AUTHOR'S NOTES:

***Warning for graphic violence in this chapter***

-Thank you again and again for reading this. And to those who take the time to leave these insightful and detailed reviews... gosh, you really are the best. Thank you.

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-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 25

All peace had fled their camp.

The branches seemed to shudder above him and he lay unmoving, jarred from sleep, looking for the sound. His arm jutted out, fumbling. He found her bed too far away, but her face was soft in slumber. She hadn't shifted once since settling down.

He looked for the horses and found the reflective glint of their eyes, but both of them stood with ears flat, staring at him in the gloom. They knew of the thing, of the sound that hadn't been him or vermin or the girl on the ground. They knew, and that brought him up. Shedding his blanket, he gathered his feet beneath him, boots still on, crouching, his fingers following the edge of the scabbard in the dirt.

He heard the pop now with sharper ears, deep in the trees. It came from two sides of the clearing, far enough that the night still hid him, but too close to send Sansa away. He swiveled on the soles of his boots and gripped her knee. When she woke and saw him shake his head, her fingers sought his sleeve and clung hard to the fabric. Together, they stood.

One…two…

Panic made him reach backward and hook his forearm around her ribs, yanking her into him, spine to spine. He felt the thrum of her racing heart, the cool steel of the scabbard in his other hand. "Your dagger," he hissed, and she nodded against his shoulder blade.

They moved away from the gray coals and waited, breathing. Then she turned her head sharply and was stumbling, pressing against him until she couldn't, grabbing at his shirt. She had seen, but she did not scream.

…three…

A fourth came lurking in from his left, much too close. They were no longer hidden from each other, and for a moment, the man looked surprised to see them. Sandor recoiled, knocking the girl forward a step, and the steel leapt from its casing and struck. The man fell, spouting blood, hacked open at the collarbone. All at once, saplings were rattling with advancing blades and the horses were gone, loosed in the dark.

…five…six…

Six was all, five now with a man dead in the leaves. No horses. "By me," he barked, and he heard Sansa whimper, mirroring his steps, right at his back.

"Yield and give her over," came a shout, but Sandor had her by the hand and was moving. They backed out of the clearing and into the black where he planted her by a wide tree, shoving her shoulders against the bark. She was still and silent, shivering in his hand. Her eyes shone with dread as he broke away from her.

The second one found him behind a tangle of brush and thrust a shortsword wildly at him. Sandor parried, got him by the neck and threw him headlong into the briars, but then the third was there, swinging at his face with something he never saw. He flung his head back, felt the close breeze of the pass, and snarled. Then his pommel was driving into the man's teeth, scattering them before the blade clove through his cheeks and ended him.

There were others, where had they gone? His fingers were numb. He wavered and spat the red from his mouth as the one untangled himself from the brambles and tried to run. He wailed when Sandor got a fistful of his hair, but again, there was a scuffle behind them and Sandor's sword was wrenched from his hand. He whipped his head round to find an axe. A bloody axe. All he could do was twist away, and by some grace, the wide blade found its way into the shrieking worm he held by the scalp.

The fool wielding the thing was too stricken to let go, so Sandor walked his fists up the handle until he was roaring in the man's face. He didn't remember pulling his dirk, but it was buried now, warmth spreading over his knuckles. It was mania, all of it. It was everything he knew.

No.

There was the girl too.

Sansa.

When he spotted her, she was on the move, low to the ground and scrambling wildly into the underbrush. "No," he panted. "No, stop!" He grabbed at her, but she was fleeing, deaf to him shouting her name.

…

Sansa was too afraid to sob. The shadows hulked back and forth, lunging at each other, clanging and ripping in the dark. A horrible bellow of pain made her cover her ears, but when she caught sight of Sandor, that was worse. There was blood in his eyes. There was blood in his mouth. He was screaming, laughing.

The tree scraped at her back as she slid into the earth. The tumult raged all around. She felt a shower of dust and something else, warm black strands that rippled across her forehead and down her throat. A figure crumpled before her, very close, and for an instant, she was unable to move. He was alive still, looking at her. His mouth kept gaping open and closed. Then there was a smell, a dull, raw smell and she looked up to see Sandor looming over another one, spilling his contents right there on the ground.

Some madness took hold of her then, and she was running. The forest rocked and quaked with her footfalls, and she squinted in the graying light. The dawn was close. A root caught her and the world tilted as she fell, crawled, ran again.

The horses. You must find the horses.

Branches blurred past, and she yelped when one struck her sharply across her cheek, but nothing slowed her until she heard him. He was close to her, moving in the brushwood. "Here," she wheezed, "I'm here," but the face she found was not his.

The man that came from the trees held his hand out for her, beckoning with his fingers, hushing her and telling her to come. His other fist curled around the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw. His eyes kept darting back and forth, searching the woods at her back.

"Please." There was nowhere to go. Her lungs were seizing and her muscles burned. The man moved. "Stay away," she said, but her voice was threadbare. He watched her like a cat, patient and certain of her frailty, and she felt the tears spilling down. "NO," she screamed when he stepped forward, and though she dared not use it, the small knife was out, shaking in her hand. The threat was meager. Empty. "Stay away from me."

He never saw the blade at all. He grabbed her arms and was on her in a moment, wrestling her to the ground while she thrashed and screeched. "Stop fighting," he growled, "I'm not going to—," but she brought her fists up to shield her face and then all his weight was on her, crushing her into the dirt.

Abruptly, he went still. When she looked, he was staring at her, his eyes white and his mouth open. She didn't understand. He wouldn't speak and his breathing had changed, choked and halted. There was an odd gargling sound, and something very cold came to settle in her stomach. Blood was trickling down her forearm.

In her terror, she hadn't let go of the dagger. It trembled now in the curl of her first, buried to the hilt in the man's windpipe.

No.

No.

A strange, terrible calm fell over them both. As he gaped at her, she saw the confusion in his dull hazel eyes, his profound shock at what would become of him here in this forest, with this girl he did not know. She felt tears pooling in the crevice of her ear and, faintly, she whispered to him, all she could give.

"I'm sorry."

It only seemed to enrage him. The astonishment fled and a desperate violence came into his hands, and before she could scream, he had them around her throat. He was killing her, as she had him. Kicking at the ground, she raked at him, scratching his arms, reaching for the blade that still punctured his weeping neck. Just as she closed her fingers around the handle, the man twisted and seemed to balk, and then was pulled off of her, limp and discarded like an animal. His head was all wrong now, and she saw that the neck had been broken.

Sputtering, she pulled the dagger to her chest and clambered to her knees. Someone was behind her again, and she cowered away, pleading, crawling blind. "Sansa," he said. "Sansa, stop." Sandor's arms came around her shoulders and he caught her wrists in his hands. "Stop," he bid her. "Let go of the knife. Let go."

He squeezed her arm until she did. It fell to the ground like a toy.

"I don't know how," she wept as he picked her up from the dirt. "I don't know what happened."

Gently, he folded both her arms across her breast and held her still against him, waiting for her panting to slow. Then he turned her shoulders to face him. His skin and hair were streaked with mud and gore, and he kept wiping her eyes with the hem of his ruined shirt, smearing her cheeks with his palms. She realized he was cleaning away the dead man's blood.

"Did he hurt you?"

"I'm alright," she croaked at him, and his thumb slid over her throat, looking. "I only meant to warn him away. He must not have seen—" But that was all he allowed before scooping her up. The dagger was left behind.

She was dazed as he carried her beneath the canopy. They both smelled so like death, she wondered if they had lived through it at all, if this was another of her terrible dreams.

The sky was paling above them, giving way to light.