At the beginning of the story, Lord Eddard Stark executes a deserter from the Night's Watch, the main force for keeping out the dangers north of the Wall, a huge structure of ice, stone, and magic that protects the Seven Kingdoms. On the way back, he and his men discover six direwolf pups, the animal of his sigil. There are three trueborn male wolf pups and two female wolf pups, as well as a runt, which matches his family of three trueborn sons, two trueborn daughters, and a bastard. That night, he receives word of the death of his mentor, Lord Jon Arryn, who had been a close adviser of Eddard's childhood friend, King Robert Baratheon. During a subsequent royal visit to Eddard's isolated northern castle, Winterfell, Robert recruits Eddard as a replacement for Arryn, as the King's Hand. Eddard is at first reluctant, but agrees to go when he learns Arryn's widow, Lysa, Stark's wife's sister, believes Queen Cersei and her family poisoned Arryn. Shortly thereafter, Eddard's son Bran Stark inadvertently discovers Cersei having sex with her twin brother Jaime Lannister, who throws Bran from the tower to conceal the secret. Eddard and his daughters Sansa and Arya depart for the royal capital of King's Landing, while his wife Catelyn, a comatose Bran, and their other sons Robb and Rickon remain at Winterfell. During the journey south, a physical altercation between Arya and Robert's son, Prince Joffrey, to whom Sansa has been betrothed, involving the direwolves of Arya and Sansa, increases both the tension between the Starks and the Lannisters and the sibling rivalry between Arya and Sansa. Arya's wolf is chased away by her while Sansa's direwolf is executed to pay for what Arya's wolf did to Joffrey. Meanwhile, at Winterfell, an assassin hired by an unknown party attempts to kill Bran, and Catelyn departs for King's Landing. to bring word of this newest complication to Eddard. Shortly thereafter, Bran awakens as a paraplegic, and with no memory of the circumstances of his fall. At King's Landing, Eddard meets the King's main advisers, including Petyr Baelish, known as Littlefinger, the royal treasurer, and Varys, the master of secrets. Eddard soon assumes effective royal power, while Robert devotes his time to sensual pleasures. Upon Catelyn's arrival in King's Landing, she is brought to Baelish, who was a childhood friend of hers, who identifies Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf brother of Cersei and Jaime, as the owner of the dagger used against Bran. He agrees to help Eddard investigate the possibility of Lannister treason. During her return journey to Winterfell, Catelyn meets Tyrion by chance, arrests him, and takes him to Lysa. Tyrion demands trial by combat and regains his freedom when his champion, a sellsword named Bronn, is victorious. In retaliation for Tyrion's abduction, Tyrion's father, Lord Tywin Lannister, sends soldiers on violent raids across Catelyn's family lands. Eddard eventually discovers that Robert's legal heirs, including Joffrey, are in fact Cersei's children by Jaime. That was the secret that Jon Arryn had died for. He offers Cersei a chance to flee her certain execution before he informs Robert, but she uses his attempt at mercy to arrange for Robert's death in a hunting accident. Eddard, made lord-regent by Robert's will, requests Littlefinger's help which is granted, to have the city guards side with him when challenging Joffrey's claim on the throne but is betrayed by him, resulting in Eddard's arrest, the death of his men, and Sansa's imprisonment. The Lannisters attempt to capture Arya as well, but she flees the castle. Joffrey is crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms. Eddard eventually agrees to swear fealty to Joffrey and join the Night's Watch in exchange for Sansa's safety. Joffrey nevertheless has him beheaded. Robb Stark has gathered an army and marched south in response to his father's arrest; upon learning of Eddard's death, he moves to raise further support from and aid his maternal grandfather, Lord Hoster Tully's, besieged castle at Riverrun. To reach the Tully lands, he agrees to a marriage pact with House Frey, who control the intervening territory at the river crossing. Robb proves victorious in an eventual confrontation between his army and Jaime Lannister, who besieged Riverrun, leaving his father, Lord Tywin Lannister, in a vulnerable position facing the contingent of Robb's army thought to be his entire force to the north, over whom he had a small victory as Robb rushed to face Jaime and cut off his supplies, support and route home. Tywin decides to withdraw to the southern border of the Tully lands, sending Tyrion to King's Landing to keep the unstable Joffrey under control. Robb, electing not to ally himself with Robert's brother Renly, who has made his own claim to the throne, is hailed by the southern and northern lords alike by his family's ancestral title, King in the North, at their Riverrun garrison. The Prologue of the novel introduces the Wall: an ancient barrier of stone, ice and magic, hundreds of feet high and hundreds of miles long, shielding the Seven Kingdoms from the Northern wilderness. The Wall is manned by the Night's Watch, an order of warriors sworn to serve there for life, forgoing marriage, titles, property and children. North of the Wall, a small patrol of Rangers from the Night's Watch encounter the Others, an ancient and hostile race of beings thought long extinct or mythological. All of the Rangers are killed except a single survivor who flees south and is later executed by Eddard Stark for desertion. Jon Snow, the bastard son of Eddard Stark, is inspired by his uncle, Benjen Stark, to join the Night's Watch, but becomes disillusioned when he discovers that it is little more than a penal colony meant to keep "wildlings" (human tribesmen in relative anarchy north of the Wall) in check. At the Wall, Jon unites the recruits against their harsh instructor, and protects the cowardly but good-natured and intelligent Samwell Tarly. Jon hopes that his combat skills will earn him assignment to the Rangers, the military arm of the Night's Watch, but instead is made a steward to the leader of the Watch, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, who sees command potential in Jon. Meanwhile Benjen, who had led a small party of Rangers beyond the Wall, fails to return. Nearly six months later after Benjen's disappearance, the dead bodies of two of the Rangers from his party are recovered beyond the Wall; their corpses soon re-animate as wights, which kill six men and threaten Mormont, who is saved by Jon. When word of his father's execution reaches Jon, he attempts to join his half-brother Robb against the Lannisters, but is prevented by his comrades and persuaded by Mormont to remain loyal to the Watch. Mormont then declares his intention to find Benjen - dead or alive - and to investigate the disappearance of many wildlings and the dark rumors surrounding "the King-Beyond-the-Wall," a deserter from the Night's Watch known as Mance Rayder. In Pentos, a city-state of Essos, a continent to the east of Westeros, Viserys Targaryen, son of the king overthrown by Robert Baratheon, betroths his sister Daenerys to Khal Drogo, a warlord of the nomadic Dothraki, in exchange for use of Drogo's army to reclaim the throne of Westeros. Illyrio, a wealthy merchant who has been supporting the penniless Targaryens and brokered the marriage, gives Daenerys three petrified dragon eggs as a wedding gift. Jorah Mormont, a knight exiled from Westeros, joins Viserys as an adviser. Initially terrified of her powerful new husband and his alien people, Daenerys eventually settles into her place as Drogo's queen. When Drogo shows little interest in conquering Westeros, Viserys tries to browbeat his sister into coercing Drogo, but the previously tractable Daenerys refuses. When a frustrated and imperious Viserys publicly threatens the pregnant Daenerys, Drogo executes him. Viserys wanted "a gold crown" in return for Dany, and he got just that, when Drogo killed him by pouring molten gold on Viserys's head. As the last Targaryen, Daenerys takes up her brother's quest to reclaim the throne. An assassin seeking King Robert's favor attempts to poison Daenerys and her unborn child, and a vengeful Drogo agrees to help her conquer Westeros. While sacking villages to fund the invasion, Drogo is wounded, and Daenerys commands a captive folk healer to save him. Drogo does not believe in the folk healer, so he does not listen to her instruction. When he is beyond saving, the healer, angered by the Dothraki raids, sacrifices Daenerys' unborn child to power the spell which she promised would save Drogo's life, which restores Drogo's health but leaves him in a vegetative state. Most of the Dothraki army departs to follow a new leader. Daenerys smothers Drogo with a pillow, and orders the healer tied to Drogo's funeral pyre. She places her three dragon eggs on the pyre, enters it herself, and emerges unscathed with three newly hatched dragons suckling at her breasts. The few remaining Dothraki and Jorah Mormont, awe-struck, swear allegiance to her.