While Sandor is away to kill the Night King, an army of the undead swarms Castle Black and tries to take it by sheer weight of numbers.
Eddard Stark had believed Jon. The Starks and other great Houses had sent troops in support of the Night's Watch. The wights had broken through the Wall in many places, tearing down portions of it. Arya was at Castle Black, but the battlefield was all along the Wall, from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea all the way to Shadow Tower.
There are other White Walkers apart from the Night King, but let's just say that there were other glorious fights, which happened outside this story.
Masks needs to end here. Today.
Arya
The undead came in never ending rows. They rolled against the castle walls like waves of flesh and bone and death. They crumpled under the obsidian tipped arrows, melted under the wild fire and burned under the living fire of the dragons.
No matter how many they destroyed, more took their place.
After countless days and nights of continuous battle, the wights broke through their defenses and they kept pouring in the castle.
The air stunk of dead flesh. Burnt flesh. Rotting flesh.
Arya and her wildlings fought without respite. She had trained them as best she could in the time they had, but by the end, it was a test of endurance, not of skill. She'd been hurt, and she knew it. As long as she could still move, she kept fighting. She protected her belly as best she could, but not even thoughts of her unborn babe kept her from the thick of the battle. The time for shooting arrows from a distance was long past.
She fell to her knees, the undead swarming over her, tearing at her flesh with their fleshless fingers. And suddenly, they crumbled to bits, burying her into a heap of bones, flesh and rags. She shook them off her and jumped to her feet, sword in one hand and dagger in the other.
All around her, only the Night's Watch stood.
Every man, woman and child had the same expression on their face. A fear born from hope. Could it possibly be over? Or would the dead rise again?
In the sky above them, the three dragons flew over the battlefield. She raised her head to look for Jon. Danaerys, Jon and Tyrion were all looking into the distance, toward the frozen north, then at each other. Just like the fighters on the ground, the dragon riders didn't dare to believe that it was over.
Danaerys was the first to raise her hand in triumph and the Dothraki started howling their blood curdling cries of war. The Westerosi armies and the wildlings joined in their own roars of victory.
Arya's heart swelled with relief and she prayed to the Gods, old and new, that Sandor didn't die with the Night King.
She dragged herself into Sam's study, where she was sure not to be disturbed, and started cataloguing her wounds. Her pregnancy was not yet visible, but it was certain. She had not had her moonblood two moons in a row. There were some slashes on her hips, plenty of others on her arms and legs, but the belly seemed miraculously untouched.
She got dressed again, and joined the celebration.
#
Arya sat among the wildlings at the feast. She looked fondly at her brother and the Dragon Queen. A knot of tears formed in her throat when she saw Danaerys look at Jon with unguarded fondness. She refused to give in to sadness. Even if Sandor was dead, something of him lived on in her.
When Jon signaled her to follow him, she went after him. They walked in silence to the Lord Commander's office.
"He did it, didn't he?" Jon asked once they were inside.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I'll know it if he comes back."
"He will come back," Jon said. "I may never see him again, but he will come to you."
"It's almost over. And I'm afraid he didn't make it. The more time passes, the worse the fear gets."
"You love him, too."
"My Lord Commander," Arya said formally, to put an end to that part of the conversation. "I ask leave to go North with the Free Folk. They will settle new steadings now that the threat has passed. If they are part of the Night's Watch, these steadings will be outposts for the Watch."
"You want command of a garrison of wildlings, Ranger Stark?" her brother asked, without mocking her.
"If the wildlings choose me as their leader, I will serve as their commander. If not, I will follow whoever they choose. I want to be one of the Free Folk, even as I guard the realms of men. I want to be free. "
"You've always been free, Arya. So much has changed now. Don't you want to go to Winterfell to be with your family?"
A string tugged at her heart. Winterfell. Mother and Father. Bran, Rickon, and Robb. Tyrion had brought Sansa back, too. It would be good to see them all. But she had changed too much to belong with them. Blood of her blood though they were, they were ghosts of her past. Bittersweet memories of a life she had chosen to leave behind.
She shook her head slowly.
"I have a new family now."
She meant the Watch, but there was also the hope… of something else. Of someone else.
She should tell Jon about the child. But it was winter still and as she had learned from the free folk, it was bad luck to name children before you knew for sure they would survive. She resolved to tell Jon about the child after the naming.
"You will leave with the Wildlings and be their commander if they choose so," Jon said. "Though it saddens me to lose you."
"You will never lose me. One word, and I'll be at your side," she said. "I will send you a raven when we're settled."
"When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow, at dawn. The Free Folk are eager to go back home. Some chose to stay south of the Wall, on the lands you promised them, but the others will leave at first light"
Jon held her in his arms for a long time, and Arya drew strength from his loving embrace, and gave back all she could.
Sandor
He burned through all his Faces, one after the other, using them in ways the Kindly Man had warned against. He'd used them to be invisible to the eyes and unseen to the ears. He'd used his blood and the sacred masks to hide himself from all his enemy's senses, natural an unnatural. That drained all his energy, and when he got close to the Night King, he was almost frozen.
His blood didn't flow from the wound at first. He pumped his fist a few times to get enough to coat the length of the blade.
The last face burned to ashes on his face when he stabbed the Night King in the heart. He saw the wights crumble to the ground when the creatures exploded in shards of ice. The force of the explosion pushed Sandor from the cliff. He was too weak to control the fall.
He didn't know how he survived. When he reached the bottom of the slope, his whole body was a wound. Bone stuck out through his skin, under his knee, and all he could feel was pain. He somehow found the strength to crawl.
The Children of the Forrest brought him back from the edge of death.
"You still have a debt to pay, young one," the childlike being said. "All men must die, but your God says, not today."
He fell into some kind of trance after that. He dreamt while his bones mended themselves, while skin regrew over torn flesh. He dreamt endless dreams but when he woke up, he only remembered on dream. Arya. In pain.
He had to find her.
#
As soon as he reached the gates of Castle Black, he was granted an audience with the Lord Commander.
"Arya went North, with the Free Folk four moons ago," Lord Snow told him. "I have not yet received a raven from her."
"How could you let her go into the north?"
Frustration laced the edges of his voice. Fear boiled inside him. After everything, to lose her… He couldn't stand the thought.
'Fear cuts deeper than swords.'
"Had I not allowed it, I wouldn't know to tell you now that they went north east," the Lord Commander said coldly.
"Thank you, Lord Commander," Sandor said.
"Talk to Sam and get whatever provisions you need. You may leave when you want. Go where you want."
"I will go north east."
Jon nodded, pleased with his answer. His features softened again, mellowed by that inner fire that must have been a long lost love.
"I gave her the choice to go back to Winterfell. But she chose a new life for herself. I believe you are part of that life. I trust you are aware how much that means."
"Indeed I do."
#
Tracking through a frozen tundra was not something they taught him in the House of Black and White. Even with the threat gone, the Free Folk had masked their tracks out of habit. He lost their trail, and found it again like the stubborn hound he was.
Sometimes at night, staring into the fire that kept him alive, he thought it would have been wiser to stay at Castle Black and wait for a raven from Arya, telling them their location. Something stronger than wisdom yanked his chain and tugged him out of the walls of the castle.
The Free Folk had joined forces with the Crows, and maybe they wouldn't go back on their word, but freedom was too dear to those people. Most likely the raven arriving at Castle Black would not reveal the real location of the wildlings. He suspected that not even Lord Snow expected to find out where they truly were.
It was the second full moon he saw since he had left Castle Black. He heard the wolves deep in the forest, and wanted to join their chant. The howl filled his chest and he didn't stop it. He put all his fear and hope in it, and howled.
The next day he found small traces in the forest telling him he was approaching a human settlement. He raised his empty hands in the air when he spotted the rustling leaves which told him there were scouts around.
"My name is Sandor Clegane, and I mean you no harm."
"What are you doing so far north, Moon-Howler?" a booming voice asked from the distance.
He saw the crossbow pointed at him in his mind's eye. His armor would survive a direct hit. His head would not survive the arrow.
"I am looking for Arya Stark."
The wildling let himself be seen. Sandor was not surprised by the location, but he was surprised by the size of the man who unfolded from that bush. He was probably even taller than himself, with flaming orange hair, a grin on his face and eyes sparkling with mirth.
"You look nothing like I expected," the man said, inviting him to follow.
"What did you expect?" Sandor asked, walking behind the huge ginger.
"Someone small and feisty like her. And prettier. Definitely prettier."
"Why did you expect someone at all?" he asked, the fear that he might be led into a trap catching up to the sudden hope that Arya was close.
He heard the scream before the big man answered. Her voice. His name.
Sandor bolted toward the village, zeroing in on the sound. Screams of pain and his name. He pushed aside the man who stood in front of the door and entered with his sword drawn.
"You took your time," Arya said, panting.
"Time to push again," the old woman said.
"Either in or out," a younger woman half his size said in an authoritative tone.
He couldn't take his eyes from Arya's face, scrunched up in pain, beads of sweat gathered on her forehead, running down the sides of her bright red face.
The young woman poked him hard. "Go hold her hand," she said, and ushered him to the side of Arya's bed.
Arya's hand looked so small in his. He gritted his teeth while she crunched his fingers in her tiny fist.
"Breathe now," the old woman told Arya.
"Are you all caught up?" Arya asked, puffing short breaths.
He nodded dumbly. She was having his child. It was like a good dream from which he didn't dare waking. Was he asleep? Dead? He pressed his lips against her temple.
"Push," the old woman said, and Arya squeezed his hand again.
The pain was sharp, and told him that he might never wield a sword again if she kept squeezing. But it was worth it if everything was real.
Arya's roar of pain ended with another cry. The old woman placed the babe in the white cloth the younger one held. He hadn't even realized that Arya had let go of his hand until she saw her reaching out to take the crying child.
"He has his mother's lungs," the young woman said when she placed it gently in Arya's hands.
The boy opened big round brown eyes and looked up at him. Sandor fell to his knees next to the bed and he was at eye level with the little creature nestled quietly at Arya's breast.
Arya shivered and he reached down to pull the blanket over her. He noticed that the dark fabric was not a blanket, but a tattered black cloak.
"Jon didn't get around to change the oath," she said. "I can't father children, but there's no mention of giving birth."
He laughed, weariness slowly fading away from his soul. Just like Arya to think about her duty to the Night's Watch.
"Good," he said, smiling fondly at the two of them. "We should hurry before he figures out that you can take a husband."
"Local customs say you have to capture me first," she said.
He wrapped his hand gently around her wrist. "Got you," he said. His son put his little hands on his fingers, and a big gummy smile appeared on his face. "Both of you."