9. Death
They ran.
Wolf and girl, girl and wolf; girl on top of wolf, clutching the fur of its neck, knees wrapped around its ribs, cloak flying behind her, three blades tucked down her leather jerkin, two golden handles and one plain glinting in the snow my her shoulder.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The tears that she had barely choked back before, for Lem, for Edric, flowed freely now, and she wiped them on the wolf's fur before they could freeze on her cheeks. She hated herself for them. She hated herself for staying with them, for leading them across that damned causeway, when alone she could have easily snuck around, or tricked her way through, or traveled to the narrow sea to book a boat. She was stronger alone. She didn't need a pack.
She refused to think about the tall man.
The wolf offered nothing, sensing that her master wanted nothing from her but speed. The wolf felt the girl's pain, not only as a servant feels its masters but more deeply, physically, through the link they shared. But the wolf was also excited, by the run, and by the cold, and the scents that she remembered from when she was a pup—the North!
Gradually the girl's mind grew quiet and the wolf felt her fatigue drifting through its muscles, although the girl's grip on her fur never loosened. The wolf began to look for shelter, and found a shallow overhang by the bank of a frozen stream. The wolf lay down on the carpet of dry leaves and the the girl wrapped herself in her cloak and buried herself into the wolf's fur. Within a minute, she was asleep.
Five days later, an old woman passed through the gates of Winterfell. Since Stannis had fallen, they had raised the gates to the outer courtyard most days to let smallfolk in to trade. When the Starks had reigned at Winterfell, in times of peace, the gates had stood open every day from dawn until dusk, and the smallfolk had passed freely, hawking vegetables, cheese, and meat from their farms, fish from the streams, pelts from the forest, and homespun cloth and wooden vessels from their cottages. Now, the gates stood open for half an hour in the morning, and less than that at night; the faces of the smallfolk who waited for a chance inside the castle were pinched from hunger and cold, and they carried on their backs any movable possessions they could barter for food; gold teeth, family crests whose gildings had almost worn through, bowls, plate, the boots and shirts of sons who had died in the wars, even blankets and cloaks. They had learned long ago that the Bolton lord would offer no charity, and they thought it better to freeze than to starve.
The old woman carried with her a large bundle of pelts, scraped but not cured and stinking strongly enough for even the war-worn smallfolk to give her a wide berth. Deer, winter fox, rabbit, even the pelt of a moose. Valuable goods, in a winter that was harsher than anyone alive in the North could recall, that had already stretched on for the better part of a year and showed now signs of stopping. The guards that searched each entrant for weapons (and took a heavy tax for their burden) made her throw down two of the smaller pelts and move on, deciding that her threat was less than her smell. The farmwife behind her was not so lucky. The spilled her bundle of old clothes and dragged off the road. The smallfolk looked away, but they heard her scream.
In the courtyard several flayed corpses had been tacked to wood crosses and raised on stakes in the air. Raised highest was a frozen, deteriorated body wearing an iron crown. A ragged banner with a flaming heart was nailed to the wood behind him. Lower down to the right stood a fresher corprse, not yet black and brown from exposure to the elements. The man's half torn face did not look young, but his skinless frame was large; this was a powerful man in life.
"Milken, the smith," whispered an old man with a lumpy sack over his shoulder to his neighbor. "They found out that he'd been passing information to Stannis, before the battle."
A man walked onto the inner ramparts behind the flayed bodies. He wore a thin circlet on his black hair and a luxurious ermine cloak, and black leather gloves. His face was handsome, but twisted into a strange smile. The old man hurried toward the area where the castle steward was beginning to inspect wares, barking prices — a loaf of bread, three turnips, four potatoes — to an assistant. The lord on the ramparts moved on.
The old woman started up at the Smith for a long time. She didn't flinch, but then, none of the smallfolk did; flayed men were a common sight. She hoisted her bundle and trundled away. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen her slip into a side door, and disappear.
The guards at the front gate were the first to die. They died silently, in their seats. The first die had his throat cut from behind, and watched as a hooded black figure slit the throats of his two dozing companions in less than three seconds. The figure waited for the fourth, who had gone to relieve himself off the ramparts. He died with a dagger through his eye.
Seven guard towers were built into the walls of Winterfell, but only four were defended. One by one the men defending them died; a throat, an eye, thump on the head and then a stab in the back. Not one screamed.
Ten minutes later, there was a whoosh and a loud thud on the ramparts; in the morning they would the twisted body of a soldier at the bottom, a wad of cloth stuffed in his mouth, his eyes wide open in fear. The two men patrolling the ramparts rushed to the spot. One tripped and hit his head on a rampart, the edge of his helmet digging into his skull. The throat of the third was cut.
There weren't many men still left at Winterfell; many had died in the fight against Stannis, and most of the survivors had returned to their lands or their keeps in the far parts of the North. Perhaps twenty remaining soldiers were quartered servant's mess. In the morning, the castle folk would find it a morgue, half of the men a sickly greenish white, eyes open, hands clutching at their throats. Of those that remained, a third were vomiting uncontrollably, bile and occasionally blood, and two were dead, blood spilling elegantly over their bedclothes.
It wasn't until the dogs broke free that the lord realized something was amiss. He rushed from his bedroom in the tower onto the terrace, and in the dim light spilling from the door to the kitchens, he saw the dogs spill from the kennel, chasing a man — the kennel master — who screamed as his animals ripped him to pieces.
He called to his the two men that stood by his door at night but they did not answer. Furious, he opened his door and found one on the floor and the second pinned to a door, a dagger driven through his open mouth into the soft wood behind. When he went back into his room to get his sword there was a woman sitting in his bed that he did not recognize. She had dark brown hair, so dark that it was almost black, and very pale skin. Beneath soft, youthful cheeks was a sharp jawline and a full mouth. Her grey eyes watched him underneath dark, full brows.
He felt a surge of excitement so satisfying that he knew it could only mean one thing: he was about to die.
**NOTES
Who is Arya now? Ok, you probably got that one. I just had to get Arya single-handedly taking back Winterfell in there. But she also does it in a super angsty damaged way, well because she is kind of psychologically traumatized. But at least not as messed up as Ramsey. Why does she do it, exactly? what are her deeper motives? TBD
