SANDOR
"No swords! No swords!"
That was the first thing Sandor heard in the moments following the revelation, as every one of his old instincts had kicked back in and he was hauling at his longsword, suddenly assailed by memories of his brawl with his brother's men at the crossroads inn – and he even had a Stark girl with him again, but it was the little bird, not the wolf bitch. That thought, along with the pissant innkeeper flapping at his side in a panic, made him hold back when he wanted so badly to do something intemperate. He shoved the blade into its scabbard and bared his teeth at the Arryn men and the Warrior's Sons in the hideous approximation of a smile. "There," he said. "No swords."
"You are still as much a mad dog as ever, Clegane," one of the Arryns said angrily. "The seven hells themselves must not have been enough to contain you. And now you're back to your old villainies, taking the girl and – "
"Fuck your mother, you slack-jawed heap of sheep shit. I never laid a finger on her. From what she's been telling me, that would have been you lot."
That was an utter bluff. The little bird had been as close-mouthed about her time in the Vale as he'd been about his time on the Quiet Isle, but Sandor wagered she hadn't spent it embroidering tapestries and chirping love songs. Though she always chirps love songs, this one. He had seen it in her face: older, harder, haunted, out running by herself like a fool, her and that tale she'd told about killing Ser Shadrich. He had no doubt that she'd done it, but the fact that she'd had to at all, that she'd faced that and everything, that he'd failed to protect her yet again, that whatever had passed between them in that room – whatever in damnation she'd made of it, wittering on about him kissing her, when it really was just the drunken idiocies of a dog – it made him want to hit something, hard and fatally. And there were the wretched buggers, standing right there. It was practically inhumane.
"Lady – Alayne," another of the Arryn men said at last. "We've been searching for you for almost a fortnight. Your lord father has been most concerned. You must have suffered unimaginably, but you're safe now – and unspoiled." His look turned questioning. "Are you not?"
Alayne? Sandor thought suspiciously. It was bloody obvious that not even the little bird would be stupid enough to moonlight in the Vale under her own name, but for anyone who'd seen the girl even in passing. . . He would have known her anywhere, even with her hair shorn off, and so, he assumed, would they. That little hesitation before "Alayne" told the tale. Gods only know what fables Baelish is feeding them, but they're somewhat smarter than they look. Only somewhat.
As for the rest. . . he didn't want to think about it. If the girl had been successively wed to the Imp, shut up with that whoremaster Littlefinger, and then abducted by the enterprising Ser Shadrich, she must be more used than Lollys Stokeworth, more scarred than his own ugly face. Sandor had heard all the tales from the Lannister guardsmen as to the horrific fate that had befallen the dwarf's first wife, and there was no way that that creature would have had the decency to keep his breeches laced with such a young, timid, beautiful replacement. Whatever he'd not had, Littlefinger would have taken, as the price for her safety. And Shadrich – What do you think he was doing when she killed him, dog?
Sandor could hear his own voice, sobbing to the wolf bitch as he lay dying on the Trident. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf. If being raped and ruined by a dog was a kinder fate than the one he'd cravenly abandoned her to, then. . . then. . .
Preoccupied with his brooding as he was, he almost missed the little bird's answer. "I have not suffered any worse than cold, fright, and hunger," she said, with an odd sidelong glance at him. "Thank you."
The man held out his hand. "Come now. We'll take you home. Just give the word, and the dog dies."
"I'd like to see you try, old man." Sandor rattled his sword in its sheath, sending the innkeeper into a renewed fit of conniptions.
"No!" Sansa blurted. "No, that is not my wish. It is as he said, he never laid a hand on me. But. . . I cannot go back with you. Not without telling you."
The Arryn man looked impatient, but apparently decided to humor her. "Tell us what, my lady?"
"I. . ." For a moment, the little bird's courage almost failed her, but she swallowed and drew herself up straight. "It's about Lord Robert," she said. "He. . I swear it. The Lord Protector is having him poisoned."
The innkeeper dropped a tankard. The clatter was the only sound.
"Lord Baelish?" From the looks the Arryn men exchanged, Sandor could tell that they didn't find it entirely implausible. "And how would you know that, exactly?"
"You know who I am. I am Lord Robert's. . . close companion. For – for Lord Baelish's plans. Sweetsleep, he's using sweetsleep, I swear! You have to stop him, you have to defend your lord, ask Maester Colemon or Gretchel or Maddy or any of the maids – "
The Arryn men now seemed to be listening intently, nodding and frowning in apparent concern. But Sandor, who was watching them like a hawk, did not miss the glance they exchanged. He tightened his grip on his sword hilt.
"Is that so, my lady," the man said. "Sweetsleep. And Maester Colemon."
The little bird was nodding eagerly. "Aye, it's so. It started not long after his mother's death, and his mother – Marillion didn't kill her, he never did, it was – "
The rest of her sentence would remain an eternal mystery. For that was when, all at once, the three Arryn men lunged.
Sandor hadn't taken his eyes off them for an instant, and he timed it almost perfectly. Even as their swords were singing from the sheaths, and the innkeeper's heart just about gave out on the spot, so was his, and he met the first blow with a teeth-jarring clang. Savage joy flooded him to the marrow. After so long, after so much doubt and agony and confusion, after the days spent digging graves and the nights dogged by ghosts, this he still understood. This he knew. This was killing, and he had always been good at that.
The inn's few patrons abandoned their breakfasts and fled en masse, screeching like a flock of geese, as Sandor and the three knights cut and battered and hammered their way back and forth across the common room. He was definitely not at the height of his abilities; if he was, he would have already chopped this gang of muttonheads into conveniently steak-sized portions. But it was queerly easier to fight three at once than it was to fight two or one; the trick was to keep those two always crossed up, while he handled business with the third.
The Warrior's Sons had apparently not decided on whose side they were going to intervene. Sandor was well aware that they loathed him, but hopefully the little bird had let slip enough to cloud their certainty somewhat. And besides, however badly or heretically, he was one of their own. He was not formally godsworn, and in fact had difficulty picturing the High Septon waking up from his faint long enough to accept him as one, but they knew that the Elder Brother had trusted him, and cared for him. He told the other two that if they came across me, they should tell me that it was her. And they did. So much, at least.
Sandor ducked as one of the Arryn knights cut wildly at his face. The last thing he needed was any more scars, but he was lucky that this lot had more piss than prudence. He wrenched his blade up, thought that if the Seven were watching then they were laughing themselves breathless, and took the man's head off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the little bird blanch. Did you forget what I am, girl? Did you forget what I do? The corpse was down and convulsing, a wash of blood spreading across the innkeeper's nice clean floor, and both the surviving Arryns were redoubling their blows in protest.
Sandor ducked again, but couldn't stop the first one's blade from scything across the top of his left shoulder, taking a long piece of skin with it. Nothing, that's nothing. He grinned ghoulishly and took his revenge in much more lasting fashion. No one could ever argue with three feet of steel through the gut. Only one left to go. The little bastard could just start saying his prayers now, with luck he'd have finished them by the time he went howling off to the Stranger and –
Sandor only caught it in a flash. One of the Warrior's Sons had, smartly, decided that the moment to act was now. He swooped in, got Sansa around the waist, and carried her toward the front door. It opened and shut, swirling snowflakes, and they were gone.
Every other thought in Sandor's head vanished in a trice. He had to let the Arryn bugger go, had to jump over the table they'd overturned and break into a full-out run, ignoring the pandemonium spreading through the inn. He slammed the door back open with his shoulder, spun in all directions, and caught sight of the Son swinging Sansa up onto a horse as she struggled with him. After taking a moment to apologize to the Elder Brother in his head, Sandor charged.
The Son turned just in time to see fifteen stone of very, very angry dog launching at him. He snatched out his longsword and just managed to catch Sandor's blow, snow swirling onto their cloaks and hoods. "Are – you – mad?" he panted. "I'm taking the girl to safety – well away from you and Baelish – "
Sandor did not care. He really should have killed that last Arryn man, but there was no time to regret that – though he would later, when the bastard ran back to tattle on them and unleash the Vale on their heads. As for the Sons, he didn't have to kill them. Just prevent them from following long enough.
His foot slipped in the ice. Sansa was screaming something at him, but he didn't hear it. He twisted away from one blow and then another, took a second jarring cut, and bullrushed the smaller man, knocking him flat and dazed in the muddy, snow-torn ground. In the mere instants of time this bought him, Sandor wasted none of it. He hauled Sansa down from the Son's palfrey, threw her over his shoulder like a sack of beans, and sprinted.
Shouts were spreading from house to house. Well, we've blown it to bloody bugger-all. It seemed they would be forced to venture out in the wild after all, though where that entailed was an utter mystery. Their only hope was that the weather would abate as they ventured further south, but the thought of riding back into King's Landing with the little bird in tow was more of a macabre jest than even Sandor could laugh at. He ought to be returning with the Imp's head. Then his bitch sister could make me a lord. Lord Sandor of House Clegane. With Gregor dead, by rights the house and lands were his, but he'd take a bath in wildfire sooner than setting foot in that cursed place again. And Gregor wasn't dead, which was the problem.
Sansa was beating at his wounded shoulder with both fists, which he did not appreciate but could not tell her to stop. He blasted into the stables. They'd have to leave her horse behind; they could call it favors repaid for all the trouble they'd caused. They just couldn't stay here.
Sandor threw Sansa into a pile of hay, yanked down his tack and saddle, and got the destrier fitted out just in time to see the surviving Arryn and both of the Sons loom up at the stable door, a scatter of civically minded individuals belting along behind. None of them, however, had any interest in standing their ground as Sandor pulled Sansa up, jumped into the saddle, and kicked the big black warhorse hard enough to make him rear. They thundered out into the narrow, snow-choked wynds, men diving away to both sides like ninepins.
Sandor didn't dare look back. He needed all his wits to deal with Sansa, Stranger, and the snow, kicking up feathery spumes as they plunged and swerved through the cottages, out toward the open country. It still hadn't stopped coming down, but at least there was a lightening in the sodden clouds. Briefly he wondered if he should have just stepped aside and let Sansa be spirited off by the square-jawed, thumpingly righteous rainbow-sword knight; mayhaps she would have liked that better. Then he wondered if he should have just chopped off his own head and had done with it.
He lost track of how long they rode. Stranger was far superior in endurance to the lighter palfreys of the Arryns and the Sons, and while the small figures behind them spasmodically appeared and disappeared, before long they had vanished for good. Even then he didn't dare to stop. With all this fresh snow, they were breaking a trail that a blind man could follow. Their only hope was distance, and speed.
At last, Sandor had to rein in when Stranger started to blow, froth showing on his sawed mouth and his eyes rolling back in his head. If the horse died it would be quicker to just chop off his head, and Sandor had discovered that he didn't have the taste for that, just yet. They had reached a sparse, windblown coppice of trees, nestled in the shadow of snowy foothills, and that would do for shelter right now. Barely remembering how, he nonetheless swung down and offered his hand to the little bird. But instead of taking it, she stared back at him with eyes as blue and cold as the winter sky.
"You. . ." Her voice was choked, but with rage, not fear. "How could you?"
"How could I what, girl?" he snapped. "Save your life?"
"Do – do the same to me as Ser Shadrich did – grab me and scare me and drag me away! And how could you kill them – I wanted them to go back and save Lord Robert – that was the reason I asked Elder Brother in the first – "
"Seven hells, girl." How could he have forgotten how naïve she was still, so innocent and so bloody high-minded and so young? "You see what happened in that inn back there? That look like a bunch of men eager to go put their necks on the line for a boy ? You really think that with winter coming, the folk of the Vale want to be shackled to Lysa Arryn's nurseling brat? You can bet your bloody life that if they knew about it, they'd be down on their knees thanking the gods that Petyr Baelish had the gall to do it. They'll want a man. Aye, they may hate him, but you can bet that when Robert wheezes his last, they'll remember that he poisoned Lord Jon's own flesh and blood, bring him up on charges, and turn him over to your bloody warrior friends. Can't think of anyone who deserves such a double cross more."
"My warrior friends?" Her voice was a hiss. "I thought you were different! I thought you had changed! And then you kill those men and make it impossible for them to – "
"First rule of survival, little bird. When someone pulls out a sword and charges at you, you'd damn well hope that you have the wits to do the same. Or me. I'll do it for you, if it turns your stomach so much. And we'll have plenty of trouble from the one I didn't have time to kill, mark my words."
"You're awful," Sansa said. Tears were starting in her eyes. "Awful."
"You seem to have forgotten that I always was, girl. I never lied to you. There's no time for weaklings in this world, and sharp steel will always win out over a soft heart. If you'd rather that next time I meekly hand you over to Baelish's minions, say so. It'll save us both a deal of trouble. Or do you remember what I said to you, the part you were so breathlessly repeating back at me? That I'd kill anyone who tried to hurt you? What did you think I bloody well meant?"
Instead of answering, Sansa turned her face away and struggled down from Stranger's back. She floundered off through the thigh-high snowdrifts, to a relatively cleared spot beneath a tree, and sat down, pulling her knees to her chest and the cloak of her hood over her face. She sat so motionless that Sandor almost began to wonder if she had fallen asleep, when he saw her shoulders silently shaking.
Annoyed and guilty all at once, he turned away and tried to occupy himself in leading Stranger under the low-hanging boughs, breaking off the dead growth and trying to build a fire. He might have just acted like an utter bloody ass to her, but at least he didn't intend to let her freeze. Why did she have to cry? The knife was already twisting in his gut. If he considered himself to merit it in the barest measure, he might have asked for her forgiveness, but he knew it was useless. No amount of singing septons and sermons on the Quiet Isle could teach him, or her, the kind of mercy needed to reach each other.
He kept looking edgily over his shoulder as the woods darkened, waiting for the pursuit. Even as it was, it might be wise to sleep a few hours and then press on by moonrise. All around them, the forest had a ghostly, porcelain cast, the shadows dark as ink between the lines of the bare trees. There would be little to eat tonight, and less on the morrow.
It will have to be south. Sandor was still ambivalent, to say the least, about making for King's Landing straightaway. But it would only be suicide to make north, and once they skirted the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon and picked up the Green Fork, the going should get easier. He wished he could think of where the Arryns would expect him to go. Not back to the Quiet Isle, that was bloody certain, but he would be lucky to escape without every knight of the Vale and the Faith hunting him down. So much for being inconspicuous, eh?
He managed to produce a scanty fire from the wet wood, which hissed and smoked and choked as much as it burned, but was sufficient to keep the worst of the cold at bay. He fished some squashed jerky out of his saddlebags and offered it to Sansa, feeling guilty again, but it turned back to anger when she pointedly spurned it. "What? You want to starve?"
She flinched. "Are you going to force me to eat?" she asked, remote.
"What?"
"Ser Shadrich did. Held me down and shoved the squirrel down my throat."
"Ser Shadrich can roast in seven hells. I wouldn't even piss on him as a courtesy." Sandor whittled a stick with his knife and shoved it into the coals. "And besides, I'm not him."
"I couldn't tell." She stared at him across the fire, her eyes red.
Sandor prospected about for something to say that could make the situation better, but, seeing none, gave up again. Women are the most maddening creatures on the gods' green earth. Even her. Especially her. Why couldn't she see that he'd done the only thing he could, that he was trying to keep the promise he'd made to her, after so much of his life had been a miserable failure? He'd kept the spirit of his promise to the Elder Brother too, if not quite the letter. But she was different.
Supper, to say the least, concluded awkwardly. Sansa lay down on the far side of the fire, pulling her cloak over her head; the roof of branches above her did passing well at serving as a shelter. But the wind was still biting, and Sandor, after a moment's reflection, added more kindling, then lay down next to her, using his body to break the worst of it. A dog's place was at his mistress's side, after all.
He drifted off eventually, but was pursued by lurid dreams. Half of them ended with him sitting bolt upright with a snort, fumbling for his sword, but the attackers always turned out to be in his imagination. He checked on the little bird, making sure she hadn't frozen solid, and stoked the fire. Thinking of the wolf bitch that he himself had loosed in Maidenpool, he couldn't help but peer twitchily into the woods; it would be just exquisitely ironic if she decided on them for a snack. Or him, rather.
Morning came at last, grey and pale and cold. Sansa stirred, murmured something, and rolled over, almost into him; he moved away quickly, before she could. She rubbed her eyes in a surprisingly childlike gesture that tore at his heart, then sat up.
"Good morrow," he said, deciding it best to find out if she was still wroth with him.
"Good morrow." It was given correctly, but very coldly. Sure enough, she was.
Sandor sighed, thought about apologizing for the lack of breakfast, then decided not to waste his breath; if he got started, he'd never stop. He doused the fire, scuffed snow over it in hopes of hiding what tracks he could, then untied Stranger and lifted Sansa up. She went without a word of complaint, and he climbed up behind her. They had many miles to make, many to go before they slept again.
That was how it went for the next several days: riding by day, a chilly and uncomfortable camp in the wilds by night. But by the evening of the third day, the snow was starting to thin, and they ate properly at supper for the first time in who knew when. Sansa looked a regular urchin, thin and filthy and flyaway, and he certainly was no better. She hadn't yet asked where they were making. She knew damn well that she was in his power, that without her own horse, she couldn't get up and ride away. He was reminded ever more strongly of his sojourns with the wolf bitch through the riverlands. When he'd finally realized that there weren't enough damned members of her family left alive to get a decent ransom, and they had more or less wandered aimlessly. He'd stopped watching her at night, then. She could have left him, and eventually she had, after the crossroads inn and the Tickler and Polliver and the fight. But before. . .
Sandor couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her. She at least had known how to fight from the first day, whereas in the little bird it was still only appearing by exigency. If the girl was as canny as he'd thought, she'd have gotten aboard the first ship leaving Westeros and never looked back. Somewhere warm, somewhere that winter never came. The Summer Isles would have been a wise choice. Mayhaps, if that was where she'd gone, they should follow her. But I can't. I can't leave so long as Ser Robert Strong lives on. It will always draw me back.
With the snow cleared, they made a better pace south into the riverlands, keeping a vigilant distance from anything that looked remotely like a Frey. There were a few harrowingly close calls, but he never stopped long enough for anyone, weasel-faced scion or outraged Arryn headhunter, to catch up. Sansa was exhausted, running ragged, and he was feeling the strain himself. He was going to have to do something about his leg, and soon, but the instant they stopped, they were dead.
It was on the morning of the sixth day since they'd fled the Bite when the sun finally came out. Looking at it, Sandor could almost fool himself into believing that winter had not truly come, not yet. But he knew that that was a monstrous lie; this was only a spirit summer, a brief respite before the jaws of the trap closed for good. Relations between him and the little bird had become correspondingly less frosty, but they still didn't talk much aside from the necessities. Now they were riding down a narrow, treed glen, the Green Fork gurgling somewhere off to the right, and boulders and bracken hemmed them in on every side.
Only another fortnight to King's Landing. If he was brazen enough to prance down the kingsroad, it might take half that. Assuming he made it this time, and didn't –
Sansa clutched hard at his arm.
"What?" he said, startled out of his reverie. "What?"
"There." She pointed at the hazy woods. "I saw something."
Sandor shaded his eyes. "I don't."
"Over there." She pointed again. "In the underbrush."
Sandor scowled, unable to keep his heart from picking up a notch or two. Not another bloody Frey. He'd nearly ended up having to fight the last one, and he didn't intend –
And then the air was full of the slash and sing of arrows.
Sandor yelled, ducked, grabbed Sansa by the cloak, and bundled them off Stranger's back onto the ground, trying to drag her to the shelter of a dead log. He could hear shouting, thought automatically, Bloody outlaws – and then, then, it struck him, as hard as if one of the arrows had flown true to his heart. Above him, Stranger was rearing and snorting in pain, shot twice in the withers and once in the arse – no, bloody hell, he liked that horse, if they had, if they had –
"There!" a voice was shouting. A familiar one. "Get him!"
Oh, seven hells. Seven thrice-be-damned fucking hells. And at that moment, Sandor Clegane understood. The gods had let them get away just to bring them back to this. Never let it be said that they lacked a sense of truly diabolical his head, he saw a hollow hill and a flaming sword, Beric Dondarrion's empty eye socket, a clash and wrench of steel. I fought for my life once, but I somehow doubt you bastards are going to let me keep it.
He never saw where it came from, was still too busy trying to shield the little bird. That proved to be his fatal mistake. Something hit him, hard, in the back of the head. He felt a crunch, and then a roaring, spiraling nothingness. And so they make their valiant return, Sandor thought, as the darkness dragged him down. The Brotherhood without Banners, the bloody bastards, are going to get me after all.