July, 299 AC

Arya panted as she wiped the sweat from her brow. Everything hurt. She grinned.

For the past few weeks Arya had risen at dawn, stealing away to the clear stream beside the hollow hill. There was a grassy clearing near as big as the Small Hall where she had learned from Syrio Forel. It was there that she practiced being a water dancer.

She began with stretches, loosening her limbs, waking them from slumber. Then she sprinted back and forth across the clearing, trying not to trip on little stones or slip on the mud. When Arya finished running, she knelt on the grass and pushed herself up with her arms, then lowered herself down again. Syrio had done push ups with his feet on the ground, but Arya had to kneel until she was stronger. When her arms were sore and shaking, she finally began her drills. "An attack does not come when you are ready for it," Syrio had told her once. "It is coming when you are tired, when you are slow."

Arya wasn't sure how long she had been practicing drills when she saw the wolves across the stream, trotting back from their early morning hunt. While Sharp Nose and the rest of the stream pack headed back to their den, Biter lingered. The she-wolf's jaws and brown fur were bloody, and she licked her chops as she watched Arya attack a dead tree, parrying and slashing without ever touching the bark.

Finally Arya lowered her stick, her chest heaving. The stream was cool and pleasant as she cupped her hands and scooped up clear water, drinking it down. Biter trotted nearer, facing Arya across the stream.

The she-wolf was in a good mood. They had run down an aurochs, and she had been the one to tear out its throat. Not a single one of her pack had been injured, and they'd gorged themselves on enough meat to last them for days. Well done, Arya told her. The wolf wrinkled her snout. She didn't need praise, she was here for something else.

Arya rolled up her roughspun breeches and waded across the stream. Biter tilted her head and Arya paused, waiting for Biter to come to her. The she-wolf approached slowly, then rubbed her back against Arya. There was an itchy spot that she just couldn't reach, and she ordered Arya to help with it.

By the time Biter was satisfied Arya's stomach was growling. Arya dunked herself in the stream, washing away the sweat of her morning practice. As she pulled her dry clothes back on, she heard a leaf rustle, and she spun to see the intruder- a small, dirty boy, not more than two. He waved at her from behind an elm tree, his thumb in his mouth.

"Why didn't it eat you?" An older boy stepped from behind the tree. He looked to be seven or so. His hair was a dull sandy brown, and clumped with bits of mud.

"She has a name. It's Biter," Arya told the boy, putting her stick back in her belt. "And wolves don't eat people." Usually. But since the boys weren't soldiers raiding a village, they had nothing to fear.

"What's your name?" Arya asked. She knew almost everyone inside the hollow hill, but Tom o' Sevenstreams had returned yesterday, escorting a small group of villagers seeking refuge. These must be two of them.

"'M Patrek, 'n this is Theo," the boy said, nudging the toddler. The toddler waved grubby fingers and began humming a familiar tune.

Arya grimaced. Villagers weren't all Tom had brought last night. The singer had also brought a new song he'd written for Sansa. The red wolf was a lady fair, the sea in her eyes and flames in her hair. Tom had sung it multiple times, and by the last time half of the smallfolk were singing along. Sansa smiled, and blushed, and thanked Tom. Then Arya looked, really looked, like Syrio had taught her. Her sister's smile was a little stiff; her thanks a little too polished. She should ask about it after she broke her fast.

Arya eyed the two filthy boys.

"Well, Patrek and Theo, you'd best wash before the Lady sees you."

Patrek might be Bran's age, but unlike her brother he was not interested in cleanliness. He was even more upset at the idea of getting naked in front of a strange girl. In the end, Arya shoved him into a shallow part of the stream. After she dunked him twice, he sullenly began washing himself.

Theo had no such objections to getting clean, and she bathed him like she'd once bathed Rickon. There was no soap, but she scrubbed the dirt off him with a leaf, and ran her callused fingers through his tangled hair. She needed to talk to Jeyne, see if they had any soap. Was it something they could make, or would she need to have Nymeria steal some?

"Do you like milk?" Arya asked Theo as she dressed him. He nodded, his thumb still firmly in his mouth. Arya took him by the hand and pulled him back into the hollow hill, Patrek following behind.

Inside the hollow hill was a buzz of activity. Sansa sat upon her weirwood stump beside the fire, braiding a new girl's hair. A simple cloth poppet was clutched in the girl's hands, the head nearly torn off.

A group of women surrounded Sansa. Liane stirred a great cauldron over the fire while Della ladled porridge into rough wooden bowls held by waiting children. They took their bowls and scurried back to their places in the hollow hill. The hill was full of nooks and crannies where children could sit on the ground and drink the porridge when it was cool.

Arya didn't mind sitting on the packed dirt floor, but it bothered Sansa, and so her sister had set an old carpenter to work. Udell worked slowly, for he had stiff hands and few tools. His village near Pinkmaiden had been burnt to the ground, and Udell's apprentice had been called up with the levies months and months before. Matthos and Gawen, a pair of orphaned boys, served as his helpers now. Gendry had chopped down a tree for the carpenter when he brought swords from the forge. The axe was Gendry's own make, as was the saw Udell used to slowly turn the tree into planks. Gendry promised that next time, he'd bring her a dagger to match Needle.

With tired legs Arya trudged to see if the cooks needed any help, and Della handed over the ladle. While Arya filled bowls with porridge, Della cut slices from a hunk of salted pork. Across the fire Arya glimpsed Meri with a pail of milk, offering sips to the smallest children first. Theo and his brother stood waiting their turn, and Theo's eyes widened when he saw the rich milk.

"Um, could I have some?"

Arya blinked, remembering the ladle in her hand. A gangly teenage boy stood before her, his bowl held out. Why did he look so familiar? "Who's first?" the goldcloak shouted, showing his steel. A boy plucked a pitchfork from a bale of hay. "I am," he said.

"Tarber?"

The boy stepped back, confused, then recognition dawned in his eyes. "Arry?"

"You're supposed to be at the Wall," Arya said, angry.

Tarber reddened.

"You ran away first! Yoren was fit to kill the rest of us when we couldn't find you or t' Bull."

She had run away from Yoren. Somehow, Arya had forgotten. But she owed a duty to her sister and her pack. Tarber running away was different. Deserters were faithless, dangerous men. Father had said they would not flinch from any crime because their life was already forfeit.

"What about you? Did you run away as soon as Yoren's back was turned?" Arya snapped.

Tarber stared at her, his mouth agape. Jeyne came up behind him, her eyes shifting from Arya to the boy. Her hair was growing fast, giving her a faintly ridiculous look as the blonde dye gave way to dark roots. A plump man in a leather apron followed at her heels. Cutjack, his name was Cutjack, a stonemason bound for the Wall. Why was he here too?

"Yoren's dead."

Jeyne stepped forward, taking the ladle from Arya's shaking hand.

"The Lady will want to hear this."

Arya stared at the fire as Cutjack and Tarber told their tale. The wood cracked as the flames devoured it. Brown bark became black, then grey, then white as it dissolved into ashes.

It had been a moon's turn after Arya and Gendry ran off. The black brothers had taken shelter in an abandoned holdfast for the night, glad to be safe behind stone walls. They should have known that nowhere was safe. Ser Amory Lorch had come in the night, with steel and fire and death. He didn't care that the Night's Watch took no sides. All were slain, black brothers, recruits, criminals and boys alike.

"Yoren sent us to keep watch in the tower house," Cutjack explained, one hand clutching his hammer. "After the attack was over, we got out. Kurz died from a wound, so me and the boy took his gear and kept walking. Heard there's a host sweeping the lions out of the Riverlands, but Tywin Lannister's at Harrenhal, so we gave it a wide berth and headed west."

"How do you know Yoren was dead?" Arya demanded. "He might've got out, you must have missed him-"

"No, child." Cutjack looked at her, his shoulders slumped heavily. "We found 'im. An axe split his skull in two."

Yoren was no hero. He stank of sourleaf, and his beard was tangled and greasy. But he saved me all the same. Hot tears threatened to spill from her eyes, and Arya sniffled as Tarber began to speak.

"Tom found us diggin' up onions in a burned out village." The boy was thinner than she remembered, his skin stretched tight over his bones. "Said he knew where to find food, so we followed."

"I am sorry for your losses," Sansa said gently. She sat upon her weirwood stump as if it were a throne. "Do you know any more of the host?"

"Not much, m'lady," Cutjack said, looking down. "It's the river lords, not the wolves. Word is there's not a lion left north of the Red Fork, and they're plantin' a crop before winter comes."

"That is good news, and I thank you," Sansa said. She turned to Tarber. "Food we have, enough to share. Our hearth may be humble, but you are welcome to it. I hope that when you have recovered your strength, you might sit beside me at supper and tell me more of yourselves."

The next morning when she practiced, Arya pretended a dead tree was Amory Lorch. She hated him for Yoren, almost as much as she hated Ser Meryn Trant for killing Syrio and beating Sansa. She hated the Hound for slaying Mycah, and Ser Ilyn and the queen for the sake of her father and Jory and Hullen and the rest.

Arya had hacked the tree half to bits with Needle when she heard gasps and realized she had an audience again.

"Is there any more swords like that? Um, m'lady?" Patrek asked. Someone must have mentioned that Sansa wasn't the only highborn girl. Several other children clustered behind Patrek, their eyes wide.

"No," Arya said flatly. Patrek shrank back as if she'd beaten him, not the dead tree. Arya sighed.

"But I can teach you other stuff."

Arya laughed as she raced through the trees. Who cared if stupid Lem and Greenbeard were back? The wolf pups were leading her on a merry chase, their four paws much faster than her two feet. The wind rushed past her face; the grass sprang back beneath her steps. Was this how ravens felt when they flew?

Awoooooooooooo !

One of the wolf pups darted away from the pack, tail wagging. Berry was a curious pup, named for his eagerness to try blackberries. What is it? Arya asked. Berry wasn't sure. It smelled like a man, but he didn't recognize the smell.

Arya stopped in her tracks, one hand resting on Needle's hilt. The pups had sharp noses, and they knew everyone that lived in the hollow hill, even the new folk who'd arrived a few weeks back. Show me which way, but don't get too close. She shouldn't have laughed, she shouldn't have run so far from the hill. What if it was a knight, a sellsword, a goldcloak?

The man lay asleep, his back propped against the roots of an oak. His nose was broken and poorly healed, and his left shoulder was all twisted and swollen where it met his arm.

Berry sniffed at the man, tentatively licking one hand. The man started, his eyes fluttering open, and Berry leapt away.

"Water," he begged, his eyes fever bright in the afternoon sun. "Please." Arya hesitated.

"Whose man are you?"

The man wept as he told his tale. He was no one's man. His brother died in the first battle, his guts spilling out upon the ground. Then Ser Addam went away, and he was to follow the host, but he fled. He wanted his home, his little cottage and his wife Bess and the babe she was carrying. He walked for miles and miles, getting more lost every day. Then he'd tried to beg for food in a village, and a man had crushed his shoulder with one blow from a mace.

"I just wanted food," he sobbed. "He never said a word, just look'd at my badge 'n swung." His fraying tunic bore a small badge, a tree burning on a grey field. Arya didn't recognize the sigil, and he didn't look like a northman. Was he a riverlander? Or was he a westerman?

While she thought, Arya took the man's simple helm and carried it to the nearby stream. The steel was badly dented, and caked in dried mud and blood. Arya washed it clean, then filled it with water. It sloshed onto the man's legs as she held the brim up to his lips. He gulped the water down, half of it dribbling down his chin.

When the helm was empty Arya set it on the ground beside the man. He was a deserter, whether he'd fought for the riverlands or against them. And yet Arya couldn't help but pity him. His whole left side was stained with blood and pus, and tiny flies buzzed about his wounded shoulder. Even Maester Luwin couldn't have saved him now.

"Mercy," the deserter said. What did that mean? Heavy footsteps drew near and Arya whirled, sliding into her water dancer's stance.

"Arya!" Lem's dirty yellow cloak flapped in the wind as he approached, Berry trotting at his side.

"I gave him water, but he wants mercy," Arya explained, sheathing her blade. Lem frowned as he looked down at the deserter.

"I've a thirst as well. Fetch more water."

Lem fidgeted, shifting from one foot to the other. He still wouldn't admit that the wolves made him uneasy, but that wasn't it. Lem was hiding something.

"What's the mercy?" Arya asked.

"Never you mind that, just get the water," Lem said gruffly.

"No," she said, planting her feet.

"It's not for little girls to see."

"I've seen plenty, I'm not scared," Arya insisted.

"Mercy," the deserter begged again, tears running down his hollow cheeks. Lem looked at Arya, grimaced, and stepped forward. She barely saw the flash of steel before he buried his dagger in the deserter's chest.