They had taken shelter beneath a copse of aspens just off the high road. Tyrion was gathering deadwoodwhile their horses took water from a mountain stream. He stooped to pick up a splinteredbranch and examined it critically. “Will this do? I am not practiced at starting fires. Morrec did thatfor me.”

“A fire?” Bronn said, spitting. “Are you so hungry to die, dwarf? Or have you taken leave of yoursenses? A fire will bring the clansmen down on us from miles around. I mean to survive this journey,Lannister.”

“And how do you hope to do that?” Tyrion asked. He tucked the branch under his arm and pokedaround through the sparse undergrowth, looking for more. His back ached from the effort of bending;they had been riding since daybreak, when a stone-faced Ser Lyn Corbray had ushered them throughthe Bloody Gate and commanded them never to return.

“We have no chance of fighting our way back,” Bronn said, “but two can cover more ground thanten, and attract less notice. The fewer days we spend in these mountains, the more like we are to reachthe riverlands. Ride hard and fast, I say. Travel by night and hole up by day, avoid the road where wecan, make no noise and light no fires.”

Tyrion Lannister sighed. “A splendid plan, Bronn. Try it, as you like … and forgive me if I do notlinger to bury you.”

“You think to outlive me, dwarf?” The sellsword grinned. He had a dark gap in his smile wherethe edge of Ser Vardis Egen’s shield had cracked a tooth in half.

Tyrion shrugged. “Riding hard and fast by night is a sure way to tumble down a mountain andcrack your skull. I prefer to make my crossing slow and easy. I know you love the taste of horse,Bronn, but if our mounts die under us this time, we’ll be trying to saddle shadowcats … and if truthbe told, I think the clans will find us no matter what we do. Their eyes are all around us.” He swept agloved hand over the high, wind-carved crags that surrounded them.

Bronn grimaced. “Then we’re dead men, Lannister.”

“If so, I prefer to die comfortable,” Tyrion replied. “We need a fire. The nights are cold up here,and hot food will warm our bellies and lift our spirits. Do you suppose there’s any game to be had?

Lady Lysa has kindly provided us with a veritable feast of salt beef, hard cheese, and stale bread, but Iwould hate to break a tooth so far from the nearest maester.”

“I can find meat.” Beneath a fall of black hair, Bronn’s dark eyes regarded Tyrion suspiciously. “Ishould leave you here with your fool’s fire. If I took your horse, I’d have twice the chance to make itthrough. What would you do then, dwarf?”

“Die, most like.” Tyrion stooped to get another stick.

“You don’t think I’d do it?”

“You’d do it in an instant, if it meant your life. You were quick enough to silence your friendChiggen when he caught that arrow in his belly.” Bronn had yanked back the man’s head by the hairand driven the point of his dirk in under the ear, and afterward told Catelyn Stark that the othersellsword had died of his wound.

“He was good as dead,” Bronn said, “and his moaning was bringing them down on us. Chiggenwould have done the same for me … and he was no friend, only a man I rode with. Make no mistake,dwarf. I fought for you, but I do not love you.”

“It was your blade I needed,” Tyrion said, “not your love.” He dumped his armful of wood on theground.

Bronn grinned. “You’re bold as any sellsword, I’ll give you that. How did you know I’d take yourpart?”

“Know?” Tyrion squatted awkwardly on his stunted legs to build the fire. “I tossed the dice. Backat the inn, you and Chiggen helped take me captive. Why? The others saw it as their duty, for thehonor of the lords they served, but not you two. You had no lord, no duty, and precious little honor, sowhy trouble to involve yourselves?” He took out his knife and whittled some thin strips of bark offone of the sticks he’d gathered, to serve as kindling. “Well, why do sellswords do anything? For gold.

You were thinking Lady Catelyn would reward you for your help, perhaps even take you into herservice. Here, that should do, I hope. Do you have a flint?”

Bronn slid two fingers into the pouch at his belt and tossed down a flint. Tyrion caught it in the air.

“My thanks,” he said. “The thing is, you did not know the Starks. Lord Eddard is a proud,honorable, and honest man, and his lady wife is worse. Oh, no doubt she would have found a coin ortwo for you when this was all over, and pressed it in your hand with a polite word and a look ofdistaste, but that’s the most you could have hoped for. The Starks look for courage and loyalty andhonor in the men they choose to serve them, and if truth be told, you and Chiggen were lowbornscum.” Tyrion struck the flint against his dagger, trying for a spark. Nothing.

Bronn snorted. “You have a bold tongue, little man. One day someone is like to cut it out and makeyou eat it.”

“Everyone tells me that.” Tyrion glanced up at the sellsword. “Did I offend you? Mypardons … but you are scum, Bronn, make no mistake. Duty, honor, friendship, what’s that to you?

No, don’t trouble yourself, we both know the answer. Still, you’re not stupid. Once we reached theVale, Lady Stark had no more need of you … but I did, and the one thing the Lannisters have neverlacked for is gold. When the moment came to toss the dice, I was counting on your being smartenough to know where your best interest lay. Happily for me, you did.” He slammed stone and steeltogether again, fruitlessly.

“Here,” said Bronn, squatting, “I’ll do it.” He took the knife and flint from Tyrion’s hands andstruck sparks on his first try. A curl of bark began to smolder.

“Well done,” Tyrion said. “Scum you may be, but you’re undeniably useful, and with a sword inyour hand you’re almost as good as my brother Jaime. What do you want, Bronn? Gold? Land?

Women? Keep me alive, and you’ll have it.”

Bronn blew gently on the fire, and the flames leapt up higher. “And if you die?”

“Why then, I’ll have one mourner whose grief is sincere,” Tyrion said, grinning. “The gold endswhen I do.”

The fire was blazing up nicely. Bronn stood, tucked the flint back into his pouch, and tossed Tyrionhis dagger. “Fair enough,” he said. “My sword’s yours, then … but don’t go looking for me to bendthe knee and m’lord you every time you take a shit. I’m no man’s toady.”

“Nor any man’s friend,” Tyrion said. “I’ve no doubt you’d betray me as quick as you did LadyStark, if you saw a profit in it. If the day ever comes when you’re tempted to sell me out, rememberthis, Bronn—I’ll match their price, whatever it is. I like living. And now, do you think you could dosomething about finding us some supper?”

“Take care of the horses,” Bronn said, unsheathing the long dirk he wore at his hip. He strode intothe trees.

An hour later the horses had been rubbed down and fed, the fire was crackling away merrily, and ahaunch of a young goat was turning above the flames, spitting and hissing. “All we lack now is somegood wine to wash down our kid,” Tyrion said.

“That, a woman, and another dozen swords,” Bronn said. He sat cross-legged beside the fire,honing the edge of his longsword with an oilstone. There was something strangely reassuring aboutthe rasping sound it made when he drew it down the steel. “It will be full dark soon,” the sellswordpointed out. “I’ll take first watch … for all the good it will do us. It might be kinder to let them kill usin our sleep.”

“Oh, I imagine they’ll be here long before it comes to sleep.” The smell of the roasting meat madeTyrion’s mouth water.

Bronn watched him across the fire. “You have a plan,” he said flatly, with a scrape of steel onstone.

“A hope, call it,” Tyrion said. “Another toss of the dice.”

“With our lives as the stake?”

Tyrion shrugged. “What choice do we have?” He leaned over the fire and sawed a thin slice ofmeat from the kid. “Ahhhh,” he sighed happily as he chewed. Grease ran down his chin. “A bittougher than I’d like, and in want of spicing, but I’ll not complain too loudly. If I were back at theEyrie, I’d be dancing on a precipice in hopes of a boiled bean.”

“And yet you gave the turnkey a purse of gold,” Bronn said.

“A Lannister always pays his debts.”

Even Mord had scarcely believed it when Tyrion tossed him the leather purse. The gaoler’s eyeshad gone big as boiled eggs as he yanked open the drawstring and beheld the glint of gold. “I kept thesilver,” Tyrion had told him with a crooked smile, “but you were promised the gold, and there it is.” Itwas more than a man like Mord could hope to earn in a lifetime of abusing prisoners. “And rememberwhat I said, this is only a taste. If you ever grow tired of Lady Arryn’s service, present yourself atCasterly Rock, and I’ll pay you the rest of what I owe you.” With golden dragons spilling out of bothhands, Mord had fallen to his knees and promised that he would do just that.

Bronn yanked out his dirk and pulled the meat from the fire. He began to carve thick chunks ofcharred meat off the bone as Tyrion hollowed out two heels of stale bread to serve as trenchers. “If wedo reach the river, what will you do then?” the sellsword asked as he cut.

“Oh, a whore and a featherbed and a flagon of wine, for a start.” Tyrion held out his trencher, andBronn filled it with meat. “And then to Casterly Rock or King’s Landing, I think. I have somequestions that want answering, concerning a certain dag............