"I CAN HAVE Joffrey's children now," Sansa says, her voice wavering. Her chambers still have the faint smell of smoke from her attempts to burn the evidence of her first moonblood. A lady's maid had seen her and Shea, though, and Cersei didn't hesitate to sink her claws into the little bird at first chance. Sansa looks down at her shaking hands, sniffling. It's a poor time to become a woman. She will bleed within these stone walls while Stannis and his men bleed outside come nightfall.
Anya strokes back the loose waves of Sansa's auburn hair. "Sweet little dove," she soothes.
For a long while, Sansa says nothing, only stares toward the hearth. "You or mother never told me it would be so messy," she finally says, wiping the dampness from her eyes. Anya hates that Catelyn is not here.
"Sansa, I–" Anya feels as though she cannot look her niece in the eye for the dread and guilt building in her gut. She does not often dwell on the issue of her infertility, but in moments like this —it stings in a way she cannot fully comprehend. Why do you think I am not wed? Anya bites her tongue. For what good is a wife if she cannot produce offspring to carry on the name and legacy of her house?
She reaches for Sansa's trembling hands. "When your father returned with Jon, I cared for him, as a mother would," she explains, but everyone in the North knows that. Now, though, Sansa begins to understand just what her aunt means. She looks at Anya Stark with wide, horrified eyes. "Maester Luwin warned me of the consequences, but I did not care." Given a chance, she would gladly make the same choice again, tenfold —Jon was her boy, no matter if he was a squalling babe or a man of the Night's Watch. She takes a slow breath, almost ashamed she hadn't thought to help Sansa prepare. "I did not think to mention this because it has been so many years since I last bled."
Sansa swallows her displeasure and decorum. "Is it always so bad?" She asks, voice shaking.
Anya remembers her first blood —she ran to Lyarra Stark, afraid she was dying, but Lyarra smiled and told her each blood only served to make her stronger. "The pain should lessen with time," Anya tells her, squeezing her hands. "And you'll be able to use the moon as guidance to prepare." It's the same thing Cersei told her too.
But then Sansa's thoughts stray to what her and Joffrey's wedding night will entail —if their engagement is still on favorable terms. She's heard some of the ladies of court talk about what happens behind the closed doors of their husband's chambers. The color drains from Sansa's face as she thinks about it. "Will it hurt when–"
Anya won't let her finish the question. "Shhh" —she pulls her niece into a tight embrace— "don't even think about that right now." She needs her mother, Anya thinks. But Catelyn Stark is miles away, and Anya is only a poor substitute. "We'll get through this," she assures the young girl. "I promise." Then she kisses Sansa's forehead and offers to go for a walk in the gardens —the cool morning air would do her good.
Lunch comes and goes —a small meal of cod cakes and greens dressed with apples and pine nuts. After, Sansa returns to her chambers, but she's unwilling to part with her aunt after the morning's events and the looming threat of Stannis Baratheon's fleet and men sailing toward the capital.
Anya looks down into a glass of dark wine —nigh the color of blood. Come night, the city would be under siege. The sails of Stannis's fleet had already been spotted, and traders spake of seeing their departure from Dragonstone. But alas, she would be able to test Tobho Mott's craftsmanship and her skills. Mayhap I'll even get an ounce of justice. She finishes the glass of wine and returns to her book whilst Sansa works on her embroideries.
At sundown, the bells of the city begin to toll as a warning and a call to arms. Sansa sets aside her needle and thread and goes to the window where Anya looks out, watching the dark water of Blackwater Bay and the nobles scurrying toward Maegor's Holdfast through the courtyard below
The doors of her chambers are thrown open behind them. The unannounced and unwelcome visitor wears the golden armor of the Kingsguard. Ser Mandon Moore —Anya recognizes him by his lifeless face and dull eyes. He looks to Sansa, standing behind her aunt. "The king demands your presence," he says in a harsh rasp. Anya looks over her shoulder, but Sansa only lowers her head, smoothes down her skirts, then goes with the Kingsguard knight obediently, and her handmaiden, Shae, follows.
Anya turns to look back out the window. "Rana," she says, glancing at her chambermaid, "you should go to the Queen's Ballroom. It will be safer there." The Queen would host the ladies and their waitstaff in her solar —an expected act of goodwill. Rana wishes to protest. It's her duty to remain with Lady Stark, not forsake her while the city is under siege. "Go." It's no longer a suggestion but an order. "I will be fine," Anya assures the girl, watching the sails of Stannis's fleet sail closer to the city.
She goes to her chambers and binds her hair in a tight braid, changes into a plain pair of britches and tunic, then retrieves her mail and doublet from the hollow back panel of the chestnut wardrobe. Dressed in her coat of mail, Anya tightens her sword belt around her waist and sets off, undeterred.
A flash of green catches her eye from the ramparts, and then a deafening, rumbling thunder. The explosion of Wildfire on the Blackwater shakes the Red Keep's foundation. Anya stares on. She hadn't believed the Imp would go through with his mad plan. Half of Stannis's fleet is ablaze, along with most of Joffrey's —the kiss of wildfire turning the proud ships into funeral pyres and men into living torches. And the air fills with smoke and red-fletched arrows and screams. She grips the hilt of her sword tighter as the screams of the burning rise over the crackling of wood and roar of the flames.
Anya falls into the ranks of marching sellswords —behind the gold and red cloaks, and no one spares a second glance her way. Someone shouts from above on the walls, and the River Gate opens. They will meet the usurper and what remains of his men on the muddy banks of the Blackwater.
Men crawl onto the shore still aflame, unable to douse the green flames —and their skin melts and sloughs off the bone. She curves out of the way of a strike and disarms the man. The soldier slips on the blood-slick earth. You fall, you die. Anya shouts as she drives the point of her sword down into the man's throat, the thrill of battle taking her. When she looks around the muddy shore, it's to see Sandor Clegane cleave a man in two with a single blow.
A barrage of arrows rains down from the battlement walls —the burning arrowheads do not discriminate between Joffrey and Stannis's men. She dashes forward between volleys, pressing the point of her sword through the back of a man near the water line, his skin and armor melted together, wailing in pain and pleading with the gods to end his suffering.
The dead and dying litter the muddy ground —writhing and clawing for breath before being trampled underfoot, but she pushes forward with the rest until something snaps underfoot. She dares spare a second to glance down at the severed arm with white knobs of bone sticking through torn flesh. Anya looks around and feels a sickness stir in her gut. There is no justice or vengeance to be gained from this massacre —no sense of heroism in the slaughter. She turns on heel and lifts her sword. The man running toward her with a flat axe raised impales himself on the blade. Axe slipping from hand, the man falls still, dropping to his knees, and she screams as she pushes the corpse off her blade, unsure if it's rain, blood, or tears running down her cheeks.
She doesn't feel the impact, only her sword slipping from her grasp as her right arm falls limp, but she sees the arrow rising from her shoulder and slips to the muddy ground —screaming. But it isn't from a volley from the walls above or the rowboats trudging toward the shore. By luck, or the mercy of the Mother, she falls near Lancel Lannister, and beneath the filth, he recognizes her. "Lady Anya!" He shouts, trying to bring her back to her senses. She wraps her hand around the shaft, meaning to tear the arrow out, but the Lannister boy stays her hand and pulls her back to her feet before he starts prising her back to the gate. "Clegane!" Anya's never been so glad to hear his name.
"Seven hells," the Hound rasps, realizing who he's looking at under the filth.
"Get her out of here," Lancel commands. She protests when he lifts her from the mud and starts to the Keep. He fends off Stannis's men blocking the way with one sword arm, slicing and hewing. Anya looks over her shoulder, and the horror of realization sets in. Corpses stretch as far as she can see, and the Blackwater still burns —a mix of red and green. She turns her cheek into his blood-slick armor and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block out the sights and sounds of the battle.
The Hound takes her to the stables and places her on a stack of straw bales. "The fuck were you doing?" He asks, voice a harsh, grating rasp.
With a grimace, she pushes herself up and looks down at the arrow shaft embedded in her shoulder. She thinks it should hurt —but it doesn't, not really. "I wasn't going to stay with Cersei and her flock of frightened hens," Anya grits out. The dark look in Sandor's eyes tells her he knows that's only half the reason she waded into battle. They both know that given half a chance she would have driven her sword through Cersei's black heart. He presses his hand around the arrow, feeling the slick warmth of her blood on his fingers —mingling with the blood of the men he'd killed.
Sandor knows he cannot stay after telling the king to fuck himself, and Anya's tested the length of her leash too many times —it doesn't seem like that arrow is happenstance either. Joffrey hasn't mounted a head on a spike in a while, but Sandor's going to make sure he doesn't get the chance to have his or Anya Stark's. He looks around the stable, finding Stranger and Shadow in their stalls. "We're leaving," Sandor says. Nothing good would come out of either of them staying within the castle walls another night.
"Have to get Sansa," Anya chokes, pushing herself up to stand, but she's barely upright before she doubles over, with bile filling her mouth. If they're going, she isn't going to leave her niece behind in the lion's den.
Sandor scarred lips twist downward, seeing her take a stumbling step forward. He grips Anya's uninjured shoulder and eases her back down to the mound of straw. "Little bird doesn't need to see you like this," he rasps. She knows he's right. Her current state would scare Sansa half to death. "I'll go ask if she'll come."
She nods and watches as he leaves. Fresh blood coats her fingertips when she touches the broken mail, and she laughs. I'm just like Visenya Targaryen now, though I am dragonless. Anya knows she can't ride like this, not with the arrow. Hands wrapping around the wooden shaft, she closes her eyes and pulls —hard and straight. Pain erupts, and she screams, but the arrow does not come. Her heart pounds in her ears, breathing labored. She pulls again. The shaft gives way, though the arrowhead remains. Anya throws the shaft aside and presses her hand against the open wound —and the battle fever that'd taken hold begins to ebb.
It feels like hours before Sandor returns, but he is alone. Anya rises on unsteady legs, and he already knows the question on the tip of her tongue —it's shining in her pale eyes too. "Little bird likes her cage too much to fly away," he grunts as he lifts Stranger's saddle and slings it onto the horse's back, quickly tightening the buckles and straps. Anya Stark shakes her head, dazed and drunk on pain. She can't leave Sansa, but she can't stay like this, either. "Can you ride?" The Hound asks, tightening the flank cinch of her mount's saddle. Sandor looks at the blood seeping betwixt her fingers, staining cloth and metal, and frowns. "Anya, can you ride?" He repeats.
She nods, weakly. "Don't know how long I'll be able to." But her answer suffices, and Sandor lifts her up and into Shadow's saddle. He rides forward, bursting through the stable doors, and Anya follows. Smoke hangs thick in the air —blanketing the entire city from the low of Flea Bottom to the high towers of the Red Keep. It carries with it the acrid scent of burning flesh. A haunting smell seared into her memory.
The Old Gate's half open with people fleeing in terror on foot —they think Stannis's men will take the city. Sandor shouts for them the clear a path and the smallfolk part, else they be trampled. Stranger and Shadow ride forth into the open countryside and the night.
Anya stops on a high hill to the north overlooking the city and looks back. In place of pain is guilt —gnawing away at her like a hundred arrows have struck her instead of one. He should have forced Sansa to come, she thinks. I should have gone to her. Anya Stark cannot do it. She cannot leave Sansa. In mad haste, she steers Shadow back towards the city, but Sandor Clegane intercepts her, his scarred face twisted in anger. "Out of my way," Anya grits through the pain, ignoring the new pulse of blood sliding down her arm —coating her hand.
"You go back to that Keep, and you're good as dead," he spits, jerking Shadow's reins from Anya's weakening grasp. "You think that arrow was an accident?" Her brows furrow as she recalls the blue fletching —only Bronn had blue-fletched arrows. "Well do you, woman?!" The Hound roars.
It's no accident, but Anya shakes her head —death is a risk she'll take if it means protecting her brother's children. The pack survives, but the lone wolf dies. "I have to get Sansa!" But you're only a bat, not a wolf.
"Let the little bird have her cage," he digresses. "She's safer locked away than we'll ever be on the road." Defiance lingers in Anya's stormy eyes. "We're going," the Hound reiterates, turning back to the North. She tries to force herself to believe he's right, but regardless, she follows him into the dark of night —tired and bleeding.
They ride hard and far until the last wisps of smoke from the Blackwater fade away in the night sky. Anya slouches forward in her saddle, hardly able to keep herself upright. The distance between her and Sandor increases until he's a blur of black and silver in the moonlight. I just need to rest for a few moments, she thinks, but Shadow pushes on, even as her grip on the reins falters.
The Blackwater Rush flows nigh silently —the dark water calm compared to the chaos downstream. The Hound starts to cross at a narrow point, but a splash startles Sandor from the silence, and when he looks back, Shadow is riderless. Anya floats facedown, the current and mail dragging her under. He goes after her, hauling her out of the water and onto the river bank. She's unmoving, and under her armor, he can't even tell if her chest is rising and falling. "Come on, little rose." He gives her back a hard thump with the flat of his palm —like one might do to burp a babe— and then she takes a spluttering breath, coughing up water, bile, and blood alike. She clutches at the slick dents in the spaulder on his shoulder. "Easy now," he says, and she can still smell the wine on his tongue. She settles, and Sandor rises, placing her on Stranger's saddle and mounts behind her —they hadn't much time now, and dawn is already on the horizon
Smoke rises into the sky from off the road, and through the grove of trees, Sandor can spot the stone chimney of a small cottage. He squeezes Stranger's sides, and the black warhorse starts a gentle trot down a trodden path through the trees. The home stands beneath two large oak trees, with walls of stone and mud and a tile and thatch roof. There's a small stable to the side with a reed-fenced yard where two goats and an old mule look at the pair as they pass, hay and grass hanging limply from their mouths. Sandor slides from the saddle and pulls Anya with him, cradling her in his arms. A pallor like a white sheet has come over her.
He gives the door two loud knocks. It takes a moment before the splintering wooden door swings open. The woman on the other side stumbles back —the fear on her face is clear as the blood on his hands and armor. She knows who he is. Sandor clears his throat and looks down at Anya, and finally, the widow shifts her attention. "Can you help her?" The Hound asks.
The woman nods and steps aside, letting them both in. She closes the door and picks up the stray bowls and plates from the table at the center of the main room. "Put her here." He does, gently letting Anya down from his arms and onto the wide slabs of rough-hewn oak. She protests weakly at the loss of his warmth, eyes struggling to stay open. The old widow looks at the broken mail shirt and frowns, fearing the injury is beyond her skills.
"Arrow's still in there," Sandor grunts —riding jarred the arrowhead, pushing it deeper into her flesh. He looks between Anya and the widow, thinking there's a strange resemblance between them. The woman brushes back the hair clinging to Anya's face and frowns —she looks like a young and wild little lady with honey hair and steel eyes she once called daughter. Shella Whent wonders if this is what her daughter might have looked like had she lived to be a woman.
"Help me with her armor," the widow says, and wordlessly, the Hound does as she bids —working the mail shirt overhead and removing her smoke-colored gambeson. It's stained red now, though. Last, he cuts through her threadbare tunic, leaving her bloody stays. Sandor thinks the river should have washed more blood away, but it still trickles out of the wound in thin, slow rivulets, creeping across her chest and over her shoulder, pooling below on the table. It looks as though the Stranger has already marked her as his own.
There's little time to lose. Shella Whent has never treated a wound beyond scrapes and bruises, but she's seen the maesters at Harrenhal perform surgeries on injured hunters and has read the books. Surely she can manage something to save the Hound's companion. Anya screams when the widow douses the broken flesh with vinegar —her fingertips digging into the table below— and her eyes, open wide in terror, dart around the small cottage but settle on Sandor Clegane. He almost can't bear to look at her like this, though.
She looks around for something to help draw the arrow out —a wooden spurtle, a dull bread knife— but there's nothing of use. Then she looks at her hands and frowns —it seems to be the only way. The widow grimaces and shudders at the feeling when she presses her fingers into the open wound, searching for a grip on the arrowhead. The pain's too much, and the slow encroaching darkness finally takes Anya Stark. She falls still and silent.
It feels like an eternity, searching for a solid and steady grip, and finally, with a slick and sickening squelch, the arrowhead comes free —and his little rose bleeds the color of crushed red petals. The widow holds the bodkin point to the light and peels away the blood-soaked piece of fabric stuck to one of the sides. It matches the tear in the bloody tunic. A clean removal, so long as doesn't fester while healing. "If she makes it through the night, she'll be fine, Dog," the widow says, cleaning her hands on a scrap of linen before gathering a spool of catgut thread and a hooked needle. "You both can stay until she's back on her feet."
He makes a gruff noise and watches as she settles on the bench, moving a tallow candle closer for better light —and to hold the iron needle to the flame. "Name's Shella, by the way," she says, making the first pass of the needle through the skin. The hot metal forces the stench of burning flesh into the air. Her stitches are straight and neat, just like the Septa taught her when she was a girl. Finishing off the line of sutures, Shella Whent cuts away the excess thread and then rises to fetch a cloth and washbasin. She cleans the fresh stitches with care and wipes away the blood on Anya's neck, bosom, and arm.
edited:
March 2, 2023