CHAPTER 9

SANSA

Sansa trembled, but it was not so much from the icy rain that pelted her as from being upset and frightened. She'd felt bad enough knowing that she would get Timory in a lot of trouble, but then the Hound had went and killed him. She knew that that was somehow her fault and the thought made her mind freeze up worse than her body.

She hung limp when Sandor lifted her off his horse and watched him unburden and hobble their animals near a rock formation. Petyr had said that he was a man of less repute now and she wondered what kind of man that meant he was, considering all the horrible things she knew about him from before. She didn't have to remember rumors because she knew. She had seen him kill and laugh about it, cut through peasants, and even remembered that time after she and her family had left Winterfell and Joffrey and Arya got in a fight—The Hound had chased Arya's friend down and brought his body back to their father in a bag. Now he'd went and killed Timory, who wasn't older than a boy, and unarmed besides. The Hound was bloodthirsty and ruthless, and she was alone with him.

The rock overhang gave some protection from the rain and Sandor crawled under it to lay down his bed. A new fear gripped Sansa when she saw the single squashy brown square poking out from beneath the rock. What if he tried to rape her? Mortified, she remembered kissing him. Now it seemed like an absurdly small price to pay for him to take her all the way to Winterfell. What insurance did she have that he would actually take her home?

The Hound gave her a sour look. "Did you pack a bedroll? I didn't see one on your horse."

Sansa shook her head, mute.

"Then you can share with me." His smug expression made her blood run cold, and Sansa crammed herself into the space where the rock met the soil, hugging her knees to her chin. Outside, the light behind the clouds faded away and came back as a flash of lightning. He'd held her at knifepoint at her room in King's Landing, she remembered, a detail she rued overlooking until now. Out here he wouldn't need a knife, because it wouldn't matter if she screamed.

Her worst fears seemed realized when the Hound poked his head in and told her to get out of her wet clothes. Sansa removed her cloak, but she couldn't bring herself to take off her dress, sopping as it was and clinging to her skin. Sandor sat with his back to her and removed his helmet and his greaves, leaving the armor in a pile and maneuvering under the rock in a way that left him mostly dry and free to pull off his boots and under layers of clothing. He took up a lot of space beneath the rock.

When he lay back and saw Sansa still huddled in her wet dress, he sneered at her. "Get out of your clothes. You're going to freeze."

Sansa's lower lip trembled, and she started to cry. He expected her to get in bed naked with him.

"What's the matter with you? Come on. This is a good bed."

"I can't," she choked. She couldn't just go to him willingly.

He looked at her a long time, but she couldn't read his expression with the darkness covering his eyes like a mask. She heard the heavy rain and peals of thunder. Finally Sandor swore, pulled on his boots, and left. When he came back he was wet from the storm and brought his sword with him in its dark scabbard. Sansa gave a little sob, thinking on how he killed Timory with it.

Sandor pulled off the top cover and threw his sword down on the middle of the wool inside. "There. Like a proper fucking knight. Are you happy?"

Sansa knew about the custom of placing a sword between a man and woman who slept in the same bed as a symbolic or, if left unsheathed, very real barrier between them. She didn't see how his sword could possibly offer her any real protection against him, but absurdly felt that much better for the gesture.

"Please don't look," she said, and took off her dress.

She wanted to leave her smallclothes on, but they were actually frozen stiff. She folded them under her dress and burrowed under the covers all the way to the crown of her head. She stopped shivering almost as soon as she got in. The inside was fleece, soft and already collecting her body heat. She felt the bed move when Sandor got in after her, and then she felt him, his warmth heating up the space inside the bedroll quicker for him in it. There wasn't a lot of space, but he was careful not to touch her. Sansa felt comfortable, if not entirely safe, wrapped in her pocket of fleece. She fell asleep with her knee resting on the scabbard.

In the morning Sandor and his sword were gone. Sansa poked her head out from the blankets, sleep leaving her as quickly as it had come the night before. She saw her tooled saddlebag resting near where she had crouched the night before. Sandor must have set it there after he got up.

She chose a long-sleeved tunic and some pants and threw the covers back only once she'd changed into them, to take full advantage of the bedding's warmth. That was when she noticed that it was snowing. In place of rain fat snowflakes spiraled to the ground from the gray cloud in the sky. Hardly any of it packed on the ground, disintegrating instead and turning the ground mushy. Sansa pulled on her shoes and gloves delighted anyway. This was a good omen for the journey to Winterfell, where she had first seen and loved snow. She twirled around and tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

Sandor came over the ridge behind the rock formation and Sansa stopped spinning and stood stock still as he approached her, feeling childish and a little afraid. He was carrying two dead pikas and grabbed her cloak off the top of the rock.

"I wrung this out for you," he said, handing her the scrunchy cloak. Drops of water still clung to the fine gray hairs, but it was just a little damp.

"Thank you," she managed, and put it on.

"We have to keep moving." He rolled up the bed and Sansa, feeling useless, went over to the horses, who were rooting for the last tender shoots of grass that sprung up before winter froze the Vale into a tundra. She put a bridle on Lady and led her over to the saddles, but Sandor was done packing everything on the other two horses before she'd even tied the cinch around Lady's belly. He came over and buckled it for her, then she climbed onto Lady's back and they were off.

The sun broke through the cloud in some places and by midmorning it no longer snowed or rained. At midday they dismounted for lunch. That they'd skipped breakfast was not lost on Sansa and she was hungry. Sandor gutted the mountain rabbits and cut the flesh into strips.

"Aren't you going to cook it?" Sansa asked when he held the raw strips out for her. They smelled dirty, almost like rusted metal.

"No."

Sansa wrinkled her nose. He put a piece in his mouth and gulped more of it down than he chewed. Sansa could not imagine smacking on the bloody flesh. She folded her arms over her stomach to try and keep down the sound of it rumbling.

"Aren't you going to eat it?" he asked, and she thought he sounded a bit mocking, but was too hungry to dwell on it.

"No."

He wiped his bloody hands on the grass and got up to rummage through their supplies. When he came back he gave her a roll of bread the size of her fist. She ate it, collecting the crumbs that fell in the palm of her hand, and ate those, too. Sandor helped himself to her share of the meat. It seemed a terrible waste to her as when they were done they left the skins and most of the meat on the grass, enough to make a soup or something, but he had killed two animals for a meal she hadn't even be able to stomach.

It got colder and colder as the sun went down, and when they stopped for the night Sansa begged him to make a fire. He refused. Without the prospect of a hot meal Sansa felt doubly hungry and complained about riding for miles and miles with nothing but a roll of bread in her stomach. Sandor told her to dig under the grass for some earthworms, and Sansa started to cry.

"Hey. Stop that. I was only joking. You can have some of this, all right?" He took more bread rolls out of the food sack, along with a slab of bacon, an onion and a wheel of cheese. Sandor cut her food for her with a pearl-handled dagger. They ate the bacon raw, but somehow that didn't bother Sansa as much as the pikas had. It was cured, after all. And she remembered tasting the cheese from her father—well, from Petyr's table.

Sleeping was not as awkward that second night, though she did huddle as far away from Sandor and his sword as she could manage. She had riding sores from being in the saddle all day and was relieved to rest on something soft. It was a good bed, a Sandor had told her, but she wished she had some ointment to rub on her skin, a hot bath for her feet, a tin of beeswax for her lips, which were horribly chapped, perfume to dab under her arms and neck, soap for her hair . . .

They had passed out of sight of the Eyrie long ago. Sansa wouldn't have been able to find her way back even if she had had the freedom to try. The landscape changed, becoming more rocky as they made their way to the mountain range on the western side of the Vale. If anyone was looking for her, they were miles and miles away.

After five days the mountains rose up on either side of them and the Vale became a valley between the ranges. At its narrowest point it turned into a path they followed into the mountains, climbing higher and higher until Sansa could turn around on her horse and see the Vale stretched out behind them. Then they passed into a gorge and she saw no more of it.

The path was natural in some parts, but carved into the rock in others. Sandor led them carefully along the mountainside, but did not speed up when the road between the mountains widened. She thought of asking him if they were lost, but the only way to go was straight. The horses' feet clacked against the stone and echoed off the walls of the ravine. He steadied his horse as she brought hers up to ride abreast of him. "Stay close to me," he growled under his breath.

After that they walked in step together. Sansa felt claustrophobic from the sheer cliffs rising several stories on either side of them. Behind them and as loud as the thunder from their first night, a rock tumbled down and cracked into a hundred pieces of shale. Sansa looked up to the precipice from where it fell and thought she saw something moving. That was when she caught sight of the three mounted figures stalking up the path behind them.

"Sandor?" she called uncertainly, but to no answer. Lady sidestepped into Stranger and they halted. Sandor's attention was already occupied, as three more figures appeared to block their passage ahead.

Three men coming up behind them, three men in front, and as they approached two more emerged on the cliffs on either side of them, holding slings. These were no knights of the Vale; they were mountain men. They were buff and bearded, each one covered in a hodge-podge assortment of armor astride their shaggy horses, but none of them wearing a complete set. Their raiment would have been a laughable corruption next to a properly adorned knight, but there was nothing funny about their scars. Each man had a part of his body horribly disfigured by burns.

The center man in front of them stepped forward. He was missing an eye. "You Westerosi trespass on the land of the Burned Men! This is my clan's land. I am Timett, son of Timett, and I will not let you scum trod on it unpunished."

"The Burned Men are vigilant," Sandor offered, "and we did not expect to pass this way unnoticed. That's why we brought a gift." He pulled on the garron's reins, bringing it to the front. "I'll give you this horse if you let us pass through here. Just pretend we aren't here, and we'll be on our way."

"Your horse isn't worth the dead bodies I piss on! If you wanted safe passage, you should have asked for it from your countrymen at the Bloody Gate."

Sandor frowned. "I thought it was a fair bargain, considering."

"No," Timett's eyes narrowed. "Knights do not come this way. You must be hiding something."

"I am," Sandor agreed. "This girl."

As if being in the presence of these men was not enough, each took a turn to look her over. Timett scoffed. "And who is she?"

"Do you remember where you got that armor?"

"You will answer me!" Timett roared, turning red-faced to match his scar. "Do not answer questions with questions!"

He is afraid of being confused, Sansa knew. That made her nervous—they were more likely to kill her and Sandor than negotiate, and Sandor did not have Littlefinger's persuasive tongue.

"I am." Patience on all sides was running thin. "You fought for the Imp, Tyrion Lannister, and he gave you those weapons and armor as payment. This here is his wife."

Sansa felt herself go as red as Timett. Sandor knows, she thought, and felt sick to her stomach.

"If it's his wife then what are you doing with her?"

"She was kidnapped by those Lords of the Vale you love to much. I'm taking her back to him. If you let us through, I'll be sure to mention how hospitable you were, and he'll reward you. Send you some more of that good steel to kill your mountain brothers with."

No. Please. But Sansa could not beg him in front of these men, who would kill them so easily.

"Ha! If that's really his wife she's worth more than that pony. I'll take her back to the halfman myself."

"No." Sandor reached behind her and grabbed her hair. He pulled her against his chest and tilted her head back. With his other hand he drew his sword and held it an inch from her throat. "This is my prize, to keep or kill."

No one moved. Then Timett laughed, and a second later the canyon echoed from the laughter of all his men. "The halfman sent a fine knight to protect her! And after you spill her blood what's to keep us from spilling yours?"

"Nothing, save that I'd take a number of you with me." He tightened his grip on her hair and she whimpered.

"And what number is that?"

"Not counting you, Timett . . . seven."

"Hahaha!" Timett laughed, and then louder. "HAHAHAHA! If that is true, then we can use you. The Burned Men are at war with the Moon Brothers. We need steel, and the halfman needs his wife. You will tell him to send these to us?"

"On my honor as a knight," Sandor said, and shoved Sansa away from him. Her scalp tingled as the blood rushed back to her head.

"Your knight's honor is not good enough!" Timett bared his teeth at them like a wild animal. "Come morning, the Burned Men will attack the Moon Brothers. We will take your pony and give you safe passage through our land. In return, you will tell the halfman of our agreement, and tomorrow you will lend us your arm."