A Dance With Dragons. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

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      Meera Reed pushed back her hood. The wet snow that had covered it tumbled to the ground with a soft thump. “How many men? Who are they?”

      “Foes. I’ll deal with them.”

      “I’ll come with you.”

      “You’ll stay. The boy must be protected. There is a lake ahead, hard frozen. When you come on it, turn north and follow the shoreline. You’ll come to a fishing village. Take refuge there until I can catch up with you.”

      Bran thought that Meera meant to argue until her brother said, “Do as he says. He knows this land.” Jojen’s eyes were a dark green, the color of moss, but heavy with a weariness that Bran had never seen in them before. The little grandfather. South of the Wall, the boy from the crannogs had seemed to be wise beyond his years, but up here he was as lost and frightened as the rest of them. Even so, Meera always listened to him.

      That was still true. Coldhands slipped between the trees, back the way they’d come, with four ravens flapping after him. Meera watched him go, her cheeks red with cold, breath puffing from her nostrils. She pulled her hood back up and gave the elk a nudge, and their trek resumed. Before they had gone twenty yards, though, she turned to glance behind them and said, “Men, he says. What men? Does he mean wildlings? Why won’t he say?”

      “He said he’d go and deal with them,” said Bran.

      “He said, aye. He said he would take us to this three-eyed crow too. That river we crossed this morning is the same one we crossed four days ago, I swear. We’re going in circles.”

      “Rivers turn and twist,” Bran said uncertainly, “and where there’s lakes and hills, you need to go around.”

      “There’s been too much going around,” Meera insisted, “and too many secrets. I don’t like it. I don’t like him. And I don’t trust him. Those hands of his are bad enough. He hides his face, and will not speak a name. Who is he? What is he? Anyone can put on a black cloak. Anyone, or any thing. He does not eat, he never drinks, he does not seem to feel the cold.”

      It’s true. Bran had been afraid to speak of it, but he had noticed. Whenever they took shelter for the night, while he and Hodor and the Reeds huddled together for warmth, the ranger kept apart. Sometimes Coldhands closed his eyes, but Bran did not think he slept. And there was something else …

      “The scarf.” Bran glanced about uneasily, but there was not a raven to be seen. All the big black birds had left them when the ranger did. No one was listening. Even so, he kept his voice low. “The scarf over his mouth, it never gets all hard with ice, like Hodor’s beard. Not even when he talks.”

      Meera gave him a sharp look. “You’re right. We’ve never seen his breath, have we?”

      “No.” A puff of white heralded each of Hodor’s hodors. When Jojen or his sister spoke, their words could be seen too. Even the elk left a warm fog upon the air when he exhaled.

      “If he does not breathe …”

      Bran found himself remembering the tales Old Nan had told him when he was a babe. Beyond the Wall the monsters live, the giants and the ghouls, the stalking shadows and the dead that walk, she would say, tucking him in beneath his scratchy woolen blanket, but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong and the men of the Night’s Watch are true. So go to sleep, my little Brandon, my baby boy, and dream sweet dreams. There are no monsters here. The ranger wore the black of the Night’s Watch, but what if he was not a man at all? What if he was some monster, taking them to the other monsters to be devoured?

      “The ranger saved Sam and the girl from the wights,” Bran said, hesitantly, “and he’s taking me to the three-eyed crow.”

      “Why won’t this three-eyed crow come to us? Why couldn’t he meet us at the Wall? Crows have wings. My brother grows weaker every day. How long can we go on?”

      Jojen coughed. “Until we get there.”

      They came upon the promised lake not long after, and turned north as the ranger had bid them. That was the easy part.

      The water was frozen, and the snow had been falling for so long that Bran had lost count of the days, turning the lake into a vast white wilderness. Where the ice was flat and the ground was bumpy, the going was easy, but where the wind had pushed the snow up into ridges, sometimes it was hard to tell where the lake ended and the shore began. Even the trees were not as infallible a guide as they might have hoped, for there were wooded islands in the lake, and wide areas ashore where no trees grew.

      The elk went where he would, regardless of the wishes of Meera and Jojen on his back. Mostly he stayed beneath the trees, but where the shore curved away westward he would take the more direct path across the frozen lake, shouldering through snowdrifts taller than Bran as the ice crackled underneath his hooves. Out there the wind was stronger, a cold north wind that howled across the lake, knifed through their layers of wool and leather, and set them all to shivering. When it blew into their faces, it would drive the snow into their eyes and leave them as good as blind.

      Hours passed in silence. Ahead, shadows began to steal between the trees, the long fingers of the dusk. Dark came early this far north. Bran had come to dread that. Each day seemed shorter than the last, and where the days were cold, the nights were bitter cruel.

      Meera halted them again. “We should have come on the village by now.” Her voice sounded hushed and strange.

      “Could we have passed it?” Bran asked.

      “I hope not. We need to find shelter before nightfall.”

      She was not wrong. Jojen’s lips were blue, Meera’s cheeks dark red. Bran’s own face had gone numb. Hodor’s beard was solid ice. Snow caked his legs almost to the knee, and Bran had felt him stagger more than once. No one was as strong as Hodor, no one. If even his great strength was failing …

      “Summer can find the village,” Bran said suddenly, his words misting in the air. He did not wait to hear what Meera might say, but closed his eyes and let himself flow from his broken body.

      As he slipped inside Summer’s skin, the dead woods came to sudden life. Where before there had been silence, now he heard: wind in the trees, Hodor’s breathing, the elk pawing at the ground in search of fodder. Familiar scents filled his nostrils: wet leaves and dead grass, the rotted carcass of a squirrel decaying in the brush, the sour stink of man-sweat, the musky odor of the elk. Food. Meat. The elk sensed his interest. He turned his head toward the direwolf, wary, and lowered his great antlers.

      He is not prey, the boy whispered to the beast who shared his skin. Leave him. Run.

      Summer ran. Across the lake he raced, his paws kicking up sprays of snow behind him. The trees stood shoulder to shoulder, like men in a battle line, all cloaked in white. Over roots and rocks the direwolf sped, through a drift of old snow, the crust crackling beneath his weight. His paws grew wet and cold. The next hill was covered with pines, and the sharp scent of their needles filled the air. When he reached the top, he turned in a circle, sniffing at the air, then raised his head and howled.

      The smells were there. Mansmells.

      Ashes, Bran thought, old and faint, but ashes. It was the smell of burnt wood, soot, and charcoal. A dead fire.

      He shook the snow off his muzzle. The wind was gusting, so СКАЧАТЬ