The Song Of Ice and Fire (554 page)
Read The Song Of Ice and Fire Online
Authors: George R. R. Martin
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Epic, #Media Tie-In, #Action & Adventure
No words could suffice for Parris, who has been there on the good days and the bad ones for every bloody page. All that needs be said is that I could not sing this Song without her.
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
v3.1_r10
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Epilogue
Appendix
Westeros
The Boy King
The King at the Wall
King of the Isles and the North
Other Houses Great and Small
House Arryn
House Baratheon
House Frey
House Lannister
House Martell
House Stark
House Tully
House Tyrell
The Sworn Brothers of the Night’s Watch
The Wildings, or the Free Folk
Beyond the Wall
Essos Beyond the Narrow Sea
In Braavos
In Old Volantis
On Slaver’s Bay
The Queen Across the Water
The Sellswords Men and Women of the Free Companies
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
