A Clash of Kings
Chapters - George R. R. Martin
Prologue
On Dragonstone, the aged Maester Cressen watches in despair as the red priestess Melisandre tightens her hold over Stannis Baratheon, burning the statues of the Seven and proclaiming Stannis the reborn Azor Ahai. Displaced from his seat of counsel and mocked before the court, Cressen attempts to poison Melisandre with the strangler dissolved in a shared cup of wine. The red woman drinks deeply and is unharmed, her ruby glowing at her throat, while Cressen collapses and dies at her feet.
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 1: Arya I
Disguised as the orphan boy Arry, Arya travels north with Yoren and his band of Night's Watch recruits, struggling to conceal her identity and her castle-forged sword Needle from the bullying orphans Lommy and Hot Pie. She thrashes Hot Pie with her practice sword when he tries to steal Needle, earning a beating from Yoren and a grudging respect from the older boy called the Bull. At night she stares up at the red comet and sees her father's greatsword dripping with blood, aching for Winterfell and the brother she left behind at the Wall.
POV: Arya Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 2: Sansa I
Sansa endures Joffrey's pitiful name-day tourney in the Red Keep, where the drunken Ser Dontos Hollard nearly earns a death sentence until Sansa's quick thinking persuades the king to make him a fool instead. The arrival of Tyrion Lannister at the gates, bearing his father's authority as acting Hand of the King, shifts the balance of power as he offers Sansa surprisingly gentle words and promises to do justice in the capital.
POV: Sansa Stark·On page: Joffrey Baratheon
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 3: Tyrion I
Tyrion presents Cersei with Lord Tywin's letter naming him acting Hand and immediately begins assessing the damage wrought by Joffrey's reign, learning that it was Sansa who unwittingly betrayed her father's plans and that Cersei engineered Robert's death through strongwine. He establishes himself in the Tower of the Hand and orders the spiked heads removed from the walls, while Varys greets him with a riddle about power and the veiled threat that he has already found Shae.
POV: Tyrion Lannister·On page: Cersei Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 4: Bran I
Bran sits at his window in Winterfell, listening to the direwolves howl and longing for the freedom of his wolf dreams, where he runs swift and strong on four good legs through the godswood. He quarrels with the Frey wards and chafes under Maester Luwin's gentle insistence that his dreams of being a wolf are merely dreams, though part of him knows better when he slips into Summer's skin each night.
POV: Bran Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 5: Arya II
Arya and the recruits leave the kingsroad to avoid danger, but gold cloaks from King's Landing ride up to the inn demanding a boy with a warrant from Queen Cersei. When the officer reveals it is the Bull they want, not Arya, Yoren puts steel to the man's throat and sends the gold cloaks packing, then gives Arya and Gendry the two fastest horses with orders to ride hard for the Wall at the first sign of trouble.
POV: Arya Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 6: Jon I
Jon and Sam search the dusty vaults beneath Castle Black for maps before the great ranging, and Jon learns from Lord Commander Mormont the remarkable story of Maester Aemon, who refused the Iron Throne so that his vows might remain unbroken. Mormont warns Jon that having a king for a brother will test him sorely, and Jon promises he will be troubled but will keep his vows nonetheless.
POV: Jon Snow
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 7: Catelyn I
At Riverrun, Catelyn watches her fifteen-year-old son hold court as King in the North, sending impossible peace terms to Cersei and quarrelling with her over releasing the Kingslayer. Robb dispatches Theon Greyjoy to treat with his father Lord Balon despite Catelyn's warnings, and her uncle the Blackfish brings grim tidings of Lord Tywin entrenched at Harrenhal and a new Lannister host gathering at Casterly Rock, leading Catelyn to suggest they seek an alliance with King Renly.
POV: Catelyn Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 8: Tyrion II
Tyrion hosts Lord Janos Slynt for a lavish dinner, plying him with wine before stripping him of his lordship and shipping him to the Wall for his part in Eddard Stark's betrayal, installing the honourable Ser Jacelyn Bywater as the new commander of the City Watch. Varys reveals that Cersei ordered the murder of Robert's bastard children, and Tyrion confronts the uncomfortable truth that his own hired men are scarcely better than the ones he has just condemned.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 9: Arya III
Arya and the recruits struggle through the war-torn countryside, finding burned villages and fresh graves as they try to skirt around the Gods Eye. They shelter for the night in an abandoned holdfast near a lakeside town, but fear follows them in the dark, where wolves howl and distant screams drift on the wind.
POV: Arya Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 10: Davos I
Davos watches uneasily as Stannis draws a burning sword from the pyre of the Seven on Dragonstone, and Melisandre proclaims him Azor Ahai reborn, though the blade seems more charred ruin than legendary weapon. Over wine with the pirate Salladhor Saan, Davos learns that Renly has marched from Highgarden and that Stannis plans to send ravens and envoys across the realm declaring Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella abominations born of incest, staking everything on his claim as rightful king.
POV: Davos Seaworth·On page: Stannis Baratheon, Melisandre
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 11: Theon I
Theon Greyjoy sails home to Pyke after ten years as a hostage, expecting a hero's welcome but finding only his grim uncle Aeron and a father who despises his mainland finery and burns Robb Stark's letter of alliance without a second thought. Lord Balon means to pay the iron price for his crown and has no intention of serving as any green-land king's vassal, leaving Theon to realise with dread that his father plans to strike not at the Lannisters but at the undefended North.
POV: Theon Greyjoy
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 12: Daenerys I
Daenerys leads her starving khalasar into the red waste, following the comet she believes heralds her coming, naming her three dragons Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal after those the gods have taken from her. After sheltering in the dead city they name Vaes Tolorro, she sends her bloodriders to scout in three directions, and Jhogo returns with three strangers from the great city of Qarth: a warlock, a merchant prince, and a masked shadowbinder.
POV: Daenerys Targaryen
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 13: Jon II
Jon rides with the great ranging through the haunted forest, finding village after village abandoned and the land eerily silent of both wildlings and game. At Whitetree, he examines a massive weirwood with human bones in its mouth, and as the column presses deeper into the wilderness, even the veteran rangers admit the forest has never felt so haunted.
POV: Jon Snow
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 14: Arya IV
Arya and the recruits are attacked at the holdfast by Ser Amory Lorch and his Lannister soldiers, who storm the walls despite Yoren's protests that the Night's Watch takes no part. In the chaos of battle, Yoren falls fighting and Arya drags the crying girl through the burning barn, pausing only to throw an axe to the chained prisoners Jaqen, Rorge, and Biter before escaping through a tunnel beneath the flames.
POV: Arya Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 15: Tyrion III
Tyrion learns that Stannis is circulating letters across the realm accusing Cersei and Jaime of incest, and the small council scrambles to counter the accusations, with Littlefinger suggesting they spread a rumour that Stannis's daughter Shireen was fathered by the fool Patchface. Outside the council chamber, Tyrion visits a secret tunnel beneath a brothel that Varys has arranged, and sets hundreds of smiths to forging an enormous chain whose purpose he keeps to himself.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 16: Bran II
Bran presides over audiences at Winterfell, greeting Lord Wyman Manderly and the grieving Lady Hornwood while learning the grim art of lordship from Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin. By night, the three-eyed crow haunts his dreams, and he relives his fall from the tower again and again, waking to the memory of a golden man saying the things I do for love.
POV: Bran Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 17: Tyrion IV
Tyrion springs an elaborate trap to discover which of his councillors is Cersei's informer, feeding different marriage proposals to Pycelle, Littlefinger, and Varys, each with a unique detail that will betray the source when it reaches his sister's ears. When Cersei confronts him about the Dornish match for Myrcella, Tyrion knows it was Pycelle who told her, and he savours the knowledge that two more moves remain in his game.
POV: Tyrion Lannister
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 18: Sansa II
Sansa finds a note under her pillow promising to take her home, and ventures to the godswood at night to discover her secret benefactor is the drunken fool Ser Dontos Hollard, who pledges to be her Florian and smuggle her out of King's Landing. On her way back, the Hound catches her on the serpentine steps and tells her she is a pretty little bird who sings the songs they taught her, promising that one day she will sing for him whether she likes it or not.
POV: Sansa Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Chapter 19: Arya V
Arya and the surviving orphans stumble through the war-ravaged countryside until they are captured by Gregor Clegane's men, who kill Lommy with a casual spear thrust when the wounded boy cannot walk. The Mountain's soldiers strip Arya of Needle and march the prisoners toward Harrenhal, and she begins to understand that in this war, knights and lordlings take each other captive while smallfolk are simply slaughtered.
POV: Arya Stark
Source: A Wiki of Ice and Fire