THE AIR IN the inn is dusky and humid, the ale stale, and the company less than desirable. A group of men wearing the king's colors are there, stealing from the poor and terrorizing the innkeeper's family despite his pleas —one of the man's daughters is squirming and crying as the soldiers grope at her. They'll rape her before they set off if they haven't already. Anya glares at the men as she passes by with Arya and Sandor, taking an empty table, and bites her tongue to keep from intervening with words or steel.
"That one's Polliver," Arya whispers, nodding to the one with his hand stuck down the bodice of the poor girl on his lap. "And that one there's Lowell." She's mentioned them before. They attacked Yoren on the road from King's Landing and killed a boy named Lommy. If that weren't enough to make them a rotten lot, then working under Gregor Clegane at Harrenhal certainly would —they enjoyed the torture just as much as the Mountain.
It doesn't take long for the king's men to recognize the Hound, but none can place Arya or Anya as Starks. "Pour our new friend some ale," Polliver says as he rises and takes a seat on the empty bench opposite them. Arya's eyes narrow as he sits, and Anya sees what the girl is staring at —a castle-forged sword too small to belong to a man. Needle. The innkeeper brings over two full tankards of ale and places them down on the splintering table, the warm and pale liquid sloshing out. "What brings you so far north?"
Sandor quaffs down the ale. "Could ask the same of you," he bites back, not hiding his distaste for this lot. "What are you doing up here?" He asks in turn, but judging by their heavy coin purses, he already knows.
Polliver shrugs like the answer should be obvious. "Just keeping the king's peace."
"No need," Sandor replies. "War's over." War ended that night at the Twins when Robb Stark was murdered. The Northerners might fight for a few more weeks, maybe months, but, in the end, they'd bend the knee.
"So I've heard," Polliver responds. "Stannis defeated at the Blackwater. Robb Stark killed at the Twins" —his eye twitches when he pauses to glance at Arya and Anya— "and where am I for all of it? Stuck with your brother." Hearing how he talks about torture makes Anya's stomach churn.
"You know what? You should come with us." Polliver finally says. "His kind" —he motions over his shoulder to the weeping innkeeper, pleading for mercy for his daughters— "they've always got something hidden away somewhere. Gold, silver, more daughters. Always something if you know how to make them talk. And there's plenty of him between here and King's Landing." Sandor takes a long drink from his cup of ale, disinterested. "You could do well for yourself," he tells the Hound. "We certainly have been." Murdering, raping, and pillaging is what he means.
Sandor lips twitch — man's got to have a code, he told Arya one day before the Red Wedding. He leans to the side and spits on the floor before taking another long swig of his warm ale. "I'm not going to King's Landing," he tells them. If all goes to plan, he'll never have to step foot in that cesspit of a city again.
"Think about it," Polliver reasons. "We could do whatever we like wherever we go" —he taps his worn brown doublet bearing the lion of Lannister and Baratheon stag— "these are the king's colors," he reminds the Hound. And those who aren't wearing Joffrey's sigil wear Lannister armor. "No one's standing in his way now. Which means no one's standing in ours."
"Fuck the king," Sandor says, and Arya smirks hearing the words, but the inn falls silent, and hands go to rest over hilts of sharp swords, eager to bare steel. Anya thinks she knows now how this is going to end.
There's a long pause as Polliver looks over the Hound as though trying to size up the big man. Didn't make sense that someone with the Hound's reputation would run from battle. He's one of the best swordsmen and fighters in Westeros and probably the only one who can best the Mountain. But Sandor Clegane isn't at the king's side. He's here, in an inn hundreds of miles from the capital. "When I heard that Joffrey's dog tucked tail and ran from the Battle of the Blackwater, I didn't believe it. But here you are."
"Here I am," Sandor mocks. Then he nods to the set of birds roasting on a spit. "Bring me one of those chickens."
"You got money to pay for it?" Polliver counters.
Sandor snorts. "You paid for it?"
"No, but we're the king's men," he explains, as though it's justification for thieving. "So, you got money?" Polliver asks again.
"Not a penny," the Hound says, finishing off his tankard of ale. "I'll still take that chicken."
"Tell you what. We'll trade you. One of our little chickens for one of yours." Sandor's gaze flits to Anya. It's easy enough to know who these men want. "Give us a go at your bitch," Polliver says, his dark gaze settling on Anya, too, as he licks his lips. "She looks like a good fuck. Pretty face, nice tits" —he points back over his shoulder— "and Lowell likes 'em broken in." Anya's face goes red, but her icy eyes narrow as she looks over the Mountain's men, wondering which of them will be the first to feel the bite of her blade.
Sandor's burned lips twitch, and a new type of anger builds in his gut. "You're a talker. Listening to talkers makes me thirsty." He reaches across the table and takes the other tankard of ale, still almost full, and downs it all at once. "And hungry," he continues, leaning forward over the table, "think I'll take two chickens."
Polliver looks over his shoulder at the rest of Gregor's men, all quiet and on edge. "You don't seem to understand the situation," he says.
"I understand that if any more words come pouring out your cunt mouth" —the Hound's dark eyes flit around the inn and all the king's men— "I'm going to have to eat every fucking chicken in this room," he says, the words laced with patronizing blasé. Anya grits her teeth, knowing there is no way out of the coming fight, and curls her fingers around the hilt of the dagger tucked in her boot.
Polliver scoffs. "You lived your life for the king. You going to die for some chickens?"
"Someone is," he answers, and tense silence creeps over the inn. Everything seems to happen at once then; Sandor lurches to his feet and flips the table to knock Polliver back. His sword slides from its scabbard just in time to knock aside the first cut. Lowell comes off the bench with a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, and even the chunky squire accompanying them is up, fumbling to find his sword hilt. Anya draws her bastard sword and dagger, knowing the Mountain's men will keep their focus on the Hound first, but she keeps herself between them and Arya as the steel song begins.
The Hound's cuts are sloppy, his parries are rushed, and his feet slow and clumsy. Anya frowns. He's drunk. He drank too much too fast and with not enough food in his belly. She flings the dagger at one of them, and it catches on one of the men's ears —shoring it off before the point embeds itself into a wooden post. He comes at her, bloodied from temple to neck. Anya pushes Arya behind her and raises her sword to block the blade's downward swing. She parries his strokes —once, then twice before slamming the pommel of her sword into his nose and thrusting the point into his belly.
Sandor grunts in pain, and when Anya finds him through the smoke and dust, he's on his back, three of the king's men kicking at his legs and middle. Anya darts forward and runs her sword through the back of one of the men's necks, he struggles for a moment, then goes limp as a bonefish, and it gives the Hound enough time to regain his footing. He drives back Polliver with a furious attack, hammering at him with his old longsword, whilst Anya fends away another man wearing Lannister colors.
Arya watches her aunt and the Hound fight —brutal and blunt. She looks around, thinking she should try and do something to help. The heavy stone flagon is still on the table. Arya grabs it with two hands, but as she lifts it, someone grabs her arm. The flagon slips from her fingers and crashes to the floor. Wrenched around, she finds herself nose-to-nose with the squire. But then Anya is there, and a bloody dagger rises from the squire's neck as she rips the man away from her niece. She jerks the knife free, then sheathes it into the man's eye, twisting, and lets him fall.
Lowell stumbles on his hands and knees nearby, pulling himself back up with an upturned bench, but Anya is there before he can stand. He grovels on the floor for his sword, but it's too late. He doesn't feel the cold bite of steel against his throat, only the warmth running over his shoulders and down his front. He grasps at his open throat with labored breaths, trying to stop the bleeding. And when he falls, he does not move again.
"I'M GLAD YOU got Needle back," Anya says, sitting next to her niece on the bank of a burbling brook. Arya looks up from the thin blade Jon gave her before they left Winterfell —she'd been polishing it with a shred of cloth. The girl's smile is weak as she lets her aunt hold the short sword again. Well-balanced and with a grip made for a small hand. She'd have loved to have such a blade to call her own at Arya's age. Anya passes Needle back.
"I miss him," Arya admits, looking over the thin sword. She remembers Jon's smile and how he used to mess her hair and call her little sister.
Anya nods. "Him and Benjen both." Then Arya's dark brows furrow in confusion. "But Uncle Benjen–" she doesn't have time to remind Anya of Benjen's fate north of the Wall. "I know what they said Arya, but I won't believe it." Anya's voice cracks as she shakes her head to keep the tears from pricking at her eyes. "I can't believe it." He's still out there, she thinks, I feel it in my bones.
After a moment, Arya rises with Needle in hand. "Can we practice?" She asks.
"With sticks, yes," Anya concedes. Weren't no point in Arya toting around that blade if she didn't keep learning how to use it, but before it came time to use steel, wood and blunted iron would have to suffice. Arya returns Needle to its sheath of soft, supple grey leather and starts after her aunt to find two sticks fit for sparring.
Stick in hand, Arya settles in the water dancer's pose like Syrio Forel taught her, but Anya holds little back —the world is cruel and unjust, and in a battle, there is no time to remember lessons and practiced dances. It's how Ned, Benjen, and Jory treated her when she was learning to fight in the yard at Winterfell. And each bruise and failure only served to make her better. Arya parries thrusts and swipes, but still, Anya comes at her, relentless —like it would be in a real fight— thwacking her sides and calves, revealing weak spots. Anya presses forward against her niece, size and strength over speed. When the girl lands on her backside for a third time, Anya discards her stick and offers her hand. "They will always underestimate you, Arya," she tells her, helping her niece back to her feet, "use that to your advantage."
They sit streamside, refilling waterskins and watering the horses, when Arya asks the question. "How does it make you feel?" Anya glances at the girl with furrowed brows, not understanding. "When you kill a man," Arya clarifies.
The question steals the breath from her lungs and makes bile rise in her throat. This isn't something she's ever anticipated speaking of, and certainly not little Arya of all people, but she sighs and turns her steel eyes to her niece. "Makes me feel sick, or it did," she admits. "Felt awful after killing that wildling. Retched up everything for a day and couldn't sleep." Benjen told her she should be proud.
Anya glances at her hands, even now there's dried blood beneath her nails from earlier at the inn. She remembers Blackwater then. The first time she's seen true battle, with men crying and shitting themselves. There wasn't any glory to be found during or after the slaughter, and it never did feel like justice —not like how Anya imagined anyway. "But now" —she shrugs— "don't feel much of anything anymore." Won't a point trying to lie about it, but she doesn't mention the growing hollowness or dreams.
Close by the water's edge, they find some willows rising from a jumble of weathered rocks. Together the rocks and trees let them hide from both the river and trail for the night. Anya sits next to Sandor once Arya's asleep, her hands clasped in front of her, and her head lowered in some kind of unspoken defeat. "Are we still just ransom to you?" She asks. He doesn't answer, and a wave of deep anger wells up inside her. She must make him see no one will pay for them willingly, not when they can just hand him over to the Crown and come away with thrice the gold and silver.
"Riverrun is under siege," Anya tells him. "And you're a fool if you think Lysa Arryn will take us." Lysa had always been jealous of Catelyn, jealous of Catelyn's initial betrothal to Brandon Stark, jealous of the love Petyr Baelish bore for her sister and not her. She has no love for her nieces or nephews.
Sandor looks at her, long and hard. "Then where the fuck am I going to take the two of you?"
Anya meets his gaze for a moment before glancing back to the stars. I wonder what Jon sees when he looks up at the night sky. "North," she tells him, "to Castle Black." Sandor scoffs. There are a thousand leagues between where they were now and the bloody Wall and even more men that'll try to stand in their way. But part of him thinks he might be willing to kill them all if it means seeing his little rose smile again. Though truthfully, even he knows he cannot face an army. "Or across the Narrow Sea to Braavos," Anya supplements, but that's impossible —they haven't any coin to pay for passage on a ship. Going north is the only way —going to Jon.
There's something about the hope in her voice that makes him uneasy —doesn't seem right for her to be so optimistic after everything that happened. He doesn't quite understand the way she looks at him, either. No. He'd rather see the fear and hatred in people's eyes and have them cower than face the way she looks at him. He hates that she's right, too —nowhere in Westeros will take them. House Stark is all but gone. The Tullys will be next unless the Blackfish surrenders. And Lysa Arryn will not risk being pulled into what remains of this war over Catelyn's children and a false Stark. "Should've just let them take you back there at the inn," he mutters, letting all his frustration and anger consume him without thought.
Her wintry eyes go wide, parted lips trembling with heavy breath. "You don't mean that," she whispers, voice cracking.
Sandor looks at her for a long while, knowing he's never hated her more. He turns to stare through the trees and into the quiet night. "No, little rose, I don't," he finally says, but now she's unsure if she can wholly believe his words.
edited:
September 3, 2023