CHAPTER 49

SANSA

Sansa ran into the breathless watchman as she rounded the corner to the vestibule. She had heard the blaring klaxon blown from the guard towers, a sound that signaled unknown riders approaching. The horns kept blaring—and only stopped now, as the watchman collapsed at her feet.

"Your Grace," he gasped. "An army rides up the Kingsroad."

It caused a commotion among the companions and visitors that surrounded her. Wylis Manderly tried to get more information out of the exhausted boy, but Sansa only nodded once and headed for the western gate. The mood in the yard was more anxious than panicked. Smallfolk ran for the safety of the castle, but many loitered near the gate, seeming to believe that this hubbub would sort itself out in a moment and they could return to their businesses.

Sansa's guards met her with more concerned looks. She took a ladder up to the watchtower and met the guards inside with a somewhat awkward nod. These men might serve her, but they worked with Sandor, and it was unusual for her to address them in this context. She had no idea what the conventional greeting was between a commander and a soldier. But there was no time to worry about it. The men motioned to the horizon, and she looked out from the tower to the landscape that revealed what had caused her guards such stress.

A hostile force sped north on the Kingsroad. Every man was mounted and armed in a formidable show of mobility and aggression, their steeds charging forward as if to attack the castle walls themselves. This would not give Winterfell much time to prepare. Sansa scanned for their banner, and a stupid, girlish sensibility warmed her heart when she caught sight of it. It was the three-dog banner, yellow and black, that belonged to House Clegane.

Sandor has come back to me. She could not stop herself from thinking it. That romantic idea, that he had come back to her would rescue her from every problem she faced, seemed real for a moment. She could live with Sandor happily, and every fear she had would be no more than the terrors of a bad dream. But it was not so. She knew it as her eyes took in the scene of the army coming over the horizon, her logical mind sorting through the possibilities of what she was seeing as the truth became readily apparent to her. If there was any doubt in her mind, a contingent of riders at the back unfurled the red-and-gold standard of the Lannisters.

"It is Gregor Clegane's army," she explained quickly to the guards. "We must prepare for a siege."

The men looked frightened. Sansa felt fear grip her slowly as well, as after she spoke it aloud the beautiful dream she had had slipped away to make way for the reality of this world. But she would not show fear. If there was one thing she knew had to be expected between a commander and her soldiers, it was that she would not show it.

"Get Anguy, and any men the Hound trained. Tell my steward to organize the smallfolk in the inner yard."

The duo nodded and flew down the ladder. She went after them, picking her way carefully down. She ended up in an increasingly maddening courtyard and only had time to take one breath before another problem presented itself. There were smallfolk still in the town who wouldn't know how urgently they had to get inside the castle walls. Sansa wrung her hands uncertainly. She didn't even know who she should task this with—her guards were busy trying to assemble her army, her stewards elsewhere. Finally, she grabbed a page who could help her.

"I need a pair of riders! Hurry, bring them here!" He nodded and scampered away just as the commander of the gate approached her. He had Anguy with him, captain of her archers.

"Your Grace," he acknowledged her. "They may charge forthwith. We have to close the gate."

"I know. But we need to give the smallfolk a chance to get inside the walls." She turned to Anguy. "Please, you must form up every archer we have. I will assign a leader of the women to watch over and help you."

"Already on it. The words' been sent out. Send me a woman who can oversee fletchers, as well."

"Some people are escaping into the woods," the captain of the gate continued. "Our rangers left long ago."

Sansa nodded just as two brisk riders cantered up on their steeds. "To Wintertown!" she commanded them, and not a quarter of an hour had passed when the trickle of people pouring in through the gate increased to the speed of a flowing brook. What few men there were were already enlisted, but several women and a few boys came to volunteer for the fight. Sansa directed them and organized everyone she could, down to the kitchen staff to prepare vats of boiling liquid in case the besiegers tried to scale the walls. She seemed confident, but her inexperience troubled her. She recalled Blackwater, a siege she had survived long ago, and she longed for Sandor.

Winterfell's gate rumbled down. Its walls were closed. The archers stood along the top battlements and the rest of the men formed ranks in the yard. Anguy notched a flaming arrow and fired it out as a warning shot as the offending army drew closer. Their horses stopped just short of where its flames flickered in the windblown grass.

Damnit! Sansa gritted her teeth as she was filled with anger. How did this happen? She had no doubt that Brienne was dead. There was no other way even such a small and mobile force as this one could have passed the causeway. But there was no time to contemplate it—a messenger on a bay horse broke off from the herd and rode to within earshot of the Winterfell. Sansa looked hatefully at her well-armed opponents; and at the Mountain, who stood out formidably at the front line due to his incredible size.

"We come by order of Queen Cersei!" The armored man on the bay horse called out in a booming voice. "Sansa Lannister, née Stark, is to be tried for treason!" There was more—justifications for their aggression and instructions to hand her over and Winterfell to its declared regent, Gregor Clegane. The details made little difference to her and her men, who responded only by preparing for the inevitable battle. Sansa knew there would be no point in turning herself in. Even if they truly meant to keep her alive until a trial in King's Landing, Gregor Clegane would slaughter people inside her castle's walls and keep the North in terror until Cersei sent an administrator to rule in her stead. Someone like Littlefinger, Sansa thought, her mouth running dry as she thought of all he controlled. Harrenhall. The Vale. I will die before I hand this castle over to them, she promised, but the reality that she might, and others certainly would, sobered the thought.

Convention dictated that Winterfell send out its own rider to meet the messenger, or that he at least wait for a response. In truth his announcement was only a formality. The opposing army had no interest in a fair negation of terms. The man on the bay horse rode back to the warriors and their gang wasted no time beginning the siege. A quarter of them approached Wintertown while the rest dismounted from their horses and set up camp. Sansa bristled as the town was invaded. The riders looted it while Anguy's archers shot at them whenever the rare occasion of a clear shot presented itself. The Mountain's men made off with some of the food and supplies the smallfolk had left behind and, Sansa was despaired to see, a few women who had stayed behind hiding.

The arrows bounced off their armor for the most part. Only one looter was killed on the retreat, his horse charging forward loaded with goods anyway. The few lords who had not yet left Winterfell gathered around Sansa and formed a war council. She was painfully aware that even though Gregor's force was just a small army of about a hundred men, she likewise had only a few fighters who could put up any adequate resistance in an actual battle.

"We can stay inside Winterfell," Sansa suggested. "It's safer to defend than meet them in the field."

"But how long will there be food enough at Winterfell to feed so many mouths?" A lordling from Torrhen's Square questioned. "They may expect us to wait here and sabotage our stocks with disease."

"Well, it's not as if they can hope to break their way in, can they?" said another young fighter. As if in response, an archer on the wall announced that the army had changed position. Sansa and the others climbed up to see from the tower. A group of men from the enemy camp were chopping down trees from the wolfswood.

Sansa looked on with dread and confusion. She did not know what they were doing, but they were painfully well-organized. It was clear that this army could function as a unit of utmost efficiency, while she struggled to shield her people with all the desperation and effectiveness of a mother hen.

As though in answer to her question, Anguy spoke up grimly. "They are building a trebuchet." Her hand went over her mouth as she struggled to keep her nervous thoughts to herself. If they breach the walls . . .

Wylis Manderly came to her side. "Your Grace, let me lead a sally against the besiegers. We can slow down their construction, and with any luck drive them off or kill a fair number of them."

Sansa bit her lip. She did not like the idea of sending out any of her few fighting men, but holding them in the castle might be a missed opportunity to fight back. What would Sandor do? She didn't know, but the eager faces of the Manderly men convinced her to allow them to go out and fight. Less than an hour passed before the horses were ready. In that time, Gregor's men felled four giant trees and started hewing them. She could make him out sometimes, towering over the rest.

Sansa watched the sortie from the tower just as evening fell. The riders from Winterfell poured out of the castle's sallyport and raced towards the enemy camp. She and the archers watched with bated breath, hoping that some of the besiegers would be caught off-guard and killed. Instead, they met the sight of charging horses with the functional efficiency she should have anticipated from them. The men at the outskirts of the camp quickly readied pikes and branches—whatever long sticks they had—and pointed them at the horses. The mounted riders had no choice but to turn or pull back, and many shied in the face of anti-cavalry weapons. Sansa watched, horrified, as a new wave of men from just behind the defenders leapt out ready with clubs, axes, and swords in hand. Those few horsemen which had turned too slowly or shied without gathering enough distance were suddenly caught up in a counterassault. Several were grabbed, unhorsed, and one danced in place for a moment as his reigns were wrested away from him before he, too, went down. Others were beaten and clubbed but managed to escape.

"Retreat!" Sansa heard the order from the field as though in a nightmare. They had done little if any damage and were now retreating with nothing but wounds to show for it. Anguy's archers covered them, but it was mostly unnecessary. Gregor's men let them go, returning to the business of building siege weapons.

Sansa and her Maester ran to the entrance of the sallyport to meet the returning riders. She knew from watching the attempt that there would be wounded. What she was not prepared for was Wylis Manderly being held up by a man on either side of him to keep him ahorse. As soon as they were in the safety of the yard, he collapsed off the animal and his soldiers lay him on his back.

"Make way for the Maester!" Sansa shouted as they ran to him, and the crowd of men-at-arms drew back. Sansa knew from the looks on their faces before she even saw for herself—Manderly would die.

He looked like an old kettle or pot that had been chipped away in many places. There was no obvious single wound on him, but rather his face so battered and swollen that Sansa wondered what could have possibly hit him hard enough to do so much damage through his helmet. She brushed his hair back, tears falling from her face as she was filled with the hopelessness of the situation.

"Your Grace," he choked. "My daughters. Wynafred. Wylla. Please, make good matches for them. Give them your blessing and strengthen my house. We have always served the Starks. For the North—"

Then he died. A lamentation went up from the men surrounding him and the Maester pushed his way forward, desperate to see if there was anything he could do for the son of his old master. But there was nothing he could do; he could not bring the dead back to life. Sansa stood up and backed away, her face blanched white. The women she had assigned to the Maester helped tend the wounded. The lords and warriors returned huddled together to discuss another plan of action. They were all helpless. She could hear Gregor Clegane's army outside, reveling.

She left them and went to the Godswood. Time seemed to pass slower here; a feeling that had comforted her in the past, but now made her wonder how much time she had left. The heart tree felt far away as she made her way down the winding path towards it. Finally she knelt, and tried to quiet her mind, and pray.

She heard someone coming up the path behind her. "Mommy!" It was her daughter, Boglar. She flung herself into Sansa's arms. Jeyne followed behind, holding baby Faolan. Sansa rose to greet them, the girl clinging to her neck so tightly that she had to be lifted up.

"She begged to see you, but I made her wait," Jeyne said, and Boglar buried her face against her mother's neck defensively. Jeyne's tone was troubled. "Sansa, what are we going to do?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid it may be in the Gods' hands now."

Jeyne nodded solemnly and the baby gave a pitiful whine. Sansa pushed the fur back from his wrappings and kissed his forehead. "My beautiful children," she breathed, her voice a whisper that threatened to crack on the verge of tears. She wondered, if Sandor was still alive out there, what kind of man he would be if she and their children died like this. What pain would have met Rhaegar if he had lived through the Battle of the Trident and learned of Elia's fate, she wondered, but wished she hadn't. Sandor had been at that fight, too.

"You must take them and hide in the crypts," she whispered to Jeyne. "It's the only place you may be safe if we're overrun." They were both tearing up.

"Mommy, I don't want to go down there," her daughter said. "It's dark and scary, and there's ghosts."

"I know, but you must. And do not come out until Mommy or Daddy comes to get you, no matter what."

Boglar's large eyes blinked in surprise, but then turned soft as she remembered her father. "I miss Daddy," she said, laying her head back on her mother's shoulder.

Sansa closed her eyes, her voice a whisper as she struggled through her tears. "Me too."