Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
save our sons from war, we pray,
stay the swords and stay the arrows,
let them know a better day.
Gentle Mother, strength of women,
help our daughters through this fray,
soothe the wrath and tame the fury,
teach us all a kinder way.
The hymn tore open a seal of nostalgia, taking him back to that one moment nigh on four years ago.
Sandor could taste the blood and wine and vomit in his mouth, he could feel the tightness developing in his throat. He could even feel the weight of the dagger in his right hand, beseeching him to remove its sharpened point from that slim, pale, delicate throat.
She sang for me, he thought, just as he had in the past. A single tear fell down his cheek. Sansa Stark sang for me.
The circumstances might have been different, yet the moment remained very much the same. There was fear, there was battle, and then there was her.
Panting with exertion, he met those two eyes underneath him. Blue and glistening, innocent and pure, as maidenly as they were the first time she sang to him.
Bloody hell, thought Sandor, catching his breath. It's all so similar.
When the darker memories of that night began to consume him like some ravenous beast, reminding him how he had frightened her, how he had yanked her by the arm and threw her onto the bed, Sandor took a moment to make note of the differences.
This was before battle, not after. The flickering light illuminating the comeliest face beneath him was of an orange hue, not green. And his right hand was not gripping the hilt of a dagger, but instead one swollen breast that fit in his palm just right.
Fingers softer than silk caressed his scars, wiping away the sweat and tears, then cupped his cheek just so.
"Little bird," he exhaled, then he kissed her lips, just as he wished he had done the night the Blackwater burned.
His cock throbbed in time with his steadying pulse, soaking inside Sansa's cunt just a while longer. He dreaded leaving her warmth and embrace. But more than that, he feared leaving her. This night was always going to come - it was written, it was known. And no amount of preparation, mental or physical or spiritual, would have ever been enough.
It had been a fortnight since Bran Stark woke. And ever since, nothing had been the same.
The Wall had fallen, the Others continued their march south, and Jon Snow would soon be the King of the Six Kingdoms.
If they survived tonight.
Once Sandor's cock had softened inside Sansa's warm embrace, he carefully pulled out of her, grunting, and sat back on his heels. He watched as the chill inside the seventh floor of the crypts beneath Winterfell rose gooseprickles on her skin upon the sudden absence of his body heat. Beautiful, he thought. They stared at one another in silence, faces illuminated by a single torch, their shallow breaths bouncing off the granite. He committed the sight to memory. For all he knew, this could be the very last moment he would spend with his wife.
Tonight, he would fight. Tonight, he would kill. Tonight, he could die.
Sansa sat propped up on her elbows, skirts lifted, breasts bared, legs spread wide. As he listened to the distant murmurs coming from the third floor of the crypt, he watched as his white seed slowly trickled out from her pink cunt. Beautiful, he thought again. Just above he caught a glimpse of ivory where her skin was growing taut, his child growing robustly inside her womb. Catelyn. Sansa wasn't very far long, three turns of the moon according to the maester, but she was already visibly pregnant. He wondered if it was her willowy frame that made her show so much sooner than other women he had seen at court, or perhaps his child would be larger than most. Whatever the reason, the more her stomach swelled, the more irresistible she became.
It was past time he looked away from the life he helped create and returned above ground to where death stood on the dark horizon.
He donned the armor he had removed minutes ago when he and his little bird decided on a whim to get in one last fuck before he'd leave her in the crypt and go into battle. As he clasped on the steel plate, Sansa slid on her small clothes and smoothed out her hair, silent.
The unsaid words hung heavy in the air. They were both afraid, but neither would plant those seeds of doubt in the other's mind. He needed to convince her that he would return, and Sansa needed to convince him that she had faith. Despite their good intentions, the enduring silence failed to achieve either of those things.
Just as soon as they had finished dressing, hurried footsteps echoed throughout the hollow floor. "They're on the horizon," Arya said solemnly, then turned on her heel to hurry back up the stone steps.
Four-and-ten and braver than I, Sandor thought.
He picked up his helm and torch from the ground and then took Sansa's hand, leading her to the third level of the crypt.
The floor was jam packed with nearly every woman, child, and elderly man in the North. Some prayed, some were already weeping, and others had fallen asleep as if it were an ordinary night. The maesters were there, as well as Lord Varys, whom had come with Daenerys Targaryen's army led by Jorah Mormont, and the Imp who had conveniently opted out of the battle.
The she-wolf should be down here, too, he thought. But I'd have to shut and seal her inside one of these tombs to get her to miss the bloody battle.
Sandor took his queen wife to sit amongst her maids. He lifted her chin with one finger and said, "Stay here and stay hidden." Looking into her moist eyes, a lump grew in his throat. He swallowed it away. "I've posted six of Umber's men to shield the crypt, three inside and three out. I'll come back, little bird. I always come back."
"And I'll be here for you when you do." Sansa took his hand and placed it on her belly. "We both will."
If he stayed any longer, he'd never leave. With a kiss, Sandor departed, carrying his helm underneath his arm and never looking back. His heart pounded frantically like the drums inside the Great Hall on his wedding night. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Each time his foot hit the stone, his heart threatened to beat straight through his chest and pierce his armor. The frenetic rhythm of his pulse nearly left him deaf, yet somehow he managed to hear the whisper of his name.
Sitting nearest to the stairwell was Bran Stark, accompanied by a maester who stood just beside him.
The boy looked at him, void of expression, and said, "Sandor, to your right."
Perplexed, Sandor stopped and turned his head. All that stood to his right was the statue of some dead northern lord he did not know the name of. When he returned to the boy, he discovered that his eyes were two white orbs.
Gone, Sandor knew. Gone into that bloody dragon.
Ever since Bran's long sleep, the one that went on for weeks, he had been acting even stranger than usual (which no one had thought was possible). Warging into dragons, returning to the past, visiting what he could of the future (though that was limited, according to him), and even witnessing the conception and birth of Jon Snow to confirm his parentage.
A boy shouldn't have so much power, Sandor thought. If he is only a boy...
Shuddering, Sandor left.
Upon exiting the crypt, he saw Arya making long strides across the hectic yard. It was swarming with men, each rushing to where they'd been commanded outside the gates. Beside the she-wolf was the Kingslander bastard, wearing chainmail and carrying a war hammer he had forged for himself a week ago. The weapon reminded Sandor of Robert Baratheon. A lot about the boy did, in fact. Dark hair, blue eyes, natural strength. For all he knew, Gendry could very well be Robert's bastard son. It did not matter, not now. Whoever his father was, the boy led the she-wolf out the East Gate, despite Sandor's wishes. Arya Stark, the girl amongst men twice her age and thrice her size, fighting to the death.
Again, Sandor swallowed the lump in his throat, then crossed the yard, due north.
Lord Umber stood just outside the North Gate, donned in full plate armor and wearing a great helm nearly identical to his brothers. That ripped open another seal of nostalgia, forcing Sandor to reflect on a moment he would have sooner never thought of again. The scar where Gareth Umber's blade had sliced him open in the duel for Sansa's hand itched and burned. Sandor shook his head, clearing his mind of the memory, and then donned his snarling dog's head helm on the eve of chaos.
As the men made their way through the North Gate with haste, Sandor approached the young lord, greeting him with a firm pat on the shoulder.
"Cregan."
"Sandor."
"Where's the bastard king?"
"He's-"
The sound of the sky splitting into two answered for him. Sandor tilted his head up and watched as the sibling beasts opened their jaws and shrieked into the night. The vibrations of their beating wings could be felt inside his chest, thump, thump, thump, making his heart to skip over its own rhythm. Above the castle they flew, headed to the north, the two non-identical twins singing their battle cry. The green-and-bronze coiled through the developing mist like a serpent in a lake, with the former bastard of Winterfell mounted on its back. His black cloak of the Night's Watch was now embroidered with the red three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, flapping wildly in the icy air. The larger beast came next, its scales as black as coal, mounted by the dragon queen who followed her husband through the hazy sky.
A bastard and a queen. A nephew and an aunt. And now a husband and a wife.
The wedding had occurred a fortnight ago. Jon Snow, now known to the world as Aemon Targaryen, had stood inside the godswood in the very same spot he had when he wedded Sansa. Jon's leg had yet to heal, requiring him to rely on his ironwood walking cane, its steel handle engraved with a running direwolf on one side and a three-headed dragon breathing flames on the other. He wedded the dragon queen in the sight of the old gods and, for once, looked complacent with his life - more than complacent. It seemed strange considering the Targaryen's practiced the faith of the seven. Then again, the bastard-turned-king's mother was of the North.
Aemon Targaryen he might be, but Sandor would only refer to him as Snow, much like Jon continued to call him Clegane.
The wedding feast had not been a feast at all, only supper. Daenerys' armies had yet to arrive in time for the wedding, meaning provisions remained limited. However, it did not matter. They could have dined on grass and piss and the newlyweds would have been as jovial as if it had been a seventy-course feast. Was it love? Or fear? Or duty? He did not know, nor did he particularly care. The union kept Snow from brooding as much, and for that Sandor was eternally grateful.
"Fire and blood," Jon had said to him that evening, as they drank ale beside the Great Hall's hearth. "It was not a threat, only the words of my house."
You're fucking your aunt, Sandor would have said, had Sansa not been giving him that rousing look from across the hall. Even while threatening him, she succeeded in getting his blood to rush south.
"Now that you're her husband," he began, "inform her that the northmen will stay behind when you make for the Crownlands."
The suggestion had made Jon choke on his drink. A shame it would have been had he not lived long enough to consummate his marriage. "Absolutely not, Clegane. I must needs honor the promises I made to my queen."
"It's you who will be the king," Sandor had remarked. "It'll be your skinny arse sitting on that godsforsaken throne, not hers."
"I may have the stronger claim, but I will not force Daenerys to stand by while I rule the Six Kingdoms."
"Rule the Six Kingdoms." That had made him chuckle into his cup. "You've come a long way, Snow. We both have. What do you brothers in black have to stay about you abandoning your vows? 'I shall take no wife, hold no lands', all that shite."
"I've other vows now. I must honor my House, my wife. I made those vows as Jon Snow, bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark. But now-"
"-you're something better, now, is that it?"
Jon had fallen silent for a moment, as if battling his guilt, then glanced in Daenerys' direction. "Now I have what I've always wanted."
Sandor had looked at Sansa then and fully understood. "So do I."
"The Unsullied and Dothraki are split between the North and East gates," Cregan Umber informed him, interrupting his third bout of nostalgia.
"And the Knights of the Vale between the South and Hunter's gates?"
"Yes. Lord Wylis sent his men from White Harbor to defend the South Gate, as well."
Sandor snorted. "Of course he bloody did. He thinks it's the safest place to be. Little does he know these bastards will try to fuck us from every angle." Sandor passed through North Gate. Just ahead, Jaime Lannister was ahorse, commanding a unit of men. "Kingslayer!"
The younger of the Lannister twins put out a noticeable sigh, but approached all the same. "What is it, Clegane?" Jaime asked curtly. He was still an arse, but a more tolerable arse.
"Hold the gate from the inside. You're as good as dead out here with one bloody hand."
The Kingslayer laughed, as if a hundred thousand dead men were not approaching on the horizon. "I do believe you enjoy giving orders to a Lannister. The perks of wedding my brother's former wife." When Sandor made to knock him off his mount, Jaime added, "A jape, Clegane. In any manner, I will not do that."
He narrowed his eyes, despite them being hidden inside his helm. "Why not?"
Jaime pointed to his left, where the big woman rode past a list of men. "Where Brienne of Tarth fights, I fight."
At least you've found someone to fuck other than your sister, thought Sandor.
He dismissed the Kingslayer with a wave of his hand. As Jaime spurred his horse to join the big woman, Sandor turned to Cregan and said, "Be grateful for who you are, Umber. Around here, we're all whipped by cunt."
The mist thickened as the ominous seconds passed, blinding them of what stood beyond fifty feet ahead; the Unsullied and Dothraki vanished from sight. And then came the cold. To his right, Cregan Umber began muttering a prayer.
Sandor placed a hand on his shoulder. "Look at me, boy. This isn't your first battle. You fought against the Boltons."
"Those were men," Cregan said quickly. His helm could not mask his trepidation. "These are-"
"-men. Other men. Men who will kill your queen, my pregnant wife, if you don't kill them first. Your brother once told me it'd be him and I fighting together against the Others. Well it's us, boy, and we can't lose. Do you hear me? We can't bloody lose!"
Cregan gave a nod. "I do. Thank you, Sandor."
"Don't thank me yet."
Sandor walked ahead and faced the unit of northmen, the few he could see in the murky yard. "If I see one dead bastard pass through this gate, I'll find the man who didn't kill him and split open his skull like I did to Gareth bloody Umber!"
The words were wind, but that rallied them well enough. Hidden in the mist ahead, the Dothraki were screaming their own cries of war. The clamor came to a sudden halt when two spine-tingling screams filled the air, accompanied by the thunderous bass notes of leathern wings. Thump, thump, thump.
He looked to the sky, watching as two shadows circled one another before splitting apart, one to the east and one to the west, disappearing in the fog. Silence, thump, silence, thump, silence, thump. And then came the golden light, bleeding through the veil of vapor, as blinding as the sun. Two long streams of dragonfire were scorching the earth on the horizon, raining down upon the army of one hundred thousand.
That will kill the wights, Sandor knew, remembering the conversation he had with Jon Snow a fortnight ago. Fire kills wights, but only dragonglass and Valyrian steel can kill the Others.
And to their horror, there had not been enough of the obsidian to go around. Spears and daggers had been made from what the Night's Watch brought to Winterfell, and then more weaponry had been forged once the dragon queen's armies brought what they had mined from Dragonstone. Even then, three out of every ten men went without the dragonglass. Would the seven who did wield it be enough?
His time to ponder came to sudden end.
Amidst the orange flame that shone through the mist, a stream of sapphire poured from the sky, as equally blinding, as equally destructive. He could hear the dragonfire tearing up the earth from left to right as the undead creature flew by. Two swirling orange flames came in to stop it, but it was too late. The cloud hanging around them parted with the heat, and then Sandor discovered the aftermath: half the Unsullied were bathed in blue flames.
It was said they did not know pain, it was said they did not know fear, but no man, no matter how trained, could stifle the piercing, shrilling screams of being burned alive by dragonfire.
And then, visible just beyond, came the dead.
Jorah Mormont led the charge of the Dothraki, mounted and riding forward to his inevitable demise. Sandor gave no order, not yet. We need to hold the gate. If the gate falls...
A second downpour of blue dragonfire rained down, cut short by the black beast digging its hind claws into the its brother's back. He could see it clearly now, the undead beast, its scales an icy blue, and then listened to the Dothraki's rallying screams because cries of sheer agony.
Sandor felt trapped, his breath becoming ragged in his throat. There was more fire north of Winterfell then there had been out on the Blackwater years ago. And in the span of minutes, their line of defense had gone from thousands, tens of thousands, to what appeared to be hundreds.
He exchanged a look with Cregan. "The battle will never stay outside the gates," the young lord said. "We need to defend her from the inside."
The ice dragon was shrieking in the sky, flying east as it was being chased by its two siblings, a blue and black and green blur.
Inside. And they will come inside.
"Fuck," Sandor muttered. "Fuck!"
"Clegane!" he heard the Kingslayer shout. He looked to his left. "What's your command?"
The only one I have now, he thought. Taking the battle inside the castle. Taking the battle one ironwood door away from my wife.
He looked ahead at the onslaught, then turned around. His sword weighed heavier than stone. "Get the fuck inside the gates!"
That was all it took. It was all his men had been praying for. The North Gate opened, and soon a flood of northmen and wildlings was pouring through its entrance, drowning the yard inside. It was a violent effort, shoving and hitting and cursing and fighting. The lines of fire would have given them some time; the wights could not walk through the flames after all. But, in the span of a breath, those flames fell. The night grew dark once again.
Sandor had seen that beyond the Wall, when the fire inside the pit gave off a sigh just before dying upon the presence of them - The Others.
He and Cregan remained behind, waiting for the others to enter the castle first. But when Sandor saw what remained of the wights growing closer and closer, in tandem with the Others and their crystalline blades of ice, he grabbed the boy's arm and pushed their way through the gate.
The dragons flew by overhead; all three were screaming, and black blood dripped into
"Close the gate!" Sandor ordered, as the undead vanguard was no more than a minute away from entering. "Close the bloody gate you fucking bastards!"
The iron bars made it halfway down, but it was too late. The wights came rushing in, lithe yet almost lazy in their movements, the bulk of their bones and flesh preventing the portcullis from closing. They crawled their way through, seemingly insentient beings, and then came an undead giant. The archers on the wall feathered the monster at the once, but it did not prevent the giant from seizing the portcullis and tearing it off into the moat.
Their defense was up. And now, it was battle.
Swiping his longsword left and right, Sandor watched as dead limbs flew off with as much ease as if he were slicing through thin branches on a tree. And little good that did. Each cut limb that fell to the ground continued to move and crawl - it was fire they needed. Desperate, men were throwing torches left and right, burning the wights who went up in flames at the instant it touched their rotting skin.
The yard grew brighter, bright as dawn, as more and more bodies were bathing in the flames. Sandor's pulse was roaring in his throat, but his fear would need to wait. Men were shouting and grunting and cursing all around him, jostling past one another to grab a torch, wood, anything that could catch a flame and fend off the wights. In the midst came an Other, taking smooth even steps through a pile of flaming wights, unharmed by the fire. And then the fire went out.
The white walker came at him with its sword forged of ice, as if he knew he had been one of the men to kill his brothers beyond the Wall. Sandor removed his obsidian dagger with his left hand while parrying the Other's attack with the sword in his right, swing, counter, parry, attack, until an opportunity as short as the flutter of a raven's wing presented itself. As the sword of ice pulled back, Sandor lunged forward and sank the dagger underneath the Other's chin. The white walker erupted into fine, glittering dust, and then swirled off into the hellish night.
Sandor took a small measure of victory, then looked ahead and observed a blade of ice decapitating a northman.
Back to back, he and Cregan fought off the encircling crowd of wights and Others, dismembering them with every blow of their swords, sinking the dragonglass into exposed flesh as needed. Fire was everywhere, orange and hungry, consuming wights as they climbed over the granite walls. Sandor could feel the heat inside his armor, sweating profusely, just short of being cooked alive.
Arya, he thought, feeling a strong and sudden instinct. Where's Arya?
He kicked a wight into a pile of burning corpses and looked over at the East Gate.
His body paralyzed.
At some point, the ice dragon had come back around and spat fire into the eastern section of the yard. Twenty feet away, a man engulfed in blue flame fell onto his knees and cried for his mother.
The seal of nostalgia was ripped open again, taking him back to the Battle of Blackwater Bay, but before Sansa, before he told the Imp to bugger himself. The sight took him past the gates when Stannis' fleet burned green on the water.
The man was clawing at his face, as if he hoped to tear the flames off his skin. The dragonfire was melting him, skin falling wet and loose as candle wax, burning him to the bone.
A wight came up behind him, grabbing his neck. Sandor threw it into the fire, never looking away from the horrifying display in front of him.
Blue flames, not orange. Blue flames, not green. Blue.
He was motionless for a time, some seconds passing though it felt like an hour, numb all over, lungs empty and still, until he heard the shout.
"Sandor!" he heard Cregan shout from somewhere...somewhere. "Sandor!" His voice was coming from behind him, or was he in front, beyond the man melting into the ground? Sandor turned around and pressed his way through the stack of corpses, stumbling over men dead or dying. Just ahead was the Lord of the Last Hearth, his great helm missing, cutting through two wights with a single swipe of his sword; the dead men continued to slither on the ground. Tormund Giantsbane threw a torch on them and laughed. "Sandor! To your right! The crypt! The door! To your right!"
To your right, he heard Bran Stark whisper, as clear as if his mouth was pressed to his ear.
The blood in his veins felt as cold as ice.
To your right, to your right. How had he forgotten which was his right? The falling of stone, the dancing of flames, the strobing of blue and orange light in the sky left him disoriented. He found the First Keep, its dome roof now caved in, and shifted his eyes to where the thick slab of ironwood would stand barring the entrance to the crypt.
It was gone. And streaming out from its entrance, an orange blaze of fire.
Time came to a sudden halt, everything and everyone frozen in place, save for those vigorous flames standing where the ironwood door should have been. His mind could not process it, he could not wrap his head around the sight before him. Missing door. Missing guardsmen. Roaring fire. Gyrating orange banners protruding from where his pregnant wife was hidden away. For the first time since Gregor held his face down onto those burning coals, Sandor feared something more than living, stirring, shifting fire and lumbered forward, plowing his way through men, dead and alive.
Far off in the distance, a dragon was screaming, its cry the sound of a mountain of ice splintering into oblivion.
Sandor stumbled towards the crypt, discovering a short stack of bodies lying atop the unhinged door. He felt a measure of relief when he saw the fire was not coming from inside the crypt, only sitting just outside. The flesh of the bodies before him blackened and charred, wights and men alike, aflame. There would be no way to avoid the fire, its apex reaching up to his waist. Refusing to risk another second, Sandor lunged over the burning pile and descended down the narrow stone steps.
The torches along the wall had burned out, and inside the perpetual darkness below, not a single sound could be heard. Sandor did not know whether that was promising or gravely alarming. The fire outside will dismay the Others from entering, he thought. Unless they put it out...
Had a group of wights or Others already entered? Why were the sconces without flame? Had the stairwell always been so cold?
His thoughts made less and less sense. Battle did that. Death did that. Sandor took one step down and then another, descending the winding steps in a daze with his hand acting as his guide. As his steel fingertips scraped the wall and his feet landed heavily on the stone, bringing him further into the darkness, he found himself praying, not in spite, but out of desperation. His sentences were incoherent, his thoughts muddled, but it was all he could do. Pray to the gods and descend. Pray for his wife. Pray for his daughter. And Arya...
Behind him, the sounds of men dying echoed inside the cavern of past Starks, and then Cregan Umber was shouting. He's guarding the crypt, Sandor hoped.
Ahead of him, there was naught but dead silence, and then then smell of burning flesh.
No.
In between the second and third floors, the torch on the wall sustained a flame. Staring at it left him night blind after so many seconds in the darkness. Sandor squinted away and took it from the sconce, then descended onto the third level.
He held out the torch and surveyed the floor.
The living were gone.
Scattered across the floor were several corpses, each engulfed in flame. The granite pillars were streaked with blood, and puddles of it glistened on the floor in the torchlight. Ruby pools. The corpses ablaze were not only wights. Some were women. Some were as small as children.
Sandor doubled over and ripped off his helm, tossing it aside as he struggled to catch his breath. He'd seen worse, he'd seen far worse, but as his eyes went from corpse to corpse, he felt the swelling dread of discovering one that bore the semblance of his wife.
He traded his sword for his obsidian dagger. If one of the bodies was Sansa, he'd swipe the dragonglass smooth across his throat.
The sound of the sky splitting into two forced him onto his feet. Reluctantly, he made his rounds, peering down at each of the corpses to examine their likeness. Dagger in one hand, torch in the other, Sandor inched his way forward, failing to recognize any of the faces. Some were foreign, some were completely gone. Even so, the bodies could not have been burning for very long. He judged them by their build and what remained of their hair and clothing. Sandor counted four women, two children, seven men, one of whom was a maester, and twenty wights.
None of the four women were Sansa.
Only then did he take a breath and proceeded by returning to the stairwell.
A lower floor. Sansa would have led them to a lower floor.
Coming from above were shouts and screams, and then another sound - a footstep, perhaps.
Sandor held out his torch and looked up the spiral steps. "Who's there?" he asked, his voice echoing for several seconds after. "...there...there...there…"
There was no response, nor was there another sound aside from the carnage occurring above ground. He squeezed the handle of his dagger and continued down the steps.
The fourth floor was empty, as was the fifth, an infinite expanse of tombs and statues. A grim thought occurred to him: one day, he'd be buried here, as would Sansa, their daughter…
A thin mist arose, the flame snuffed out, and then the sensation of a knife scraping the back of his neck forced him to drop the useless torch. Sandor turned around and grabbed what was skulking behind him. An Other. A weaponless Other. Its translucent skin glowing faintly in the darkness, providing just enough light for him to aim. Just as Sandor made to drive the obsidian point into its unmoving face, the white walker grabbed his neck with a vice-like grip and shoved him back against the stone.
The impact forced the dagger to fall from his hand and tumble down the steps.
"Fuck," Sandor gritted out, spittle spraying from his lips. He used all his strength to pull the hand away, but it was futile; its strength was not of this world. The skin on his throat started to burn, the Other's hand colder than ice.
Its two blue piercing eyes stared at him for a moment, as if assessing who he was. Sandor heard the sound of metal scrape against stone, and then, all at once, the flaming eyes disappeared.
The hand clenching his neck fell away into dust, pattering onto the stone beneath his feet.
Without the fire and the glow of the Other's skin, Sandor could not see a thing. But, to his right, he heard short, erratic breaths. He knew those breaths better than his own.
Sandor blindly reached out his hand and pulled her to him.
"I...threw...the dagger," Sansa said inside the darkness, breathing wildly. "I did it, Sandor...just like...you taught me."
He took her face and dug his fingers into her hair. "You're so fucking stupid!" he rasped, before finding her lips with his. "You're so stupid, Sansa! You were supposed to hide!" He kissed her again, this time with his tongue. "Seven fucking hells!" His voice broke, preceding his tears. "Why, Sansa? Why?!"
She was speechless for a moment, sniffling, then said, "I told you...I told you I'd be here for you." Sansa's lips missed his mouth and kissed his scars, again and again.
Sandor groaned in response. He wanted to thank her. He wanted to punish her for risking her life for him. More than any of that, he wanted to fuck her, rip off her dress and spank her, take her on the narrow steps as the world was coming to an end. He might have done it, too, had the cry of a dragon not brought him back to his senses.
He kissed her, softly now, and ran his fingers through her hair. "Where are the others?"
"Three floors down," said Sansa, her breaths stabilizing against his face. "They came, Sandor. Bran...they wanted Bran. And they killed-"
"I know, little bird." He could scarcely hear Cregan shouting, but the words were as faint as Sansa's breaths. "I need to go back."
"N-no. No!"
"Arya is out there!"
"Arya," she repeated, as if the name were foreign to her. She's in shock, Sandor knew, and she risked her life for me. "Arya. How could I...where was she last?"
"The East Gate. I'll find her and bring her here." The words tasted like a foul lie as they left his mouth. How will I ever find her? "The battle will last all-"
He made to say night, knowing week would be more fitting, but was interrupted when the sound of the sky itself came crashing down.
The crypt beneath Winterfell shook, followed by the ancient stone giving way.
He wrapped his arms around Sansa and pressed her against the wall, shielding her from the loose stone that fell due to the seismic disturbance. A chunk of the vaulted roof crashed against his back, denting the steel plate. A groan of pain passed his lips; had he not been wearing the armor, the impact might have broken his spine. Dust and debris continued to fall, but Sansa remained safe, tucked away underneath his build. It took another minute for the vibrations to settle.
And then, up above, there was silence.
"Arya," Sansa whispered, then placed her hands on either side of his face, shaking. "Sandor, Arya!"
Sandor had the urge to retch again.
He gave Sansa a kiss, placed a gloved hand on her belly, then stormed up the stairs.
There was light, firelight, near the first level, the flames lower now than they were when he entered the crypt. He stepped over the pile of ashen men and emerged into the night. Or was it almost dawn?
The great walls of Winterfell were smoldering. Up above in the jet black sky no longer covered with mist, two beasts circled one another, riderless and lamenting. It was the same noise Sandor heard at Castle Black when the dragons mourned their brother.
Who are they mourning now?
It wasn't silence after all. All across the yard, men were groaning and crying and burning and dying. Piles of men, piles of wights, piles of stone, yet no sign of the Others. Sandor felt a sharp pain in his right leg and looked down to discover that his armor was split near his thigh, his blood slowly trailing down the steel plate. He could not begin to guess when that had happened.
"Over here! Over here!" Cregan Umber called out just ahead. He wasn't speaking to him, Sandor realized, but to a group of men exiting what was left of the First Keep; it was a ruin. It was all a ruin. Cregan was helmless, bleeding heavily from his brow, and attempting to pull out a screaming man whose legs were caught underneath a dead giant.
Sandor could not help, not yet.
"Arya!" he called out, stepping through the aftermath of the bloodbath towards the East Gate. "Arya!"
The castle was a lichyard. Every step he took he risked tripping over a body. More and more men exited the Keeps and Halls upon the war ending. He wondered how he had done it; Jon, Aemon, soon the King of the Six Kingdoms, was destined to kill the Night's King, according to Bran, but Sandor had yet to see the former bastard of Winterfell. He had yet to see the dragon queen.
Who are the beasts mourning?
"Arya!" he shouted again. He passed the Guards Hall and spotted the East Gate. That is, where the East Gate once was. A third of the inner wall had collapsed into the ground, a pile of rubble that would, no doubt, have taken many lives when it fell.
Acid rose in his throat. He was about to double over again, until he observed a small body emerge from behind the armory.
Arya Stark ran up to him, crying. He had never seen her in such a state, not even after the Red Wedding where her mother and brother had died. Some instinct kicked in, unfamiliar yet all consuming. Sandor picked her up and kissed her forehead, shushing her like a babe. She was covered in blood, her hair, her clothes, her face. The girl weighed nothing, a girl of four-and-ten, a survivor of the bloodiest battle he had ever seen.
It was the boy, he knew. Whether Gendry was missing or dead, Sandor could not say, but the way she-wolf sobbed into his shoulder and clutched onto him made him fear it was the latter.
"Where is he?" asked Sandor.
In between heaving breaths, Arya said, "I don't know."
That was a better answer than "dead". He'd find the bastard once he found the other one, the Targaryen. Sandor continued to carry her with him, despite the searing pain in his thigh.
The survivors began to survey the yard, some were even cheering, spent and delirious. He passed the armory, walking towards the main courtyard, and heard the loudest convulsive gasps of them all.
Sandor looked to his right.
Long, pale silver-gold hair fell over Jon Snow's arm as he cradled his wife in his arms. He was kneeling on the ground and weeping, rocking her back and forth. His albino wolf stood beside him, short of one ear and fur dirtied with blood and smoke. Ghost sniffed the dragon queen, then howled at the sky. The dragons joined in, their cries so cacophonous Arya wrapped her arms around his neck and screamed, "Make them stop! Please!"
He couldn't. They were mourning their mother.
Sandor halted in the yard, watching.
For the second time in his life, Jon Snow held the lifeless body of the woman he loved, amidst fire and blood.