George R. R. Martin
A CLASH OF KINGS
COPYRIGHT
An imprint of HarperCollins
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Previously published in paperback by Voyager in 1999, 2003, 2008, 2011
First published in Great Britain by Voyager in 1998
Copyright © George R. R. Martin 1998
Cover layout design © HarperCollins
George R. R. Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780002256681
Ebook Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 9780007378388
Version: 2017-11-14
Dedication
to John and Gail for all the meat and mead we’ve shared
Maps
PROLOGUE
The comet’s tail spread across the dawn, a red slash that bled above the crags of Dragonstone like a wound in the pink and purple sky.
The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers.
It was here the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern, two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. When first he came to Dragonstone, the army of stone grotesques had made him uneasy, but as the years passed he had grown used to them. Now he thought of them as old friends. The three of them watched the sky together with foreboding.The maester did not believe in omens. And yet … old as he was, Cressen had never seen a comet half so bright, nor yet that color, that terrible color, the color of blood and flame and sunsets. He wondered if his gargoyles had ever seen its like. They had been here so much longer than he had, and would still be here long after he was gone. If stone tongues could speak …