Once across the bridge, they immediately headed down the steep embankment that dropped to the river. Jaime insisted on getting off the road, and the girl had to wash her face and hands. She knelt on the stony inlet and scrubbed at her skin, removed her bloody top and soaked it in the ice-cold water. Even after she'd wrung it out several times, it still stained maroon.

Jaime sat on a boulder under one of the bridge's support beams, resting his chin in his hands. He was, miraculously, still holding their one remaining backpack. 'So, what now?' he asked. It sounded more like a philosophical statement than an actual question requiring an answer, so the girl ignored him and kept rinsing her clothes and dunking her hair, in a futile effort to rid them of the remains of Guts.

'I don't know about you, but I'm starving,' Jaime commented.

'There's no food,' the girl said. She twisted her wet hair, picked at a glob on her top with her fingernail.

'Not here. But there's people around, there must be houses, Inns. Isn't the Crossroads nearby?' Jaime turned his head to look back up the bank, to where the road cornered right and ran along the river, downstream. 'That's the Riverroad, isn't it?'

'No, but it leads onto it,' the girl said.

'And then we're... how far from the Inn?'

'I'm not going to that Inn, alright?' she snapped.

'They'd have food there. Got any coins in this pack of yours?' Jaime began unstrapping it, rummaging through the contents. The girl marched up to him and snatched it out of his hands.

'I do have some coins, and they're mine to spend where and when I see fit. It's hours walk to the Crossroads, for your information. Only a short ride, but in case you haven't noticed, we're less one horse. And, I kind of need her.' The girl stared out across the river to where they'd been the day before, hoping to see some kind of movement in the trees that might, possibly, be Sooty. But there was nothing but blackness.

'Can't you steal another horse? I'd have thought a girl of your experience would have a knack for that.'

'I don't need another horse!' she retorted. 'I need my horse!' There was a pain in her chest so real it was suddenly hard to breathe. It was worse than the pains in her hands or knees. She refused to face the likelihood that Sooty may be gone forever, shook her head to clear the thought from it. 'I've had her since she was a foal, and I was seven. I taught her everything she knows. She's the best horse in the... oh, whatever. Like you'd understand.'

'Well, definitely better than the one who ran you into that tree branch and impaled you,' Jaime agreed. He pulled his tunic away from his body, wincing a little. 'But we need to deal with more immediate problems. I'm sure Sooty can look after herself for a while.'

The girl peered at Jaime. 'Are you hurt?'

'Not badly,' he grinned, but his forehead creased.

'Let me...' the girl came over to him, pushed aside his hands and felt the cut in the tunic material on his chest, clean as if from shears. She pulled up the hem with a sinking dread and inhaled sharply when she saw the gash from Draw's scythe leaking dark red down Jaime's torso.

'It's nothing,' he muttered, trying to move her away. 'Let's just get out of here.'

She gently touched the raised edges of his wound, feeling the width apart of them, the warm wetness on her fingers. 'This needs to be stitched, it will fester.'

'Not in the next few hours it won't. Let's worry first about getting somewhere we're safe from every passing brigand who wants to cleave our heads in. And getting some food. Then you can inflict your maester's skills on me all you wish.' Jaime stood up, impatient. 'And we have this, remember?' He retrieved the pick-axe the girl had left on the bank while she was washing. 'We'll get these chains off, too.'

Reluctantly, the girl followed him up the escarpment. The pale strip of road angled away from the river, stretching into the distance and thankfully deserted at this time of night. Trees clustered in on both sides, their branches reaching across to entwine twiggy hands with each other. Somewhere a bird hooted, and night insects trilled beneath the ground. At least the flies had retired.

'What was it that outlaw said to you, on the bridge?' the girl asked.

'He didn't say anything.'

'He was trying to say something. Before you pushed him off. He was... saying a word.'

Jaime frowned as if seriously trying to remember. 'I think he may've said 'Kill me,' or similar.'

'But he grabbed hold of the side of the bridge when you tried to lift him over it... that doesn't make sense.' Something else was tickling at the back of the girl's mind, something from the conversation they'd had with the outlaws. She'd had no time to think on it then, but now it was nagging her. An itch she couldn't quite reach. Something one of the men had said, but what had it been?

Jaime looked bored. 'He was carrying his intestines in his hand. I don't think you can expect much sense from him.'

The pair started walking, staying in the forest's shadows but following the road. A gibbous moon hung low in the sky, like a yellow egg. Soon they came to a junction where their path met a highway. They stopped, well back from the verge. They were more likely to run into patrols or other travellers here.

'The Riverroad,' Jaime said. 'About six miles to the Inn, I'd guess.'

'There are bound to be folks about,' the girl said.

'Time to get these off, then,' Jaime said, passing her the pick-axe. 'If I'm not in chains then I'm of much less interest to the general public.'

They sat a little way from the road, under the cover of some bushes. The moon shone bright enough to see by, and the air was crisp. Sounds travelled further on clear nights, the girl knew, so she was concerned at the noise this was going to make, and who might hear it. To distract herself, she turned the axe's handle over and over in one hand, getting a feel for it. It was a light weapon, compact, the tapered end sharpened to a fine edge. She selected the blunt end to face down, and swung it a few times for practise.

Jaime sat on the grass and laid his cuffed hands out on a small log, his hands stretched as far apart as they could. 'Whenever you're ready,' he said, looking up at her.

'I haven't broken a chain apart before,' the girl warned.

'There's nothing to it. Just look at a place in the middle and hit it fucking hard.'

'This is more a stabbing sort of weapon, not a smashing one.'

'Are you going to fail before you've even tried, girl? Just hit the godsdamn chain.'

The girl sighed, took a deep breath and hefted the axe above her head.

'I hope your aim with an axe is better than your aim with a bow,' Jaime said, cheerfully.

'You don't need hands, right?' she said, a hint of a smile.

'I have faith in you.'

She brought the pick-axe down with all her strength. It bounced off the chains with a resonant clang, almost hitting her in the face on the rebound.

Jaime let out a pained grunt at the shock of the blow to his wrists. He shook them, straightened them out on the log. 'Again.'

The girl raised the axe and swung a second time, and again the axe ricocheted off without breaking the chain. The echoing ring of it resounded through the trees, too loud for the girl's liking. Her palms burned from the recoil.

'Fuck,' Jaime said. He bit down on his lip. His fingers splayed at the agony the metal cuffs were inflicting on his wrists through the blow's force. 'Again.'

'No, this thing is too light,' the girl argued. 'And people two villages away can hear this.'

'Use the pick end, not the mallet end. Cut the links, or prise them apart,' Jaime insisted.

The girl did as he bid, hacking with the pick, but the pointed edge just keep skipping off the chain's curved links rather than biting in. She tried to lever the links apart but the iron rings were unyielding. After she'd sliced her hands twice, she threw the axe down, the handle slippery with her blood. 'This is useless. We need something heavier.'

Jaime looked seriously pissed. He smacked his hands on the log, gave his cuffs a fierce yank apart as if he could rid himself of them by sheer force of will. Then he lay backwards on the ground in frustration, glaring up through the overhanging leaves with a furious expression and mouthing curse words, presumably at the gods. The girl crossed her arms, pressed her cut hands into the crook of her elbows, and waited for him to calm down.

'Are you done?'

He said nothing, just lay on his back in smouldering silence.

'I'll leave you here, head for the Inn,' the girl said. 'I should be gone three hours at the most, less if I cadge a ride off a local. I'll get a broadsword or proper axe. Then I'll come back.'

'You won't come back,' he said.

'Yes, I will. I promise.'

Jaime rolled onto his side, defeated. 'I wonder how long until North soldiers come along here, pick me up?' he mused.

'Stop being so hopeless! It achieves nothing,' she said, irritated. 'I've lost my horse, I'm going to a place I swore I'd never go to again, to get what you want, so the least you can do is quit crying about your fucking handcuffs.'

He eyed her listlessly, said nothing. She took the pack off him and untied a pouch inside. Tipped out a handful of coins and some jewellery, considered them, then stuffed the lot into the pocket of her pants. She took the water flask and drank some, then put it back. 'I'm leaving you the pack with a blanket in it, and the pick-axe,' she said. 'You could cause some damage with it if you had to. Even cuffed.'

'What about you? You lost your bow back at the bridge.'

'I'll survive.'

He looked a little grateful, at least. 'So, tell me. What is it you have against the Crossroads?' he asked, sitting up, some of the normal irreverence back in his voice. 'What haunts you there? Did you get ripped off in a trade gone wrong? Some soldier confiscate your illegal bounty? I'm dying to know what memory was so bad you swore never to return.'

The girl just stood there and looked at him a long moment. The moon shone its soft light on the road and made every rut in it shimmer like a wave. A low mist rose off the land, smudging the sharpness out of the world. She thought about not answering Jaime's question. Thought about lying. Then she opened her mouth and the words just spilled out.

'It's where my brother was killed.'

Jaime looked at her, stunned.

'He... I don't know where, exactly. It might've been at the Inn, or in the forest, or on the road, or by the river... I don't know. I mean, he died, I know that. Everyone around here knows that. But where he took his last breath, where his bones lie... I don't know.' She breathed in, stared unseeing at the trees, clenched and unclenched her fists. 'I wish I knew. I would come here all the time, then. Bring flowers for his grave. A nice headstone. I'd sit at the place where he was buried, and talk to him. Tell him I missed him. Tell him all about Sooty; he loved Sooty.' The girl smiled sadly. 'About his nieces, how they're growing up. They're such cheeky kids, just like him. Redheads, too. One day soon they'll be older than he ever was.' She choked on the bitterness of her words. 'How is that... right?'

She paused, struggling to hold herself together. 'If I knew where he was, I'd come here all the time. But I don't. I probably never will. So this place is, like you say, haunted for me.'

Neither of them spoke. Finally, the girl released a long-held breath, turned to go. 'Well. See you in a little while.'

She started off down the road, her footsteps tapping, her figure fading into the mist.

Jaime stood up, stared after her. 'Your brother... his name was Mycah?' he asked quietly. But of course, he already knew the answer. And of course, she didn't hear him. She'd already vanished into the fog.