Over the next week they kept to the hedgerows on the road bending toward Tumbler's Falls. The Blackwater river's breath was in the wind—cool, damp, and hissing like torn cloth.
Lyanna rode with her back to the wheel well. The albino raven sat on the rail, feathers neat as parchment. "Dijkstra," she said at last. "Your name isn't like Maple or Thistle or any other singer I know. How did you come by it?"
The raven preened. "It isn't a name. It's a hat. I stole it from a tale about a very large spymaster who moved pieces while kings pretended to rule. I liked his shamelessness."
"So you picked it," Dacey said, "like a dog picks a bone."
"Exactly," the raven said, pleased. "If a better story comes, I'll wear a better hat."
They rounded a bend and came on a lone middle-aged man trudging through mud, boots slung over a shoulder, lute case bouncing. The man looked up with a grin meant for kitchens and gallows alike. "Good day, road-friends," he called. "Tom o' Sevenstreams would trade a song and a story for a spot on that cart."
"Stories would be good," Dacey said. "Climb in."
Tom hopped up light as a cat. "Seven bless! an all-white crow?" He reached a hand.
The raven went perfectly dull: one bland caw, a glassy stare.
"Leave him," Lyanna said. "He bites."
"I've been bitten by worse." Tom settled, cheerful. "What news do you buy, and what news will you sell?"
"Sell none," Howland said. "Buy all."
Tom talked. Word from the south: Robert Baratheon broken at Ashford, Lord Mace's men and Randyll Tarly's mind doing the work. Robert wounded, forced to slip away north. Lords whispering of a hunt through the realm—Stony Sept's name on many lips. Riverland ravens thick with rumors of royal justice and rebellion from King's Landing.
They reached Tumbler's Falls at noon. Spray stitched the air with silver thread. A narrow stone bridge arced the racing water, slick with mist. At its head, orange-and-white rags tried to be banners. A plank said TOLL in proud, peeling letters. Six men idled by a smoky fire. One wore a Frey surcoat. His smile was thin and careful.
"Silver stag to cross," he called, cupping his hands. "By order of Ser Jahaerys Frey, nephew to Lord Walder. Step lively."
"Of course the Freys charge for breathing," Dacey muttered.
"But what are they doing so far from the Twins?" Tom inquired. "I smell a story."
"Pay," Howland said. "We want the other bank, not a quarrel."
They rolled forward. The thin Frey came to meet them, glove out. "One for each steed," he ordered, eyeing Winter, "and another for that pale crow. He offends nature."
"Two," Howland said patiently, placing coins in his palm. "No more."
The man weighed them, then looked up. His gaze slid past Howland and Dacey and stuck on the edge of Lyanna's cloak—on the painted curl of green and white that peeked from worn leather.
His eyes sharpened. "I know that paint," he said. He stepped in, snatching for the cloak. Lyanna turned, his fingers closed on air. He leaned in, nostrils flaring. "Harrenhal," he spat. "The tree emblem hedge knight who challenged me then ran away. You took my purse before half the realm. Ser Jahaerys Frey doesn't forget a thief."
He shouted. "Men! Seize the knight and the cart. Everything's forfeit."
Steel scraped. Two blocked the far end. Two left the fire with cudgels. One slid toward Winter, eyes on the mare's legs.
"Tom," Dacey said, "off."
Tom o' Sevenstreams rolled from the cart and flattened behind a wheel. The albino raven went blank-eyed and harmless.
Lyanna shut her left eye. The world quivered into green lines and ghost-steps. The Frey reached for her cloak, then stabbed for ribs. Shield-bash coming from her right. A low sweep for Winter's knees. She lifted her lids. Present and future overlaid, then clicked into place.
"Right for you," she told Dacey. "Hook-nose for you," she told Howland.
Ser Jahaerys lunged. She caught the cloak in her fist so he couldn't yank it free, then let his thrust skitter off riveted mail. Her riposte was short and ugly, the kind Jorah had drilled into her bones: cut the forearm, step out, make him clumsy. Blood slashed the mist. He stumbled.
A shield came from her right like a door ripped off hinges. Dacey met it with her shoulder and did not give ground. The sound was a deep thud that carried through the stone. The man behind the shield grunted, heels skidding on wet stone. Dacey shoved. He flew back two strides, lost his footing on slick growth, and went down. Her stick rose and fell. Iron dented. His breath came out in a long wheeze and did not return.
Howland's bow spoke. The pale fletching vanished through hook-nose's collar. He folded in place, eyes still surprised. Another archer on the far end drew, but the marsh-lander had already nocked again. The second shot struck the man's bow hand. His string went slack. He swore and ducked behind a pillar.
The cudgel-man feinted at Lyanna's left hip. She closed her left eye for a heartbeat. The green echo showed his weight shift not toward her but toward Winter. He would low-cut the mare and then rush her exposed flank. She stepped in instead of back. Her blade severed the thug's right fingers at the knuckle. The wood bounced loose. She hooked his ankle with the edge of her boot and drove her shoulder into his chest. He pinwheeled, arms wide, and struck the parapet hard enough to rattle stone. The river hissed below.
The Jahaerys Frey recovered with a snarl. He came straight on, teeth red, weight behind the point. She waited for the flicker. It came: a shallow thrust meant to force a parry, followed by a hook to rip her blade away. She did not parry. She stepped to his outside, let the thrust pass, and boxed his ear with the iron-studded guard. His head snapped sideways. She heard the crack of teeth.
On the far end of the bridge, a new pair advanced together: one with a spear probing for range, one with a hammer ready to punish a misstep. Dacey strode to meet them, light on her feet despite the size of her frame. The spear shot in for her belly. She twisted and let it slide across leather, then caught the shaft under her armpit and wrenched. The spearman lurched forward. The hammer came down to brain her. She stepped inside the arc and let the head kiss air. The shaft smacked her back instead; she barely flinched. Her mace came up from her hip in a tight, brutal arc and caught the hammer-man under the jaw. He left the ground. When he came down, he did not stir.
The spearman tried to pull free. Dacey kept the spear trapped, rolled her shoulder, and snapped it clean where the haft met her ribs. She shoved the man away with one hand to the throat, extended, and held him there for the space of a breath, arm straight, wrist locked. His boots scrabbled. She let him drop and cracked the broken shaft across his temple. He crawled for the parapet and stayed there, groaning.
A man at the rear saw an opening and made for Winter's near foreleg, knife low. Lyanna felt the thought from the mare as if it were her own—weight back, hoof ready. She pivoted, cut at the man's wrist, and yelled, "Now!" Winter struck, iron shoe flashing. The kick caught the man's shoulder and sent him spinning into the bridge rail. He hung there a moment on his ribs, then slithered down.
Howland's third arrow hissed past Lyanna's cheek and buried itself in the last archer's bicep as he peeked. The man yelped and let the bow clatter. "Drop it!" Howland called, voice flat. The man obeyed with his good hand raised.
Ser Jahaerys stood up, blood roping from his mouth. Lyanna turned her hip and pushed her blade up to his throat. "Call them off."
He glared, eyes watering. Dacey reached past and plucked his knife from his belt like a mother taking a toy from a child. "Swords down," she told the others, voice level and unhurried. "On the plank."
Steel hit stone. Hands went up.
"Stags back," Dacey said, palm out. "All of them, neat as beads."
Coins came in sullen dribbles. Howland took them without a word. The raven hopped once along the cart rail and eyed a particularly shiny stag. No one stopped him when he pinched it and tucked it under a wing.
The captain spat blood and pride. "You'll hang for—"
"When your uncle hears," Dacey cut in, "he'll charge you a toll for the rope." She moved her mace under his chin. He closed his mouth.
Lyanna lifted her sword. The green shimmer flashed—one last dirty stab for her belly. She knocked it aside and split the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger. His sword clanged to the stones. "Follow," she said, "and I'll stop being gentle."
They rolled over the bridge with the falls roaring at their shoulder. Tom jogged until Dacey hauled him up by the collar. "That was something," he said, face bright with the terror already turning into verse. "A toll for a tale, a Frey in the foam, a laughing knight on a narrow span—Seven save me, I can hear it."
"No names," Dacey said.
"None at all," Tom promised. The Knight of the Laughing Tree returns to bedevil Freys. Anonymous and admired."
They climbed the far bank and did not slow until the spray thinned to mist. The road bent south toward Stony Sept; the thunder faded behind them.
Lyanna let the tension bleed from her hands. The green shimmer had come when she called it. She'd met men's steel and walked away.
Dacey glanced over, reading her without words. "First fight with your trick against real danger," she said. "You did well."
Tom hummed under his breath, testing lines. "A toll and a tree from a painted envy—no, no, better later." He tapped his lute case. "Give me an hour."
Behind them, the Frey men pulled their wounded into the shade of the toll shack. The river swallowed their curses. Tom settled on the cart rail and strummed one soft test note.
Dijkstra gave a perfectly ordinary caw, then, when Tom looked away, whispered sideways to Lyanna, "That was fun, I knew following you was wise."
"Try not to crow about it," she said, and for the first time since waking in the cart, she almost smiled.