The Hound and His Little Bird

Chapter 8: Overcome

She fought as hard as she could, trying to remember what it was she needed to do next. She threw herself forward as best as she could, momentarily stalling the man that was basically suffocating her. She bit down on his hand as hard as she could and was happy when she broke the skin. The man cursed, loosening his grip. Perfect. She let the dagger slide out of her sleeve and she stabbed him in the leg, as hard as she could. She twisted the blade for good measure. Just as the man started to howl in pain, she let go of the blade and swung her arm between his legs. That dropped him to the ground, moaning in pain. A quick glance around her informed her that he was alone.

She crouched down, stepping on his leg, and yanked the blade out of his leg. Vaguely, she was aware of the fact she should do more to stop him from following her. Instead, she tucked the blade into the strap between her legs and ran towards her sword and other dagger. She stooped to pick them off the ground, barely slowing and started running towards camp. She shouted then, loud and clear. She didn't say his name, only shouted so she knew he heard her. He might be mad at what she said earlier, but he wouldn't abandon her. She knew he wouldn't.

It didn't take long to find the camp. She stopped running, crouching behind a tree to see Sandor in a fight with three men. He parred back and forth, keeping the men barely at bay. After slipping her second blade into her sleeve, she started moving slowly between the trees until she was near enough... Any thoughts of a plan she had went out the window as soon as she saw one man go to stab Sandor in the back. "Leave him alone!" she fairly screamed as she ran out, barely slicing the man with her blade before she was at Sandor's side. She kept the blade in front of her, waiting for one of the men to come at her. They had all stopped suddenly, intrigued to see her with him. Maybe they'd known she was with him and had expected to see her tied up already. How else had the other man found her?

Faintly, Sansa realized that Sandor was slowly wrapping an arm around her and tugging her closer. She took a slow step back, feeling his cool armor through the clothes. "What the bloody hell did the whore do to my man?" shouted, who Sansa assumed to be, the leader, glaring and stepping closer to them. Sandor snarled in response, moving Sansa so he could shove her behind him and keep her back safely against a tree. She kept her blade up, glancing between the two men closest to her. She had no clue what these men would do to her. She didn't know how she could take on two decently skilled men when she had little training and even less experience. It was just luck she only had the one man to deal with.

"Tell me where my man is," the leader snarled again, staring past Sandor's shoulder to look at Sansa.

"He's on the ground, bleeding," Sansa told him, the confidence she felt earlier that week completely gone. "He just jumped me and I didn't know what else to do." She felt like she was explaining more to Sandor than this man.

"Damn whore," the leader muttered, glaring at her. "Edrick, go find that useless man. Now!"

The one closest to Sansa took one last lingering glare at Sansa, then turned and ran towards where Sansa had been training. The leader finally took a good look over them and a small smirk spread across his face. "Well, well, well it looks like we found the bloody Hound and his little bitch. How's it feel to be a turncloak now, Dog?" he said, the smirk widening.

"You should be talking," Sandor growled, "Attacking a defenseless girl and a man while he's pissin'. Pathetic." He spat at the ground, glaring between the four.

"What's the whore you got with you? Finally decided you wanted to rut around-"

"Leave the girl out of this. Touch her and I'll gut ya all like the pigs you are."