"Did you know?" Anya's voice was level as she brought a jar of salve and a long strip of linen that Melly had given her to Sandor's side. He would try to shrug off the need to have his arm cleaned and bandaged but after facing her scolding once he didn't care to listen to it again. He pulled up the sleeve of his tunic and let her unwrap the soiled bandage.
"Know what?" He asked, voice gruff and low.
She opened the small jar and delved her fingers into the thick salve before gently rubbing it over the worst of the burn. "That the Lannister's were trying to kill me," Anya wouldn't meet his gaze, instead she slathered the cool poultice over the rest of his forearm and began wrapping it with a strip of linen. "It was one of Bronn's arrows," she murmured. Her fingers trembled as she tied a small knot in the cloth to hold it in place without any pins. "Did you know, Sandor?" Anya still held his arm but her grip had tightened and he grimaced.
He said nothing.
"What did it feel like?" Her question cut through the silence and left him perturbed. He looked up from the fire, at her, with the stained tunic half on as she dabbed the same salve over the red burn on her shoulder. It was tender and in some places was trying to blister and peel. It would scar after healing. Her hair was tied back with a strip of leather, though shorter wisps still framed her face.
"Hell, the smell was the worst part." Her expression was stoic and gave nothing away to her inner thoughts or pains. She lowered her head and continued to tend to her wound. "North," he said the word with a blank expression and flat tone. Anya's head snapped up from her shoulder to him in shock and question. "We'll head north, then cross the sea."
Wordlessly Anya stood with the linen bandage in place, only it was too short for her to wrap to the front a third time to be tied. She sat in front of Sandor and he tied off the cloth in a knot. The feel of his rough hands grazing her back sent chills down her spin and turn her skin into gooseflesh. Hastily she righted her tunic and moved to the opposite side of the fire and began replacing her scattered and bent pieces of armor.
That night, like on others, he watched until her breathing had become steady and sleep had taken her, but this time he didn't turn over on his bed roll. The Hound poked at the small fire with a branch and slunk off into the woods.
It had to have been the dead of night when Anya jerked awake at the sound of a girl yelling. She was quick to pull her sword from its sheath and stand on guard, it was then she realized she was alone. Something that she could not explain seized her heart and began to squeeze. From the tree line emerged a tall, shadowed figure with something, no someone, slung over its shoulder, kicking and thrashing like a wounded animal.
She lowered her sword as soon as she realized who it was and took a deep breath of relief. Sandor dumped the girl that had been strung across his shoulders next to her aunt's bedroll. "Arya!?" Anya knelt next to her and began scanning over her face for scratches and scraps but there were none, only dirt. "What are you doing here?"
Had the girl's gaze been deadly then surely the Hound would have been dead within a second, "Ask him. He's the one who hauled me here," her voice was venomous. Anya looked across the fire at him with a questioning brow raised.
"Ransom," he shrugged, Arya crossed her arms irritably and Anya's brows settled into a deep furrow. "The both of you," he added after a moment of lingering silence. Sandor met Anya's gaze with a brash coldness that she had never witnessed before, but she was just as quick to return such a stare. She was like a rose, effortlessly beautiful but dangerous and he could see the danger lurking in her wintry eyes.
Anya and Arya rode on Stranger while Sandor pulled the horse along by the reins. The three of them couldn't ride at once and he claimed they would slow the pace if they walked on foot. Anya had barely spoken a word since the previous night. There was an ill feeling in her gut that only increased tenfold him she looked at him. "You're despicable," she had said with no preamble when the sun was at its highest point.
The Hound barked with a short bout of humorless laughter, "You're not a ray of sunshine either, woman," he bit back, voice dripping with sardonicism.
"What if Robb and Catelyn refuse your demands?" Her voice was softer this time and for a moment he was taken back by the question to the point where he could only muster a response that would drive the wedge further between them. "Then I'll finish what Cersei started," he didn't look at her, he only walked forward, over the open plains of the Riverlands.
"They'll pay you," Anya spoke up after a bit, he looked over his shoulder at the two riders, "but what good is it worth if you're left wandering about. Gold won't last forever you know."
He scoffed, "If the King in the North has half a mind then he'll pay me for the two of you and make me a lord."
Anya thought carefully about what she should say next, the memory came to her after a second of thought of the days after Jaime Lannister had left him for dead in the streets and Robert was on his hunt. "Under the decree of my brother before Robert's death, you were already the Lord of Clegane Keep." Sandor looked up at her, the dark mass of twisted skin around his eye twitched and his countenance gave warning enough that she shouldn't say anything else on the matter, yet she did. "When he first sent Dondarrion out to kill your brother he stripped him of ranks, titles, and land. Though I'm still not completely sure of how that succession would work with you refusing knighthood."
The Whent girl saw his jaw clench, "You best watch your tongue if you want to keep it," he snapped.
"Apologies, m'lord," she smirked and his scowl deepened. Somehow Anya knew that she was the only person who could speak to him in such a manner and live. Arya laughed, though she hid the sound in her aunt's back.
The same bickering nature of conversation persisted for the rest of the day and into the night. They had stopped near a stream and surprisingly enough were able to catch two fish that were close to eating size. Nights were growing longer and colder. Sometimes the chill that seeped into her bones would not leave for the entire day and only worsen with the next night. It was a bitter reminded that the Starks were right, the Starks were always right. Winter is coming.
By the end of the third day of traveling with Arya, Anya couldn't be bothered to stay angry with him no matter how she tried. He was taking her and Arya to Robb and Catelyn, wherever they were was the closest she could get to feeling at home anymore. He was taking them home. Their pace had steadily slowed.
The town they passed through at dusk was small and near unpopulated, though outside the tavern was a board with posted scrolls of paper depicting wanted peoples by the crown. Among the ill-drawn pictures was one of the Hound though nothing was said of the reward until the body was delivered to King's Landing. Sandor ripped the piece of parchment off its wooden peg and stuffed it in his sleeping roll before taking Stranger by the reins again and pulling them along on the worn road.
Anya unpacked their sleeping rolls and spread them out under a large elm tree near a small brook. Water leaked out of the tree's base and into the brook, fresh and crisp.
It had taken an over and hour to catch the rabbit without a proper trap or small arrow but Arya had lunged forward and caught the creature by its hind legs. She passed it off to Anya who tended to its skinning and cleaning. Sandor had started the fire with the wanted sign from the village, the ink burned a different color than the paper and was a mesmerizing sight. Fire was deadly, but beautiful and therein lie the danger of it.
Arya was asleep already but Anya sat near the dying fire and pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and brought her knees to her chest. "There's a bounty on your head," she murmured.
He shrugged, "Aye, no one's going to collect it either." Had it been under different circumstances she may have laughed at his confidence but she knew what men would do in pursuit of fame and riches and then even size and strength wouldn't be enough.
"Anyone can be killed," his eyes bored into hers until she turned to the small pack in which there remained a single bandage and small amount of salve, only enough for one. With the cold in her bones, she stood, albeit slowly, and made her way around the fire to Sandor's side where without word or glance she began unwrapping his arm. The burns had blistered and busted under the weight of his mail shirt but now were starting to scab over. Methodically, Anya poured water over the irritated skin and spread the last of the salve over his arm. When she began wrapping the piece of linen around his forearm she paused and her gaze ever so briefly flashed up to his, but whatever had caused that impulse had passed and she carefully tied a knot, tucking it behind the wrapping.
Anya jumped when she felt the back of his fingers against her cheek, yet it was not from revulsion only that it had been so unanticipated. She bit her bottom lip hard and refused to open her eyes for fear that it would all be a dream. Unhurriedly his hand went from her jaw just to the beginnings of her hairline until he jerked his hand back at the mumbling of a waking Arya.
When she opened her eyes his face was as harsh as ever and with knitted brows she looked down at her hands before retreating to her own bedroll on the opposite side of the fire. Anya Whent would not find sleep that night, her heart was just as confused as her mind and no question she had could be answered.
Anya was telling Arya stories from her childhood for most of the morning, it seemed to take her mind off of everything, even off her hatred of Sandor. She had only just come to mentioning Jory and how once when they had gone on a hunt with Benjen and Ned, they got lost in the woods, separated in the Wolfswood. They were both still young and as night fell a wildling came with a jagged blade demanding coin and horse. Anya had only just been given her own bow, made for her still growing arms and it had been the yew bow that saved the both of them. She had killed her first man at thirteen by putting an arrow through his eye.
Sandor looked ahead disbelieving of the stories he had heard of her adventures, or rather misadventures. Jory Cassel had come up multiple times and Arya felt a wave of sadness come over her as she remembered her father's captain of the guard. He had always encouraged her training and sometimes would help her if it was only her brothers and Anya around. He'd even play at the girlish games Sansa enjoyed. "I miss Jory," the girl whispered, almost ashamed to admit it.
The Whent girl sighed, "as do I."
But when Anya closed her eyes and tried to remember her sweet Jory his face was blurred and she couldn't remember what color his eyes had been and suddenly she felt as if she were suffocating. And so she tried to recall the smallest details about her siblings, all of which came back clearly. Ned had eyes the color of a winter storm, Benjen had eyes so deep and blue it was like looking into an endless see, Brandon had the stern grey eyes typical of a Stark but with mirth laced within the harsh color, and Lyanna, Lyanna's eyes were the color of Jon's, grey and cold and harsh. Anya quickly wiped away the stray tear that ran down her cheek. Brown eyes, Jory had brown eyes and I loved them.
Sandor looked up at her and she was drawn down to his gaze and it scared her to see such familiar eyes staring back at her. His eyes shone like new growth on the boughs of the trees, free of moss, deep and fierce. His gaze was cool waters on flames, soft rain on petals, the sky lightening after a storm.
Come nightfall it seemed as if they were no closer to the Twins than they had been three days ago, but they were still headed north. Another town rose from the horizon, only this one was empty. There were no inhabitants, what looked to be the main holdfast in the center had been burnt and still smelled faintly of burnt flesh when the ashes were stirred. "What is this place?" Arya asked.
"Wendish Town," Anya responded as she remembered the accounts from one of the survivals who had come to King's Landing, the destruction was the work of the Lannister's mad dog, Gregor Clegane. Sandor pulled her from Stranger's saddle and handed her the reins. There were a handful of houses that remained, Wary of looters and bandits, the Whent girl gripped the hilt of her sword and cautious followed the Hound.
He pushed open the door one of the houses and drew his sword, only it was empty. For the night they would all have a bed even if the mattresses were stuffed with rags and straws and not feathers. Hunting that night came easy, there were fishing poles to use and only a short walk to the river, a handful of chickens still roamed around the deserted farm and some spices remained in a cupboard. With the patch of onions and turnips that had grown again from the destruction, it was the closest they had to a real meal in weeks. And strangely enough, as they sat at the table it was an affair with no harsh words spoken or looks exchanged.