ARYA

"Food for the feast, m'lord," the Hound mumbled.

He's terrible at this. Sandor Clegane had insisted that he do the talking, but Arya knew she could have done a much better job. A pair of pushy soldiers wearing the sigil of the Twins had stopped them for questioning, a makeshift blockade halfway down the road that split the parade grounds in front of the southernmost Frey castle. Arya let the conversation fall away as she scanned the endless rows of tents, banners, sigils, horses, men, and refuse, a great city of revelers come to see her uncle Edmure marry one of their own. On the other side of the road flew the banner of the Direwolf, Robb's banner, her banner, and below it countless more from the lower houses of the North.

One of the soldiers grunted in her direction and took her attention away from the army. He looked her over head-to-toe, lingering on the stolen Frey sigil pinned to her breast, then pushed her aside and lifted the canvas tarp covering the goods in the back of the wagon. He leaned forward and sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. "What's this?" he said, then threw the tarp back down. "Salt meats?"

The Hound faked a submissive bow. "M'lord said the feast-"

"This is a king's wedding feast, you bloody peasant. Get this out of here!"

It's not a king who's getting married, stupid. Arya nearly said it out loud, but held her tongue and chewed on her lip instead. Sandor stammered some response about lord so-and-so sending it on, and another lord ordering him to do it, and so on. Arya glanced back and forth between the two men, watching them hammer out the details of the lie. Sandor kept his head low and deferential like a good dog, but the story he'd chosen made no sense and, if their interrogator was to be believed, they were late anyway.

"Late?" Sandor said, raising his head in genuine surprise. "I thought-"

"It started early," the Frey man snapped.

The Hound may not have been a skilled liar, but he was a master of keeping calm under pressure. Arya figured that a low-level guard's obnoxious questions were nothing compared to what he'd seen on the battlefield. It was the Frey man who was nervous, actually, and for some strange reason he kept looking back at the castle, to the road over her shoulder, and around the various camps on either side, almost as if she and Sandor were the furthest concern from his mind.

The other soldier had stood back silent and forgotten. "Go on through," he suddenly said. Arya noticed him squeezing the grip of a sword at his waist and eying Sandor's scars, but his shoulders and legs were straight, not bent and ready to spring into action. He's nervous, too, he just hides it better.

The first man gaped at him for a second, then waved his hand absently and mumbled some insult. Sandor whipped his mule into action, and as the wagon squelched its way out of the muddy tracks, Arya hopped up and sat on one of the tarp-covered barrels, a high enough perch to give her a much better view of the castle. The Twins loomed in the distance, two great towers separated by a long bridge over the least foamy portion of the Green Fork. Her brother would be in there, she knew, her mother too, and all their bannermen and servants. Would Sansa be with them? No. Joffrey still has her. That left only Jon, alone and freezing on the Wall with the criminals and exiles of the Seven Kingdoms. She would be with her family soon enough, all but Jon, and she promised herself and promised the Old Gods that when this day was over she'd make a trip up to Winterfell and Castle Black to see her brother again.

"Feast shouldn't be for some time…" Sandor grumbled to himself.

"Why?" Arya asked, looking at the activity in the camp. Men ran back and forth in the Frey camp, while the Stark, Umber, and Mormont men on the opposite side of the road lounged, drank, and chatted with one another.

"Should be outside," he continued. "When the whole army is here, he should have it outside. Big royal wedding, big feast."

"But it's my uncle's wedding," she pointed out.

"Doesn't matter," he said, letting his gaze linger on the assembling Frey men. "It's still- shit, this isn't fucking good, girl."

Assembling was exactly what they were doing. Suddenly, on the edge of her hearing, Arya could make out a deep sigh of stringed instruments, many of them coming together in a measure that she could swear she'd heard before, though it was impossible to place. It was a sad song, slow and thoughtful, but without words, who's to say what it meant? Apparently the Frey men thought it meant to strap on shields and draw swords.

"Get out!" The Hound bellowed. He halted the mule and leapt off the wagon in one motion, then scrambled for the broadsword stashed under the seat. Arya stood up on her barrel and looked over the heads of the men, who, so far, ignored both her and her hulking friend, a scarred shadow looming over her with sword in hand. The Frey army marched to the road, eyes focused like warriors ready for battle, but instead of converging on them in a flash of steel, they wrapped around their little wagon as a river split by a stone. They even ignored Sandor and his naked blade in search of other prey, and as they crossed, the whole army jogged on towards the Stark camp.

Somebody shouted a warning and the Frey men came back with a terrible battle cry, a great chorus so loud that it erased the music from the castle. The Hound reached back, snatched Arya around the waist, and in one fluid motion pulled her off the barrel, flung her over his shoulder,and slammed her chest onto his back with an oomph. Pain shot up through her body at the hip and suddenly the Hound was running. Each heavy step shoved his armored shoulder again and again into her gut, and the road scurried past under his feet and her eyes. Armored men washed around her and when she craned her head up to look at the road, she saw more Freys armed and moving, but no Starks. No Direwolves, no metal fists, no merman. Nobody on that side of the road was ready for battle, and most of them were too drunk and stupefied to move at all.

She leaned up as much as she could to free up her lungs, then took a deep breath. "What are they doing? Those are our men just sitting around!"

"Dammit, girl," he growled. "Don't fucking draw attention to yourself. We're almost out!"

Out? "No!" she screamed, pounding on his back. "Let me down! My mother is in the castle, they're both in there, and they need us!"

The screams had started already, some dim echoes from the Twins but mostly from the camps where the Frey men had come together to stalk and ambush their prey. Steel-on-steel rang in the air around them, and despite her best attempts to wriggle free, Arya was still pinned under the Hound's left hand.

"Go back!" she screamed, twisting her shoulders and pushing with her hands. She managed to flip around completely and kick her feet in the air, but when the Hound stopped to try and regain his grip, she was just bucking again. Slippery as an eel. Arya held her hands out towards the ground and kicked one last time. Suddenly she was falling, and after her foot slipped through the Hound's leather-and-mail gloves she slammed into the earth face-first, her hands sliding uselessly in the mud. The impact shook through her chest and body, and when she tried to stand, a burning sensation in her torso joined the daze of impact and she collapsed one more time, groaning softly and holding her head.

"You did that to yourself," the Hound said, nudging her with the toe of his boot. "Get up. Hurry the fuck up, you wolf bitch." He reached down and jostled her shoulder, then tapped her in the ribs with his boot.

Arya coughed over and over, and in one burning gasp, the blessed air returned to her lungs. Along with it came another sharp jet of pain where the Hound had kicked her and where she'd used her ribs to break the fall.

"Get the fuck up!" he shouted, yanking on her shoulder. She was on her feet in a split second, but her legs wobbled and she struggled to stay upright. "Now run!"

I will.

Before Sandor's complaints could reach her ears, she spun on her heels and sprinted towards the Twins. The pain vanished from her chest and she could breathe normally again. The Frey and Stark men were fighting it out now, but the numbers were a sorry thing for the northerners, and though she wanted so badly to veer off and help them, her family was waiting inside. As she ran the music cut off abruptly, but the men fought on anyway, killing and dying on the Stark side of the camp.

Swift as a deer. She was almost there, too, so close that the castle seemed near enough to touch. The Hound's bellow sounded somewhere in the distance and she thought she heard hooves. A sudden noise from the castle caught her attention and, without thinking, she broke her stride and planted her feet to slide to a complete stop.

Bang.

She heard it much more clearly that time. The sound poured through the sky and back down at her like a distant, rolling thunder, something ancient and wrong that made her spine shiver and her feet stick as if lead weights were tied to her ankles. Whatever had caused that terrible sound must be in the castle. Robb's fighting it, I know he is. I have to help him.

More of the noises erupted from the castle, and a pack of spear-clenching gate guards at all looked at one another as if asking permission to run inside or run away. More bangs thundered from behind the barred doors. What is this? Some Frey trick? Her father's gods were never interested in human struggles, the Seven were always silent, and the Drowned God was ridiculous. Who was this lord of thunder, whose voice now called out to the sky? Why had he come to the Twins at the worst time, when she was so desperate to get inside and finally see her family again?

Arya almost broke into a run, but hoofbeats were getting closer and closer. Only an idiot runs away from a horse. She spun around, quick as a snake, and groped for a little dagger at her waist, but her hands fumbled with the leather grip and she looked up to see the Hound bearing down on her. He spurred his panicked, wild-eyed horse, and in the split second before he reached her, Arya noticed fresh wet blood dripping from his elbow down to his wrists, where he clutched a wide-bladed axe with the flat turned toward her face.

She ducked.

The weapon whooshed over her head, and Sandor yanked on the reins as the horse passed. The animal screamed in pain and panic, skidded in the mud, and its thrashing hooves sent muck flying in front of horse and man. With another tug Sandor wheeled his mount around but Arya was already moving, looking for a gap in the animal's legs and finding none. The horse lurched, spat, and kicked the air, and for a brief second the Hound's focus was away from her and on the mount, so she sprang around them and dashed past the hand clutching the reins. He reached down to grab at her anyway but he was much too slow and she was a wolf, quick and lithe and graceful, and she left the sounds of a very heavy man in armor crashing in the mud behind her.

She wanted to turn back and scream "Why?!" but she did not have the time. Men were still dying on the great field next to the road, tent after tent burst into flame, draft animals ran about burning and making all sorts of ghastly noise. A man desperately clung to his horse's mane as the two sprinted past, but his back was aflame and he didn't know it. Sandor's curses grew more and more distant, a dull throb compared to the cacophony around her.

The bang sounds from the Twins started again, much more frequent this time, and the men at the gate pointed their spears at the wooden doors, as if they expected a terrible enemy to spring forth at any moment. Not from that direction. She drew her little dagger with one swift motion and, the moment she had the distance closed, leapt and plunged her dagger in the first Frey man's neck, right at the exposed point by the collar but below the lip of the helmet. He recoiled and screamed, blood spraying from the wound, but she was already on her feet and running again, bloody dagger clutched in her fist. Hands grasped for her and missed, a spear swung at her like a club but she sidestepped it and then she was finally at the gate.

A huge bar lay across the front, and despite the thickness of the wood she could hear the muffled and familiar sound of men shouting and dying inside. Swords clashed from all directions and another bang shook the doors. The source was much closer now, so close that she nearly leapt out of her shoes in sudden fright. Men screamed behind her too, and their voices reminded her that she'd left a bunch of guards close by and she would have to kill them all to get this bar down.

When she turned, though, they were already busy.

The Hound had left his axe behind in a man's skull, the helmet split across the middle, and he was gripping the haft of a stolen spear with its point already impaled through a man's chest. Sandor growled and charged, pushing the flailing and wailing body backwards in the muck until his victim stumbled and fell over. Two more guards approached Sandor's back, but before they gathered the courage to attack he whirled, whipping a little sword from somewhere on his body and waving it menacingly back and forth.

A wolf howled.

She realized suddenly that she'd heard the snarls, too, but it had been lost in all the chaos around her. The two men recoiled as if stung by the sound. Even Sandor flinched, the dog though he was, but he recovered quickly, snatched his spear back out of the dead man's chest, and turned as if to charge the next one.

The door! They're on the other side of the door! Arya had no way of knowing exactly where her family was in the huge castle but they would need to get through the door eventually, right? She spun around and grabbed the heavy oak bar with both hands and heaved with all her might. Why is the bar on the outside? They had planned this, she knew, they had planned this early enough that they knew to lock people inside the Twins instead of out. The men outside had known to go when the music played, but something had gone wrong and she knew it had to do with the incredible power of the explosions shaking the castle around her.

She heaved and heaved at the heavy timber, until finally she pushed it free and let one side fall to the ground with a thud and splash of mud, the other propped up in the irons. Good enough. The wolf howled again and her skin crawled. She nearly pulled the doors open but for a split second she was in a cage, howling again, while men fought outside and crossbows fired at a familiar man standing with his back to her and his shield raised high in desperation. Men circled him and he reached back for the cage's lock, but there were so many. Arya could smell the blood on him and on his enemies, but she could not reach out and-

She was herself again, not the wolf, and she knew exactly where she had to go.

The Hound was mopping up the last Frey guard when she ran past. He yelled at her incoherently but she ignored him and rounded the corner. Between the forest and the castle was an open ground leading to the river, and standing by the treeline was a mass of men wearing the Twins and another sigil she didn't recognize right away. Quiet as a shadow. She crept past them while the two groups argued amongst themselves, the Freys and the other people, both of whom were rattling sabers and offering insults. The Flayed Man, that's what that sigil is. Bolton.

Blood welled in her mouth and she shook her head and tried to spit it out. No, not my mouth. She spat again but only saliva came, then the sensation disappeared as quick as it had come. Men screamed and she snarled, both the girl and the wolf at once, and then she saw Grey Wind.

He had a crossbow bolt in him but the man who shot it was missing a throat, so it was a fair trade. Next to him was a young knight with many more bolts sticking through his armor, the same man she'd seen before, and she remembered him opening the cage and setting the wolf free, though she hadn't seen it herself. Or had she? Everything was a blur, everything except the dead and dying, the knight, the wolf, and the smell and taste of blood.

"Run!" the man shouted, pointing at her as she ran. "Get away from here, boy!"

When Arya slid to a halt he jogged the rest of the distance, wincing in pain and favoring his side where one of the quarrels sank deep. "Can't you see what's happening?!" He grabbed her arm and tried to yank her towards the river, then pointed at the forest with his shield. "Run alongside the river and go through the woods. Just go!" He groaned and wobbled on his legs, but Arya stood firm and grabbed his waist with both arms.

"Where's your sword?" she said, looking to his bloody hand as it gripped her shoulder. He was leaning on her now, not pushing her away, and his head sagged for just a moment before he shook off the sudden faintness and looked around. "It's, uh- what-"

He froze, wide-eyed, and stared over her shoulder. She felt hot breath on her neck and heard a low pant behind her ear. An animal paw gently patted her in the middle of the back and a long, thick tongue brushed her neck and licked up the blood on the man's hand.

"Grey Wind," she whispered.

The knight gaped at her. "You're one of ours, then? The King. We have to-"

She suddenly remembered the stupid Frey sigil attached to her clothes. A necessary disguise, the Hound had insisted, yet this Stark man had seen her in the chaos and didn't try to gut her. In fact, he'd wanted to help her escape. This man just saw a terrified and lost child and did not care who or what she followed. He followed, she reminded herself, which only made it stranger. She looked like a boy with how she dressed and she'd kept her hair cut like Yoren had said, which meant she looked all the part of a Frey squire. Don't men like him kill squires all the time?

"Who are you?" she said, as gently as she could with the pounding of her heart.

He groaned. "Westerling. The King's brother. Come with me, please, help me, I can't stand."

His weight finally overcame her and he started to sink to his knees, but Grey Wind brushed past and the Westerling knight fell into the enormous direwolf instead. What's a Westerling, anyway? The sigil on his tabard was some mountain that she didn't recognize. How can he be the king's brother? Everyone said Bran and Rickon were dead, so that left only Jon, and it had been a long time since she'd seen him, but she would never forget Jon's smiling face when he gave her Needle. He reminded her so much of her father. She would never forget either of them, not matter what else happened, and this man did not look at all like a Stark.

"That fucking wolf," came a growl.

Arya looked up to see the Hound, crimson from head to toe and carrying both a shield and somebody's bloody sword. Yet terror crossed his eyes, terror like that night when Thoros of Myr had done his magic and brought the dawn to their little cave, a sword of fire in the hands of a one-eyed man. Grey Wind turned his head and regarded Sandor coolly, then bared his teeth briefly and bristled his fur. The Hound stood motionless, gaping, but the wolf decided he'd offered an adequate threat and relaxed. The Westerling knight lay across his neck, clutching his fur, breathing shallow and pained breaths, but Arya could see from his posture and the spasms of pain on his face that he was still conscious.

"We have to get to Robb," Arya shouted to the Hound. "Robb needs us. We have to go!"

Sandor only frowned. Grey Wind had locked his gaze again and the two dogs stared at one another for a few moments.

Whatever passed between them must have satisfied Sandor because his fighter's stance melted away. He blinked in confusion, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. Nobody was that stupid.

"I didn't sign up for this," he said.

"You'll be rewarded," the Westerling said, managing the words between spasming breaths. "I promise. Money, land. Help me stand."

The knight tried in vain to push himself to his feet, and Grey Wind waited patiently and let him use his back as a platform. The Hound finally walked over and threw the other man's arm over his shoulder, while Arya did the best she could to get under his chest and heave. Finally he was standing again, straight as an arrow though his face was pale, and he looked around for his lost sword.

"How many more are there?" the knight said.

"None," Sandor said, a satisfied grin touching the corner of his mouth.

"But there were so many!" Arya blurted out. "You killed all of them?"

"They fought each other for a bit, and I killed enough that the rest buggered off," he said.

Sure enough, Frey and Bolton corpses were laying in heaps near Grey Wind's cage, some impaled on each others' spears. A few survivors crawled and moaned, but Arya paid them no mind. The Westerling knight tried to walk a few more steps unaided but wobbled, so Sandor sighed and let the comparably tiny man lean on him.

"Ser Raynald," the Westerling knight groaned. "Thank you."

"Sandor Clegane."

"I know." He looked up at the Hound's scarred face. Even without the dogshead helmet, Sandor's look was known around all the Seven Kingdoms. Lucky nobody tried to collect on his head.

"Well, Ser Raynald," the Hound said, mockery in his voice. "Don't let the Stark girl die, either. She's worth more than either of us to your king. I didn't come all this fucking way to let my ransom get stepped on."

"The Stark-" Ser Raynald said, frowning. He craned his neck around and back down at Arya. She bit her lip and looked away, hiding her face as best she could.

Sandor barked a short, sarcastic laugh. "Nevermind. Just don't let her die. The wolf will watch over her, I think. The bloody animals love them."

A sudden painful memory of Nymeria flashed through Arya's mind. She and Jory had driven her off with rocks on that day at the river, knowing someone like the Hound would run her through if they had the chance. That had happened to Mycah instead. If only she'd made him run too, then he'd be alive.

She hated the Hound, once, yet he had protected her and brought her to her family when everyone else had just lied and tried to use her for their own purposes. Beric, Thoros, even Harwin, all of them had something on their minds, some trade, like she was Sansa or one of those other girls who just wanted to be given to some high lord for lands and men. Like Robb and the Frey wife he was supposed to marry, or so she heard. Hadn't he married a Frey? What happened with that? Sandor didn't care about any of her family's silly politics, though. He wanted gold and that meant bringing her here. He killed Mycah because Joffrey made him, that's all, but Joffrey made Meryn Trant kill Syrio and he made Ilyn Payne kill her father, and she would not forgive either of them, not ever. How could she forgive the Hound?

I'll kill him later.

The two men and two wolves passed the corpses and near-corpses, while in the distance smoke poured into the sky from a hundred fires. Blurred figures screamed and died behind the columns of smoke, and the battle stretched so far that Arya couldn't see where it ended and the forest began. When their little party approached the corner, shouts and pounding told her that someone - a lot of someones - were already at the gate.

"Hold it shut!" a man yelled, and more voices joined him in wordless challenge. "Hold it! Get a horse! Get a horse for the king!"

Ser Raynald and Sandor looked at one another and picked up the pace. Arya grew tired of waiting and burst into a sprint again, running ahead of them and with Grey Wind at her heels. This time, Sandor didn't even bother to yell at her to stop. The two of them, wolf and wolf girl, rounded the corner and saw a dozen wounded and bloody men bracing themselves against the great wooden gates at the front of the castle.

And she saw her mother.

"The bar!" Catelyn shouted, and a couple of the door-bracing men reached down to grab it. Grey Wind leapt past Arya, a flash of fur and blood as his enormous figure bounded with incredible speed towards the bedraggled men and the door that separated them from death. Arya ran towards Catelyn, and as she closed the gap between them, she saw that one of the men who reached for the bar was younger than the rest and dressed in a lord's finery. Not a lord's. A king's.

Robb was there, and he was alive. More hands reached down, and with their help her brother and her mother grabbed the bar and lifted it high. The door's defenders parted for a moment to give them room but another great impact shook the door and it burst open for a second, sending the exhausted men stumbling backwards and falling on their rears. Yet Grey Wind was with them now, and the great beast stood in the open portal facing down whatever hoped to come through.

It was Freys. Dozens of them, all armored for war and waving steel around, plus one lordly type who led from the front. He wore expensive and intricate gold-trimmed armor with the Frey colors, left his fat and balding head uncovered, and gripped a clean sword in his hand, and though he stepped through the doorway with the grim expression of a butcher, Grey Wind's growl and snarling visage sent him scrambling backwards into his men with terror written across his features.

Catelyn and Robb both let the bar fall to the earth, and her brother reached to his hip for a sword that wasn't there. Catelyn grabbed him with both hands and pushed him backwards, away from the enemy, yet there were enemies in all directions except the river and the sky. Arya knew if they took the road they were dead, if they went anywhere but the castle they were dead. Bolton and Frey betrayers were everywhere and there were just so few of her people that not even the Hound could save them. Her pack was so small and it was about to be hunted down and slaughtered, like a hounds on the trail of a coyote.

"Mother!" she screamed. "Robb! We have to go inside!"

The Frey men did not react to her, nor did the Stark men who used Grey Wind's distraction to find their feet and their swords, but Robb and Catelyn both turned at the sound of her voice and gaped at her, astonished. "Inside!" she repeated, pointing to the Freys. "It's not safe out here! Hurry!"

Ser Raynald and the Hound staggered around the corner. Arya pointed at them and then the Freys. "He'll kill them all, I promise. He can kill a hundred if he needs to!"

"Arya…" Catelyn started, wide-eyed, but no other words came.

Robb reached under his cloak with one hand and pointed to the open door with the other. "I'll make a path! Get inside!"

The Freys gathered their valor and squared their shoulders, almost as if the idiots thought it wise to attack. A dozen Stark survivors flanked Grey Wind and advanced, but the line had moved not even a full step before the Frey's courage fled them once again. They looked to their commander for inspiration, but fear had so twisted his face that he stumbled and fell straight on his ass in front of the Direwolf's massive frame. Incredibly, the men around him could not find the fortitude to help their commander up, the big ugly cowards, and Grey Wind knew exactly what to do.

He leapt forward and ripped into the Frey commander's throat.

The Stark men charged next, and after a brief pause of sheer terror, the remaining Freys scattered into the wind. The Hound let Robb take Ser Raynald, and though they didn't exchange any words, a quick look passed between them that Arya saw as a warrior's understanding. Robb must have guessed that the Hound had just saved his long-lost sister, thought dead for years, and Arya knew he would be exactly right.

"The Old Gods," Catelyn's voice came to her, shaky and stammering. "They brought you to me." She appeared between Arya and the castle with red palms raised. Arya recoiled in horror, not because of the blood all over her mother's body from chest to hands to feet, but because of the crossbow bolt sticking out of her side and second jutting at a high angle from her back.

"Mother," she said. "The Hound saved me and brought me here. I said you'd give him money, and maybe lands somewhere up north, so he brought me here." She blinked. "Mother?"

"Arya," Catelyn repeated, her eyes dreamy and her face slack. "The gods have breathed life into your body and brought you back to me. I am not worthy."

Her mother collapsed.

Arya gasped and ran to her, but Catelyn was staring up at the sky, smiling and blinking with vacant eyes. Blood flowed sluggishly from her many wounds, and her hand grasped at the air between them. Arya grabbed her mother's wet and sticky hand and held it to her face. Blood mixed with tears as Arya sobbed. "Don't die," Arya whimpered, only a pup again. She's dying. She's dead. "Don't die…"

"Arya!"

Robb's voice snapped her to attention. He and Ser Raynald - his brother, Arya reminded herself - held each other up in the open doorway, and with all the other fighters inside, the family was alone. Her mother, her brother, and her new brother, if he told the truth. She still didn't understand what he meant, but she believed him. Everyone but Jon and Sansa were here, and they were all hurt. That's what maesters are for.

"Come inside!" Robb shouted.

"But mother…" Arya moaned.

"She's dead! We have to get in now!"

As if to drive the point home, shouts drew her eyes back over her shoulder, where blood-spattered Freys gathered on the road, not far from the overturned cart that had brought her to this place. More streamed from the ruins of the Stark camp, their work probably finished, and the leaders were pointing spears right at Arya's family and waving the rest on. She had not minutes, but seconds, to find a way to get her mother's limp body inside so the maesters could save her. In a split-second she thought out a prayer to the old gods for strength, so much strength that she could lift a limp adult in her scrawny arms and dash inside as if she were carrying naught but feathers. She prayed and prayed for the strength, tugged at her mother's arm, dug her heels in the mud and pulled and pulled and pulled.

Sandor Clegane appeared in front of her.

Before Arya could blink he had her mother in his arms and was heading for the castle. Arya's legs froze for too long, much too long, and only the danger of men coming down the road spurred her into action. Mud squelched as she bounded away from the enemy, around the man who would save her family, and ran for the door.

"The bar!" Robb shouted, as she skidded to a halt. He pointed to the bar laying on the ground, but he wasn't looking at her. "Ser Knight, get the bar!"

"Not a fucking knight," the Hound groaned, dumping Catelyn heavily inside.

Robb leaned down to cup her face. "Mother…"

"Robb," came a weak voice.

Several able Stark men pushed past the family and fumbled with the doors, but Arya could only watch her mother's face. She smiled up at Robb, then reached out and grabbed Arya's hand again. Despite the weakness in her body, she gave Arya's hand a firm squeeze, as if they were back in Winterfell, her father was alive, and all was well again.

"It'll bar from the inside," someone said.

The bar set into the irons with a clank. "Fucking right!" Sandor bellowed.

"More coming!" Ser Raynald said, moaning. "I need a weapon, a sword, something…"

Arya glanced over her shoulder at the closed and barred door, and was grateful that it hid the horror outside. Only Grey Wind's latest victim lay nearby as a reminder of what she'd narrowly escaped, but the wolf himself had moved on down the hallway to hunt some other enemy.

"I need to stay with my pack," Arya said, "the ones that aren't hurt yet. We have more Freys to kill."

Catelyn blinked at her in confusion and shook her head weakly. Before she could say anything, Robb shushed her. Sandor and several more men stepped around with a clatter and Arya stood, grabbed the dagger from her waist again, and wiped the fresh blood on her thigh.

"I'll be back," she whispered. "Don't die before I get back."

Arya did not wait for an answer from either of them. More Freys were coming, the Hound and all the rest were going to meet them, and she wasn't about to let them do all the work. She lifted the little red-stained dagger one more time, pointed down the hallway and cried,

"Winterfell!"

And she dashed towards them.