Previously on A Game of Thrones Littleprick was a little prick.
Arya and Syrio are practicing. Y'know, if Syrio hadn't insisted on this one last lesson, Arya would have been captured, probably. What a coincidink.
It really seems like, for this book at least, George just knew where everybody needed to be at the end of the book (crippled, dead, annoying, useless, dwarf, distraction, underused, can i haz dragonbabies) and worked backwards from there. Wish he'd kept doing that. (Obligatory degrading comment about A Dance with Dragons here.)
Syrio tells Arya a story about how he became the first sword of Braavos, a title that is still completely unexplained (you know, we have a character in Braavos in A Dance With Dragons, but apparently we were too busy with Harzoo to explore that city). Basically it's George's version of The Emperor's New Clothes, except that in this case the emperor knew he was naked and wanted to see who would tell him the truth. Except he wasn't naked, he just had an ugly cat. But other than that it was exactly like The Emperor's New Clothes.
Syrio tells Arya that when the get to Winterfell it will be time to start practicing with Needle. This makes Arya very happy. And because GRRM and Joss Whedon are two sides of the same coin, you should be able to guess that she won't stay happy for-
A Kingsguard breaks down the door. He wants Arya Stark, but for some inane reason he's brought Lannister guardsmen with him. (An early sign that Cersei is less than half as clever as she looks in this book.) Syrio figures out what's what and then the literary equivalent of this happens. (Pagan show-watchers, please note that this version makes more sense because the Lannister guards aren't wearing real armor. They're wearing real armor in the show because the showrunners don't trust you to get that they're Lannister guards if they're not in Lannister armor.)
Just as in the show, Arya doesn't bother running until it's clear that Syrio has lost. She could have had at least a minute's head start. Not that it matters too much, because she still escapes, but, yes, Arya is pretty stupid right there.
Arya makes her way back to the Tower of the Hand and finds bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. None of them have names. George is slipping. Oops, I lied; one of them is Hullen. Who's he? Some guy. But he has a name. Yay!
Arya gets down to the stables and finds another named corpse - Desmond - as well as several unnamed ones. Also, her luggage. And thus, also Needle. And also a stableboy, whom she kills with Needle when he threatens to take her to the Queen.
Damn, book!
Then Arya does some sneaking stuff and some Assassin's Creed stuff - okay, yes, that sums up her storyline for the rest of the extant series, but she's also sneaking around out-of-the-way routes to get to that tunnel where she saw Varys and Illyrio a while back.
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