Chapter 6
Arya sat heavily on a log that someone had pulled up to the fire and she stuck her hands out to warm them. They were moving towards the hills beyond the flat and treed Riverlands, but the temperature seemed to be dropping faster than she'd expected.
Audric sat next to her on the log suddenly his leg brushing hers and for some reason it made her jump. She shifted slightly to avoid the contact, while turning to look at her captain. He was smiling broadly and had been since taking down the boar.
It reminded her of Gendry stopping her from killing the boar herself, but then it reminded her of other things that Gendry had done and she tried very hard to keep from flushing. She furtively looked away from Audric to where the cook was turning a spit of meat.
"Is my lady well?" He asked.
"Just hungry," Arya admitted and she was, when she'd seen the meat her mouth had instantly began to salivate.
"I apologize for stealing your kill, my lady. I was just worried about the boar getting away." Audric said and Arya shrugged.
"It was well done, Audric. I thank you for that."
"I know you wanted to kill the boar yourself before Ser Baratheon stopped you," Audric said and the way he said Baratheon made it sounds like a curse.
She wondered what he was on about. She didn't have to wait long as he went on.
"He shouldn't treat you like that, even with him being a lord."
Arya frowned, "That's really none of your business."
"But my lady, it undermines your standing with the men. They follow you. Not some bastard made legitimate."
Arya bristled, her temper flaring hot and heavy in her chest. These may have been things she'd said to Gendry herself, but she did not appreciate it being told to her by Audric. He presumed too much.
"You are the captain of my guard, Ser and you will remember your place," she said. She rarely used her nobility against anyone, but sometimes it was the most effective way to shut up someone who wanted her favor.
As she stood up, Gendry happened to walk up, holding her trencher of meat. She didn't even look back at Audric as she felt into step with Gendry, taking her food from him eagerly.
That was probably for the best as she would have seen the dark look on his face.
Later that night, Gendry was in his tent getting ready for bed. He had turned to say something to Dunstin and there she was; standing at the entrance looking as innocent as a new babe.
Gendry snorted at the thought.
With not a word, Arya walked past him, threw her cloak on a chair and crawled into his bed as if this was normal occurrence. Gendry found that he didn't mind.
He finished undressing and got under the furs with her. She was lying on her back looking up at the canvas of the tent with a deep line in her brow. He knew that look and he knew what it meant. "It's going to be okay," he said as he lay down and rolled on his side to face her.
Arya's expression changed quickly, her eyebrows furrowing in surprise. She'd been so lost in her own world that she didn't realize until that moment that Gendry knew she was worried, even though they'd gotten a lot of meat from the boar, they still had a long way to go to White Harbor and meat was harder to keep than grain and flour.
"I know. It just doesn't feel like it right now."
"Why are you here, my lady?"
Arya sighed. "I sleep better next to you, Gendry" she admitted turning away from him so he couldn't see her cheeks redden.
"Me too, "he whispered to her back. It had been the same when they were younger and on the run. Back when he'd thought of her as the stubborn little girl who was oddly well suited to surviving the worst. He remembered asking her to leave Lommy, Hot Pie and Weasel, as he knew the two of them could travel easier and safer. She'd talked him out of it and she'd followed right after him after he was captured.
Arya was a fierce warrior, but he knew her secret, she hid a big, compassionate heart under those scowls and quips ad he didn't doubt she'd love him fiercely if he was lucky.
Arya awoke with her head on Gendry's chest. She didn't remember cuddling so close to him but when she moved away she felt a chill in the air and figured she'd grown cold and sought out his body heat. She sat up in the furs. The world was silent; a silence she knew in her bones but hadn't heard in a long time.
Without waking Gendry, she slid out of bed and padded to the front opening of the tent. She lifted the flap and immediately felt goose flesh bloom across her arms as the icy air hit her skin. In the night, a blanket of snow had settled over the camp. She let the flap drop and went back to the bed.
"Gendry," she said shaking his shoulder.
He grumbled at her and rolled over.
"Gendry, there's snow," she said and her voice was giddy.
"Snow," he said sounding confused. He squinted his eyes but did not open them. "But we're not in the North yet."
Arya laughed. He sat up and cursed at the cold as the furs dropped from around his bare chest.
"Seven hells, Gendry! Have you never seen cold?"
"I've lived in the South my whole life," he said defensively.
"Winter's coming," Arya said; being reminded of her mother and her seemingly endless worrying.
Gendry was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and he chortled.
"What does that mean? I've heard your men saying it. It bloody well seems like winter has come already."
"Not winter, winter, stupid," Arya said sitting on the edge of the bed. "Like bad times. It means to always be prepared for the worst."
"Sounds tiresome," Gendry grumbled. Arya forgot he was generally grumpy in the morning, even with her. But his sullenness did remind her that snow wasn't a good sign. Not this far south at this time of year.
"It doesn't feel right," Gendry said as they heard Dunstin stirring behind the screen. Arya crossed her arms to try and stop a shiver. Now that she'd stopped being excited about the snow, she felt it too.
She cursed herself then for letting her senses grow soft. She felt safe with Gendry and it was throwing off all of her training, she thought.
She stood and grabbed her cloak from the chair. Gendry had his usual morning frown. She kissed him on the nose, receiving a 'harrumph' before she pulled on her boots and left.
Once outside, Arya felt the cold nipping at her nose. She drew her hood over her head and crept silently through the drifts to her own tent.
Bayard was snoring on his cot in the corner, even though her squire had taken keenly to what he thought was guarding her life, when he slept he was dead to the world, which was something Arya counted on so that she could come and go as she pleased.
She moved to stoke the brazier in the middle of her tent, which had run low on wood during the night. She rubbed her hands together as the fire roared back to life. That's when she heard it, a quiet crunching in the blown snow.
At first, she took it for her men getting up. The sun was just rising and she could see the pink glow of the light seeping under the tent entrance flap. Soon they'd be on the march again, as she was eager to move that much closer to White Harbor.
Out of the silence she heard a frightened shout. Her first thought was of the wolves, but Nymeria and her pack had departed a day or so before to hunt. Arya had run with them in her dreams and knew they were not close at hand.
The shouting had seemed to rouse the whole camp, Arya saw as she peeked from behind the tent flap. Men were arming themselves, but for what, Arya couldn't tell and she didn't stop to ask anyone either.
She ducked back inside and roughly shook Bayard awake.
"We're under attack," she hissed at him before moving away to find her armor.
She shrugged on her boiled leathers, threw her cloak back over her shoulders and grabbed Ice. Bayard was still struggling with his boots when she threw his daggers onto the cot beside his thigh. She also handed him an ax.
"You can throw this, but that leaves you unarmed while you fetch it," she warned. Her squire nodded.
As she went to leave the tent, he captured her hand and squeezed it. "Keep safe, my lady."
She squeezed back and then she was outside in the chaos. There were men everywhere and Arya searched for Gendry, only to see him at a distance, wielding his large sword at one of his own men. The sight made Arya's head spin.
She went to move forward towards Gendry and felt something grasp her cloak and pull. She turned and her eyes met a skeletal face with burning blue eyes. She gasped, unable to stop the recoil she felt in her entire body. It was as if her nightmares had come true and risen up before her.
The wight carried a heavily studded mace and he swung it at Ayra's head ferociously, she ducked and drove Ice up through the wight's belly. It stopped and as she withdrew the sword it slid to the ground.
Jon's words rang in her head then, 'To truly kill them you need fire, dragon glass or Valerian steel'. They were words from one of his letters; one she'd received before the one that told her Jon had died at the hands of his brothers.
She moved forward, hacking at a wight that was fighting one of Gendry's banner men.
"You need fire," she said to the man as soon as she had parted the wight's head from its shoulders. "You have to burn them."
The man seemed to be frozen for a moment staring at the dead body and Arya saw one of their fallen comrades slowly rising again, eyes burning sapphire.
"Go get fire," Arya screamed at the man, shoving him hard in the shoulder and he stumbled off to where the cook fires had been. She turned and thrust Ice into the corpse's chest and then followed Gendry's man across the field.
Even though they'd been caught unaware, Arya saw that their men were holding their own against what looked like a dozen wights, but she knew that anyone who fell in battle would soon join the wight's ranks making it imperative that they were burned before they could do so.
She and the man met no resistance as they neared the fires and they lit several branches a piece and started back to the fighting with them in their arms.
Arya moved towards where Gendry was fighting with one of the creatures. It was big and had long white hair that streamed behind it in a phantom wind as they fought. He seemed to be a leader, a true white walker as he had finer clothing and he didn't look like a corpse, but something more frightening.
Arya was setting fire to any fallen men she came upon and the smoke from the fires stung her eyes as she walked, but she kept moving forward. Out of the haziness two more wights emerged ahead of her and to Gendry's back.
She reached Gendry's side and turned her back to his to defend him; planting her last burning branch in the ground and drawing her sword.
"Only Valerian steel and fire kills them," she said over her shoulder to Gendry.
He had hacked off the walker's arm and he grunted as he then cut the legs out from under it as the two other wights advanced on Arya. One had a long spear tipped with an iron point. Arya knew it would give him a longer range, as he stabbed at her and she danced out of the way.
Behind her, Gendry had taken the torch and set the commander on fire, now he turned and swung the branch at the two wights fighting Arya. He managed to clip the one without a spear and flames traveled up its ruined arm and its whole body caught flame like so much kindling.
The wight with the spear didn't wait, he swung the spear at Gendry and the point screeched across his breast plate metal, leaving a deep scratch, but not doing any real damage.
Arya struck then, hacking the arm holding the spear off and then plunging Ice into the ruined ribcage. Gendry stepped forward to light it on fire and they stood together watching it burn for a moment.
"Are you alright," Gendry asked turning towards her. He saw Arya's eyes flicker with the firelight and she looked frightened, which wasn't something he was used to.
"Yes, but there's still more," she said grimly and started walking back the way she'd come.
He followed her back through the camp and towards the trees where some of their men were still fighting. Gendry went to aid them, while Arya torched the bodies lying in the snow.
She was just bent over, toughing her torch to the sleeve of one of her men, when a dagger whistled past her ear and lodging in a stump behind her. She wheeled around and found herself staring into the glowing blue eyes of Bayard.