The road was little more than two ruts through the weeds.  The good part was, with so little traffic there’d be no one to point the finger and say which way they’d gone. The human flood that had flowed down the kingsroad was only a trickle¹ here.  The bad part was, the road wound back and forth² like a snake, tangling³ with even smaller trails and sometimes seeming to vanish entirely⁴ only to reappear half a league farther on when they had all but given up hope. Arya hated it. The land was gentle enough, rolling hills and terraced fields interspersed⁵ with meadows and woodlands and little valleys where willows⁷ crowded close to slow shallow streams. Even so, the path was so narrow and crooked⁸ that their pace had dropped to a crawl.  It was the wagons⁹ that slowed them, lumbering¹⁰ along, axles creaking under the weight of their heavy loads. A dozen times a day they had to stop to free a wheel that had stuck in a rut, or double up the teams to climb a muddy slope. Once, in the middle of a dense¹¹ stand of oak, they came face-to-face with three men pulling a load of firewood in an ox cart, with no way for either to get around. There had been nothing for it but to wait while the foresters unhitched their ox, led him through the trees, spun¹³ the cart, hitched¹² the ox up again, and started back the way they’d come. The ox was even slower than the wagons, so that day they hardly got anywhere at all.  Arya could not help looking over her shoulder, wondering when the gold cloaks would catch them. At night, she woke at every noise to grab for Needle’s hilt. They never made camp without putting out

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