Note: After this, every chapter will be much more long than the ones that came before.

Chapter Eight:

Life or Limb (2015)

It was the middle of the day when the RV entered Harroway. Arya could already tell that said town would most likely be ripped to shreds, evident by a road sign in town being chipped and rusted. She also noticed bullet holes in it, too. Despite this sign that they would likely find next to nothing in this town, Arya drove into it anyway. Weasel was sitting up front, and Lommy was behind Arya, looking over her seat at the road.

"We're there, boss?" he asked.

"Yes," Weasel answered instead of Arya, her eyes scanning the road atlas in her hands. "We just entered."

Arya pulled to the left end of the road as soon as she saw some houses and shut the RV off. Noticing this, everyone–Nymeria included–piled out to the street. Harroway was more hilly than other areas the group had been through, but nobody seemed to mind. The RV was parked atop a hill that, beyond the guard rail, made a drop of about twenty feet down into a house's backyard. Large rocks jutted out from beneath the road there, looking almost like a natural staircase. Arya suspected that other areas in town would look like this as well.

Without hesitation, the group began to walk down the road. Arya soon pointed out a small house, the first one they found, and they approached the front door. Lommy reached out and tried the handle. Finding that it was locked, he backed up so Hot Pie could slam his weight against the door to force it open. It eventually fell down after he backed up and then charged five times. They went inside.

Much to Arya's surprise, the interior of the house was almost pristine. Of course, there were signs that whoever had lived there last had left in a hurry (such as empty cabinet drawers and a lack of other personal belongings in the house), but otherwise, the house was untouched. The group was fortunate; whoever lived in the house had left behind some canned food items. Pleased, the group gathered them in a pillow case they had been using to carry food they found and continued to look through the remainder of the house. They found nothing else that could have been of use to them and left after a while of thorough searching.

The group went from house to house, and they kept finding more canned food items. Arya was beyond surprised; most of the houses they hit looked almost pristine aside from the exterior walls, doors, windows, and roofs. There was an occasional wight to be dealt with, but for the most part, they had no problems. It was almost as if the denizens of Harroway had all simultaneously decided to just get up and leave.

After a while, Arya noticed that it was getting later on in the day, and she still wanted the group to head deeper into the town. Because of this, they decided to look through one final house. After Hot Pie rammed the door down, Arya immediately noticed a strong smell in the air. She recognized it immediately: decay. Weasel must have, too, evident by what flew out of her mouth as she beat the air in front of her face with her right hand in a futile attempt to clear up the smell before her.

"Ugh!" she groaned. "What DIED?"

Nymeria's head perked up, and she headed into the house, evidently picking up a scent.

Hot Pie noticed. "What's she doing?"

"She's got a scent," Arya answered. "Everyone follow her."

Everyone did as Arya said, and they followed Nymeria to a back room, evidently a closet. They found her scratching at the door. Arya drew her machete and ordered Nymeria to back off, which she did. She thought a wight would be behind the door. She opened it and found she was wrong. Instead, a heavily-decayed corpse fell out and landed face first on the tile floor with a wet sound.

Most lurched back with surprised shouts when they realized what they were looking at. Arya was silent, staring down the corpse. Due to the level of decay, she could not tell if it was a man or woman. What she also noticed was that all of the limbs had been removed, hacked off with something at the elbows or knees.

"Where are its arms and legs?" Weasel asked.

Arya knelt down to get a closer look. The hacking at the limbs were very hasty, as if someone had taken an ax or a machete and hastily hacked the limbs off. What Arya also noticed was that the limbs seemed more decayed than the face, meaning that the person was likely still alive when this happened.

"Arya, who do you think–"

Arya's answer to that cut Lommy off. "Whoever this guy is."

She moved to show everyone the bloodstained message that'd been hastily cut into the wall behind where the corpse had been.

SHAGWELL WAS HERE!

Arya didn't know who "Shagwell" was, but she didn't want anything to do with someone who tortured people for fun, especially if he or she was still in the same area. However, she still wanted the rest of the house searched before they left in case any food was there. They searched, but they didn't find anything they could use like food.

After leaving, Arya and the others began to head deeper into town like what they had planned earlier. Briefly looking up into the sky to find out where the sun was, Arya noticed that it was starting to near dusk.

Just one quick run into town, Arya thought. Then we'll take inventory in the RV and rest for the night. We'll keep heading deeper into Harroway tomorrow morning.

Lommy was in the process of siphoning gas from a car right before Arya pointed out the first wight they saw deeper in Harroway.

"Wight nearby," Arya commented, pointing towards it with her machete, which drew the attention of everyone. It was a sole wight that'd just appeared at a street corner from around a building. Then another came, then another, and then another. Arya's eyes widened as two, then six, then ten, then a dozen arrived, beginning to form a horde. "Lommy, hurry that up," she urged.

As Lommy hurried, Arya watched as one wight turned its rotting head to look at the group. By then, it was dusk out, and things would very quickly get bad if the group had a horde on their hands when they needed to get back to the RV as soon as possible. Finally, Hot Pie broke the silence as one of the wights up front began to run. "Run. NOW!"

Heeding Hot Pie's frantic command, everyone turned and began to run back the way they came up a hill. Lommy, who had held back to get a tiny bit of more gas from the car he was siphoning it out of, finally jerked away from his activity and followed them, every now and then glancing at the bomb tied to his waist. Arya noticed this, too, and became annoyed when Lommy lit said bomb and chucked it at an abandoned car. The car was soon swarmed by wights, and it exploded, sending fire, gas, and burned metal bits everywhere as the wights surrounding it were engulfed in a fiery explosion. She knew the noise would draw more wights out, and she frowned when several of them came pouring out of the woods to the right of the street. Everyone was near a fork in the road. If they continued to run forward, they would make it back to the RV. If they turned left, they would be heading into the neighborhoods they found when they first got there.

Immediately, Weasel, Arya, and Nymeria ran for the four wights now out front. More were shambling from the woods, but these four were the immediate threat. Arya unsheathed her machete and swung sideways, quickly cutting into the creature's brain. Nearby, Nymeria jumped up and began to savage the deteriorated skull of another. Weasel had stabbed a wight in the knee to make it fall and drove her dagger through its eye into the brain. Arya dispatched the last wight when it ran for Weasel, crippling it before running her machete through the back of its neck into its skull.

At that point, Arya realized Hot Pie and Lommy were still behind them, and she turned to look at what they were doing. Hot Pie was swinging at several with his pipe. Nearby, Lommy was repeatedly spearing as many as he could see. It was then that each of the two groups noticed the wights filling in the space between them, effectively trapping Hot Pie and Lommy.

"We'll go around!" Lommy called over to Arya and the others, grabbing Hot Pie's shirt sleeve to hurry him along as he began to run. "Just get back to the RV!"

"Follow me!" Arya commanded to Weasel and Nymeria, and they took off after her towards the RV while Hot Pie and Lommy went another way. How are you two getting back? Arya thought. Are they going to climb?

Fortunately for Arya, Weasel, and Nymeria, most of the wights in the horde had gone after Hot Pie and Lommy. Currently, Arya's small group of three was being tailed by about ten of them, though more were noticing and starting to come after them as well.

At that point, Arya could see the RV off in the distance. She knew that she could not afford to stop running, and neither could the others.

A few minutes after reaching the RV, Arya, Weasel and Nymeria had stood their ground against the wights for a few minutes before the former heard Lommy yell from the bottom of the hill that ended with the backyard they saw when they came in.

"We're down here!"

As Nymeria dealt with a wight, Arya and Weasel both ran over to see Hot Pie and Lommy at the bottom of the hill, looking upwards. Behind them, the wights were pushing themselves against a wooden fence Hot Pie and Lommy had closed and locked after reaching the backyard.

Unfortunately, the fence looked very close to falling soon. Because of this, Arya issued her next couple of orders to those down below. "You two, get to climbing!" She turned to Weasel. "You help me pull them up where when they get close enough!"

Weasel nodded. For the next minute, Arya and Weasel watched as Hot Pie and Lommy began to climb up the stones. As they began to climb, Arya heard a loud cracking noise and watched as the fence finally gave away, and the wights began to pour into the yard.

"Hurry!" Weasel cried. Below her, Hot Pie was getting there first, followed by Lommy down below. Eventually, when Hot Pie got close enough, he reached his hand out, and Arya grabbed it. Weasel grabbed what she could of Hot Pie, and the two used all of their combined strength to pull their fat friend to safety. Lommy was still behind him, and the wights had reached the stones, climbing atop themselves to use themselves as a ladder of dead. By the time Lommy got to where Hot Pie just was, he reached his hand out as well.

"HELP!" Lommy shouted.

Hot Pie got up from the ground and scurried over. He took hold of Lommy's hand just as a wight grabbed his ankle. Lommy slipped, dropped his spear into the wights, and caught on to another stone, forcibly pulling himself upwards onto the asphalt and away from the wights.

Lommy, panting, fell over the guard onto his back, crawling backwards to get away. It was then that he seemed to notice something. He looked beyond his knee at his lower left leg. It was then that everyone else walked over to see what he was staring at. Arya's eyes widened when she saw it on Lommy's lower calf, nearing the ankle: a deep, bleeding bite.

"No…" Hot Pie mumbled, then let his face collapse into his hands as he walked away, sounding tearful as he continued to mumble "No, no, no, no…"

Weasel looked to Arya, then to Lommy's bite, then to Arya again. She was shaking. Arya could hardly take her eyes off of Lommy's bite. Two things then popped into Arya's mind: Beric's wooden leg and Jeyne's tourniquet.

"Weasel, get my tourniquet. Hot Pie, take Lommy to the RV and hold him down."

Hot Pie looked confused. "What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

Shocked into obedience, Hot Pie ran to Lommy and began dragging him back. Lommy himself looked defeated and willing to accept death. The RV's door was open because Weasel had left it open. She soon reappeared in the doorway, the look on her face communicating that she was eager for more instructions.

Arya gave them to her. "Weasel, tighten than above his knee on the leg where he was bitten." By that time, Hot Pie had gotten Lommy over to the opened door of the RV and had leaned him in. Lommy now looked confused rather than accepting of soon death. Hot Pie, now likely fully realizing where this was going, sat on Lommy after stuffing a thick cloth into his mouth.

"You're gonna want to bite that," Hot Pie said. Nearby, some of the wights were beginning to crawl over the rail from the backyard.

By then, Weasel had tied the tourniquet around Lommy's bitten leg, and Arya unsheathed her machete. She took one look in Lommy's direction. He could not see her because of where Hot Pie was, but she knew he could hear her. "Lommy, this is going to hurt a lot."

Arya raised her machete into the air and swung down hard. Lommy screamed. Arya swung again, then again. Lommy passed out. Arya swung again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Then one more time, taking Lommy's bitten leg off from half an inch below the knee down. Arya looked over at Hot Pie and Weasel as the wights began to close in. "Cover that stump's bleeding parts in gunpowder from some of our bullets and light it on fire. Wrap it in bandages after you're done."

As Hot Pie and Weasel pulled Lommy inside, Arya called for Nymeria, who hurried into the RV after them all. When she was inside, Arya slammed the door shut, locked it, and ran to the front seat, recalling the Heddle sisters. Jeyne Heddle was a healer, after all, and she would likely be able to treat Lommy's stump. Arya started the vehicle as Hot Pie looked over at her. "Where are we going?"

"Back to Jeyne and Willow," Arya explained. "They can help us."

She quickly did a u-turn and tore off back towards Crossroads. They were dangerously low on gas, and Arya didn't want them to run out.

"No! NO! NO!" Arya shouted, furiously slamming her hands on the steering wheel as the RV slowed to a halt when it ran out of gas. Thankfully, they were right near the fork in the road, where one could go to Saltpans or Harroway. Nearby, Hot Pie and Weasel were keeping a close look on Lommy, who was motionless.

Ever since the bandage had been applied to Lommy, nothing had happened. Arya kept wanting to look back to see what was going on, but nothing ever happened. Lommy looked pale and dead, though she was sure he was clinging on to life as much as he could. Arya knew he would be annoyed over having to make a new spear, but it beat being turned into a wight.

"What's wrong?" Weasel asked. "Why are we stopping?"

"We ran out of gas," Arya explained. "I need to get out and refuel."

Arya shut the RV off, got a red gas can, and exited. After a minute of getting everything ready, she began to refuel. While working, Arya thought back to Lommy, hoping that his paleness was due to blood loss instead of the bite. She thought that he would have turned by now if he kept the leg, but was he just dead? Did cutting the leg off slow down the bite at all? Did it stop it altogether?

As Arya continued to work, she heard someone step out of the RV and approach her. She turned her head and turned back to her work when she saw who it was: Hot Pie.

"Hey, Arya…"

Arya didn't turn her head. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk about Lommy."

"What about him? We need to wait until we get to Jeyne and Willow's house."

Hot Pie approached, raising his voice in the process. "Why wait? I mean he might be turning right now! We might need to do something–"

"Then pull back his eyelids. See if they're turning from green to blue if you want to know so badly."

There was a tense silence before Hot Pie said anything else. "Look, someone has to address this!"

"And we'll talk about it later."

Hot Pie, enraged, then grabbed Arya by the shoulders, swiveled her around so that she would be facing him, and then slammed her against the side of the RV. "No, we need to talk about this RIGHT NOW–"

Arya slapped him across the face. Hot Pie recoiled as Arya began to scold him. "HOT PIE, WE NEED TO JUST WAIT! I'M CONCERNED ABOUT THIS AS MUCH AS YOU ARE, AND WE JUST NEED TO WAIT! YOU KNOW FULLY WELL WHAT TO DO IF HE TURNS! WE JUST NEED TO GET BACK TO JEYNE AND WILLOW, AND THAT'S ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID RIGHT NOW!"

Hot Pie frowned. "I understand. I'll go back inside the RV."

As he left, Arya continued to refuel the RV. A few minutes later, she ran out of gas to put into the RV, so she returned to the interior of the vehicle and headed up to the front. Turning the RV on, she watched the fuel meter moved to indicate that the gas tank was almost full. Pleased with this, she continued towards the fork in the road to head to Saltpans or Crossroads. She turned left and went towards Crossroads.

However, one thing she noticed while making the turn made her feel a little unsettled. Sitting in a black car with a heavily-damaged, green front license plate were two men watching them. They were located on the road that would take them to Saltpans. Arya could tell that they were watching her every movement, and she hoped they would not follow her back to Crossroads.

Right before nightfall, the RV made it back to Jeyne and Willow's home. By the time Arya pulled into the Heddles' yard, she could see Willow carrying a bucket into the shed out front. Willow definitely noticed the RV, evident by her dropping the bucket and running into the house, likely to alert Jeyne about their return to the house.

In the back, Lommy was still unmoving, and Arya was starting to think he was dying or already dead. She didn't even know if he was awake or not. He was more pale than before. By the time Arya shut the car off and unlocked the door, she noticed the front door of the Heddles' home open. Arya looked over at Lommy and spoke to Hot Pie and Weasel.

"Get him ready to be moved."

A few moments later, Arya heard a sharp rapping on the door of the RV. She moved over there and opened the door, finding both Jeyne and Willow Heddle on the other side.

"What's going on?" Jeyne asked.

"Lommy was bitten," Arya explained. "I had to take his leg off."

"Where is he?" Jeyne asked, then entered the RV with Willow in tow.

Arya got out of the way as Lommy was carried out of the RV by Hot Pie, Willow, Jeyne, and Weasel. By the time they got outside, Arya followed them out and assisted them with carrying Lommy into the house. They hurried him into what Arya supposed was a bedroom of sorts. Nearby, a box of medical supplies was adjacent to the bed Lommy was placed on. Someone turned on the overhead light, and Jeyne looked at the others in the room to address them.

"Okay, I need to work alone. Willow, take them out."

Willow ushered Arya, Hot Pie, and Weasel out of the room. She directed them to the end of the hallway. By that time, Willow had put her hands on her hips and glowered at Arya, Hot Pie, and Weasel. "Alright, start talking," she said in a commanding tone. "Where are the other two? Gendry and Edric?"

"They left," Arya explained. "We ran into the Brotherhood, and they left with them."

"So what happened to Lommy?" Willow pressed, speaking more like a drill sergeant than an adolescent girl. "How and where did he get bitten?"

"Harroway," Hot Pie spoke up. "We were climbing up a hill to get away from some wights, and they grabbed him and bit him in the ankle or calf, I think it was the ankle. Arya had us hold him down while she cut off his leg." Hot Pie looked very uncomfortable–likely due to Willow's domineering and commanding tone of voice she'd selected for this interrogation, then mumbled out, "Please don't hurt me."

Willow snorted. "Hot Pie, I'd never hurt you to get information–" She pointed at Hot Pie when she said this, then moved her hand to point at Arya when she continued speaking "–but maybe her."

Arya frowned. Before she could say anything else, Willow hit them all with another barrage of questions. Just as Hot Pie answered the last one she had for them, Jeyne emerged from the bedroom, quickly approaching them. She had latex gloves on her hands. They didn't seem to do her any good; her arms up to her elbows were spattered with Lommy's blood.

"Willow, get out of my way," Jeyne said, sounding a little tired and aggravated as a result. "I need to talk to them."

"Is Lommy okay?" Weasel asked.

"For now," Jeyne asked. "Arya, you stopped the infection by cutting that leg off, but he's not out of the woods just yet. You did the right thing with the tourniquet and bandage, but the gunpowder could have gone better. Chances are, his leg's probably infected because of that, but I'll give you credit for stopping the bleeding as much as you possibly could.

"However, he still lost quite a bit of blood, and he's fluctuating between life and death right now. He needs his rest, and so do all of us. I suggest you all gather in your RV and get some sleep. Plus, I need to speak with my sister alone about your presence here."

Arya, Hot Pie, and Weasel followed Jeyne's instructions and left the house to sleep in the RV for the night. By then, it was night out. Entering the RV, Nymeria's head perked up, and she watched them. Hot Pie tried to get comfortable while Arya got to work with putting Weasel to bed.

"Arya?" Weasel said.

"Yes?"

"Is Lommy going to be okay? Because I don't know for sure."

"I don't know, either," Arya answered. "We just need to wait and see. Try to get some sleep."

While Weasel and Hot Pie may have gotten some sleep, Arya could barely get a good night's rest herself. Lommy was the only thing on her mind at the time, and she wondered if he would even live to see another day. She figured that Jeyne would be working on Lommy's leg all throughout the night, but even Jeyne Heddle would need to get some sleep eventually.

Arya, who kept waking up in the night and whose nerves were completely shot at that point, lurched awake when she heard someone rapping on the RV's door from the outside. Hot Pie and Weasel definitely heard it, too, evident by them mumbling as they each woke up.

"Arya?" Willow said from the outside. "Are you awake? Are you in there?"

"Yeah…" Arya mumbled, rubbing her eyes. "What is it?"

"Jeyne wanted to see you."

Arya, Hot Pie, Weasel, and Nymeria all walked out of the RV together and all followed Willow towards the house. During the walk over there, Arya thought of Willow's statement and tone of voice and what they both implied.

At first, she thought that Lommy was dead. However, as she entered the house and began to walk down the hallway while Willow still led them, she could hear a conversation off in the distance. One voice sounded weak, like someone had just woken up after something serious.

"Really?"

"Yes, yeah, I do… I feel like…"

"Yes?"

"I can still feel my foot…"

Willow led Arya, Hot Pie, Weasel, and Nymeria into the room, and there they found Lommy sitting next to Jeyne on the side of the bed. Arya looked down and, sure enough, where the lower half of Lommy's leg should have been was a stump wrapped in medical bandages. Lommy looked over at Arya and the others. His face was still a little pale, but he had more of a healthy look about himself now.

"Hi, Arya," Lommy said.

"How are you feeling?" Arya asked.

"It still hurts… I can still feel my foot…"

"But you lived," Hot Pie commented.

Lommy nodded a few times. "Yeah, all thanks to Arya and Jeyne here." Lommy wrapped an arm around Jeyne and patted her on the shoulder. Jeyne smiled. Nymeria walked up to Lommy, who held his hand out for Nymeria to lick. While they interacted, Arya spoke with Jeyne.

"Jeyne, I'm curious."

"Yeah?"

"How did you pull that off? I mean I know you're not a professional surgeon, but–"

"I've had practice with lost body parts," Jeyne explained. "A while ago, Willow and I had to briefly take in a warrior woman who was traveling with this guy who'd recently lost a hand to the Brave Companions. The Brave Companions patched it up themselves–they have a healer among them all, apparently–but whoever did it did a terrible job of it. I had to fix what their healer failed at doing. The two of them left the house the next day, and we haven't seen them since."

"We also had something else we wanted to ask," Willow explained, turning around to face Arya, Hot Pie, and Weasel. "I told Jeyne what you told me, and we got to talking. We now have something to ask of you: would you all like to stay here with us?"

Arya couldn't believe what she was hearing. Willow and Jeyne had just offered them a home with the both of them. They had been on the road for years, and now it seemed like they finally had somewhere to stay permanently. It would be good for all of them to finally have a place to stay, so Arya made her choice.

"I'm willing to stay," Arya said, then looked at everyone else. "What about you?"

"I will," Hot Pie said.

"Yeah!" Weasel cheered.

"I'm staying with you," Lommy said.

"We'll stay, then," Arya announced.