THE BLOODS OF BOLTON | GAME OF THRONES

CHAPTER 3

ROBB DREAMED OF THE GREAT FEAST Roose Bolton had thrown on his son's name day.

Outside, the rain was pouring, but inside the Dreadfort, the air was pleasantly warm and alive with music and laughter. High in the musician's gallery, drums pounded, pipes wailed, and horns blew together in a jolly chorus. Robb was drunk on red wine, sitting contently with a belly full of roasted meat. Cley Cerwyn threw his arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a bawdy song about a winter maid with eyes like blue stars and skin as white as the moon. Robb didn't know the words, but he sang the merry tune. Beside them, Aymer Karstark and Brandon Tallhart were arm wrestling over platters of fruit and cheese, while the Greatjon led the Widow Dustin in a drunken dance around the hall. Others had risen up to join them, stepping and clapping, jumping and twirling to the drum's steady boom, doom, boom.

"She danced and sang a winter's song that dragged him to his doom!"

He saw Drucilla Bolton in the crowd, her pale eyes all aglow. One look from him and she turned and fled. Robb was compelled to follow.

"He chased her and loved her, that winter maid, though her skin was cold as snow."

"Wait!" he yelled, shouldering his way through. "Wait!"

Drucilla was rushing toward a door. Robb quickened his own pace, driven by the pounding drums. The couples continued their dance, stomping and spinning round and round, faster and faster. No one was singing anymore. The band drowned them all out. They had begun to play a different song, an eerie song of broken chords that clashed together violently and hung in the air, strangling Robb with every shallow breath. Somewhere in the hall, an old man was laughing, and Robb saw the flayed man standing upon the dais.

"Robb!" a woman screamed.

Suddenly, a burning pain shot through Robb's side, then a second though his leg, and he fell to the floor.

"Robb, get up," the woman cried. "Get up and walk out, please, please!"

He tried to get up, but his limbs were heavy and leaden, and when he started to crawl, he saw corpses scattered about the ground. So many men, strangers and friends alike, bleeding from half a hundred wounds. He saw Ser Wendel Manderly lying dead with a quarrel through his mouth. He found the Smalljon's headless torso twitching beside an overturned table. His head lay a few steps away, mouth agape and eyes unblinking. The dancers kicked it across the floor as they began their next pass.

And all the while, the flayed man towered above them, watching with the holes where his eyes had once been. He raised a fleshless hand, and the hall fell silent. Outside, the wind was howling through the shutters, and rain fell and shattered as ice on the stone.

Robb gripped the edge of a table and forced himself to his feet. There was a young woman lying on the other side, a circlet of bronze clinging to chestnut curls, her grey dress splattered with blood. She died slowly, stroking her bleeding stomach with a loving hand, and with her last breaths she uttered a man's name.

What nightmare is this? Robb clutched at his side and felt warm blood seeping through his fingers. Gods help me, this cannot be real!

"I warned you," a voice whispered behind him. Robb turned and saw Drucilla Bolton standing among the dead, her pink-and-red dress pooling around her.

Robb stumbled toward her and collapsed into her arms, shaking with terror. "W-What's happening, Drucilla? What is this? Tell me, please!" He held onto her waist and buried his head into her breast. "If this is a nightmare, please wake me up!"

Her fingers were in his hair, curling themselves around his red-brown locks. He closed his eyes and pressed himself tightly against her, desperately seeking the comforting warmth of her body, but he felt nothing. To his horror, the maiden had gone cold all over, and her heart had ceased its beating, and when Robb pulled away, he saw that her lips were blue and glossed with winter frost.