gave a low growl, calling to his one-eyed brother, to his small sly sister. As he raced through the trees, his packmates followed hard on his heels. They had caught the scent as well. As he ran, he saw through their eyes too and glimpsed himself ahead. The breath of the pack puffed warm and white from long grey jaws. Ice had frozen between their paws, hard as stone, but the hunt was on now, the prey ahead. Flesh , the warg thought, meat .