"Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it." Robert Baratheon, ASOIAF

Five

The Giant's Lance rose white and blue in sunlight.

The Hound stretched, enjoying the flexing of his limbs and the pleasant cracking of joints. He was in a good shape. Or as good as he could be in. Butchers did not outlive the butchered for long; he had accepted that possibility long ago. And whenever he fought, he knew he might die. The knowledge never bothered him; death would come for him one day, and that was all.

Yet they were all gone now, killers as gifted as he was in the West, Gregor, Tywin, Stafford, Kevan… Even Joffrey who believed he could put any man to death and never be touched by it.

The Stranger took them all.

Only I am still here, looking for you, Sansa.

The thought gave him strength.

He hadn't dreamed that night.

Dreamless sleep made his mind light as his unfatigued body. He spread his arms to their full span as a healthy animal; happy to be alive and desiring nothing more. For half an hour, he meticulously honed his sword, readying himself to depart.

The Eyrie is still far away and this is the biggest gamble of my life, he thought.

Sandor Clegane couldn't see the second of the three fortresses guarding the way up with so much light in his eyes. He wondered if he would reach it before the sunset of another short winter day. Not having more time to lose he abandoned Stone. He blew into his hands to imbibe them with warmth from his giant lungs and went forth, always climbing, always further up. Up and up and up some more he went… Snowflakes rained softly on his trail, erasing his footsteps. Soon, no one would know he had passed.

It's not that I have no more time left to lose, he straightened his thoughts into pure, undiluted truth with great effort of will.

I have nothing left to lose.

And everything to gain.

I should like to see you again either way.

Once, long ago, ages of the world ago, it seemed, he believed he had something to lose; a place behind his masters' back, scraps from his masters' table, a kennel to fall asleep in, and most of all the fair chance to kill his brother.

The place he had crafted for himself in life came at a price, as everyone's.

So when Joff told Cersei that a butcher's boy hit him with a club, whinnying and cradling his wolf-beaten arm, the Hound was sent to see to him. He obediently led search parties along the Trident for three days. Meanwhile, the royal party made themselves the uninvited guests of Lord Darry in his castle.

On the fourth day, the Hound's sharp grey eyes spotted a thick mop of ugly red hair hiding in the bush. The boy's face was coarse, freckled, and when he saw the riders, he ran.

The boy had been dead since he had the misfortune to meet Joffrey first hand. The Hound didn't let him suffer in fear of his imminent fate for long. He rode him down and cut him almost in half from shoulder to waist, with one terrible blow struck from above. He did it and he laughed at how easy it had been, happy that his search had ended and bitter at the same time.

A butcher doing for the butcher's boy… The gods, if they existed, created the weak to be the prey of the strong. He couldn't help remembering himself, a six year old, burning to death which never came. Sandor Clegane found it easier to believe that the gods did not exist.

On an impulse, he wrapped the body in his cloak and brought it back to Darry instead of leaving it for the wolves and the wild dogs. The Hound and his riders pounded through the castle after their hunt, and Sandor Clegane suddenly found himself facing Lord Stark.

First he rasped at him how there was no sign of his daughter. But the Hand did not care to be reassured by a mongrel; he thought him a monster as everyone else, staring at the bloody cloak over Stranger's back, judging him...

The Hound obliged, answering the unspoken demand to let his betters take a look, faithful to his role. He shoved the burden off his mount, letting the boy's body fall with a thud in front of the grey lord.

Stark seemed… relieved before the look of contempt returned to his face. What did you expect to see? Give him back to his father or leave him for the crows for all I care, the Hound thought, angry in return, before proclaiming with scorn the truth of the matter as he saw it; the boy had run, but not very fast.

He laughed again, ignoring the shocked expression on Lord Stark's face which typically came his way.

This is what I do and this is what I am, he thought, defiant. There's no pretty way to kill a child. Best do it fast. A clean death.

(It was only much later, when he turned craven and abandoned his masters, that he sometimes wished the butcher's boy had remained hidden or that he had run faster.)

That evening the Hound returned to Joff's side. Cersei had retired early for the night, always unhappy with her small victories. They were never enough to quench her growing thirst for power. The prince, on the contrary, appeared accomplished.

"You know, dog, my betrothed is as stupid as she's pretty, just as Mother says," he said. "I made her drink wine in a small holdfast, and I would have made her naked on the Trident if her ugly sister and that boy did not attack us. And she couldn't even remember how I fought bravely to protect her, or she would have told it true in front of my father."

Joffrey continued prattling, filling the air with gallant lies about heroically fighting off a girl of nine and a boy who had never held a sword in hand except the wooden one until the day he died. Only one truth soon became apparent to the Hound from so much talking.

The rat-like sister of Joffrey's betrothed had more guts than the crown prince and she had somehow defeated him. Sandor Clegane hated liars and he hated gutless frauds even more. And Joffrey, his charge, was evolving faultlessly from the former to the latter, without any need for maester lessons in that regard. Maybe they would give him a special ribbon for it one day, or the High Septon would anoint him with nine instead of seven oils.

The realisation made the Hound more content than usual for being a dog.

For about the same time that Cersei had sent Sandor to see to the butcher's boy, she had commanded her sweet brother Jaime to find the little Stark girl. Cersei would never trust her dog enough to charge him with that little task, as she had trusted her brother.

And if perchance she did, the Hound would have perhaps found the girl before the Stark men did. Her little body would be wrapped in his bloody cloak, and King Robert might just as well present Stark with the Hound's ugly head as a recompense. Why not put all the blame on the dog for misunderstanding his sweet wife's command? Sandor doubted very much that Robert would punish Cersei for the death of Stark's daughter. Had the king ever had the guts to stand up to Cersei and her father, he could have simply killed her. Yet the brave King Robert, who rebelled against the Targaryens and won, was craven in his marriage - he only ever beat his lady wife.

"Those wolves have to be killed," the boy, Joffrey, continued his rant in a pragmatic tone of a would-be man grown. "Even the Hand understood that. He killed the one he still had himself. They couldn't find the other one though, that beast that nearly slaughtered me..."

The Hound could suddenly understand Stark for doing his killing himself. A clean death. Maybe the dour lord has some guts after all. Was he afraid to see another wolf's corpse when we met?

"And then Father told his Hand to get his stupid daughter a dog, for her own safety. She'll be happier for it, he said."

"His Grace is right," the Hound rasped back in a flat voice, hoping he was saying what the boy wanted to hear. "If she had a dog, he would keep her safe."

Fortunately, the prince had nothing more to say. He went pestering Tommen and Myrcella and the conversation was soon forgotten.

On the rest of the return journey south, the burned dog did not have to comb his hair over his scars. Joffrey's betrothed spent her time crying for her sweet wolf in one of the wheelhouses. She didn't look at her prince anymore, nor turned her eyes away from his sworn shield. Sandor was oddly pleased she had seen Joffrey for what he was, so maybe she wasn't as stupid as the little shit believed.

Get her a dog, the king's words occasionally rang within his ugly head. What's a dog to do with wolves? Lions fed me and took me in… That was the truth he needed to remember.

Not any more.

Climbing proved easier in daytime. The trees were sparser higher up the mountain and the light lingered longer on the desolation of snow and stone. Gusts of wind were stronger though; he staggered many times. Yet he always managed to straighten himself, grateful for his massive size. He would not be blown off his path so easily; the wind had to try better than that to defeat him.

More snow fell softly, blanketing the path above him, white and tender as the fur of the well-behaved she-wolf who died and who had never bitten anyone, just like her mistress. That is what you get for being a lady.

Or have you started to bite, Sansa? Have you grown teeth and claws while I was away? He had to see her again. Innocent or spoiled, maiden or a woman wed, bird or wolf. He just had to see her again. There was nothing else he wanted to do in his life.

Some weeks or months after the royal party returned to the capital, King Robert wanted to honour his Hand, perchance to make his old friend forget the ugliness that had come between them on the Trident.

The preparations for the great tourney of the Hand began and the Hound's mind was set on only one piece of news. Gregor entered the lists to ride in that tourney and the Stranger willing, the time to kill him had finally arrived. The Hound trained himself in arms at every moment when he didn't have to guard Joffrey.

When the first day of jousting came. Sandor rode as savagely as his brother, unhorsing all his opponents in a ferocious style. He was in shape to kill Gregor and he knew it.

Only one thing annoyed him that day. Gregor killed an insignificant newly-made knight from the Vale in one of his first passes, lance hitting the weak part in a badly fitted gorget with too great a precision… Gregor's lance always went where Gregor wanted it to go.

And Ser Hugh of the Vale used to squire for late Jon Arryn…

Former Hand of the King, the victim of a sudden death from natural causes…

If Gregor killed him on Lord Tywin's orders, just like he did for Rhaegar's boy and wife, then the good dog would not be allowed to kill his brother. Again.

Yet the Hound could tell that the foul mood was on Gregor by the way he rode. If Ser Gregor murdered a nobleman or raped a noblewoman where everyone could see, Robert would not be merciful. The king may have been ten times a coward in his marriage bed, but he was that many times more serious in maintaining his peace. Heinous crime was not to be tolerated and Lord Tywin was not there.

The Hound convinced himself his hour would surely come on the morrow, it had to come! If Gregor lost a tilt, he would lose his temper and then…

A lady wept loudly near the place where the royal family was seated, temporarily drawing his attention away from death, real or expected. Crying could very well mean a threat. Though the Hound was off duty for the joust, instinct forced him to search immediately for the source of trouble.

His worry was useless. It was just some girl who fainted from seeing blood. A septa was taking her away. An unexpected scene nailed his eyes to the place the two women had left. Sansa Stark, Joffrey's betrothed, sat alone, gazing at the young dead knight with grim, cold fascination, hands demurely folded in her lap.

Best be used to this, girl. You will see more of it here.

Sansa's measured poise never wavered.

She truly is a high lord's get, the Hound thought, impressed against his will, seeing the long, composed look on her heart-shaped face, serene in the face of death. Or she is made of sterner stuff than her weeping friend…

Curious and moved at his core in which he unwillingly harboured a special companionship with the Stranger and his only gift, Sandor Clegane found Sansa Stark truly beautiful, for the first time.

The notion came on him so strong that it was almost painful, just as the memory of Gregor holding him down into the burning brazier had always been.

He hadn't seen her since he had scared her on the Trident. Ever since the arrival of the royal party to the capital, the Hand ate wisely with his daughters in his solar, not allowing them to the king's table. He wondered if she was still crying for her wolf at night.

She wore a green dress. The auburn shine of her wavy hair stood out against it and everyone was smiling at her. Sandor Clegane found himself grinning too, against his will.

Then Gregor roared in triumph, riding hard down the lists. Blood seeped into Ser Hugh's sky-coloured cloak, turning all the blue moons on it red, one by one. Sandor's hatred and anger were back tenfold, shadowing all other considerations apart from the well-trained instinct to tread after Joffrey.

His charge's safety was the only guarantee of the dog's place in a world which would have stoned the mongrel to death long ago, only for the way he looked and for what his brother had done.

He would have gone searching for a woman that night, after all the jousts. The city brimmed with visitors. Maybe even he could find some lesser lady who would overlook his face for a fast, pleasurable tumble in the dark. It was worth an honest try. And if not, there was always the Street of Silk.

Sandor discovered as a younger man that a pretty face was not necessarily required to pleasure a woman in bed, or out of it; the dog was never picky about the circumstances. At first he always attempted to be done fast in such couplings as he sometimes entertained. He had no wife, and the women he was with, for coin or not, did not want to look at his face longer than necessary. The truth be told, he didn't want to look at them either. And the whores among them were expected to receive more men in the same night, just as he was expected to knock down more opponents in training every morning. It was only fair not to take more of their time than what he paid for.

He had heard talk in taverns, since he was a boy man-at-arms of twelve acting as a man grown, how some women begged for it or squealed shamelessly with satisfaction when they were being taken. He thought it a lie. Experience soon told him that those indulging in such man chatter were infallibly gnats in the training yard. Later, when drunk, they would invent the stories about their military prowess with equal ease.

Until one day something truly unexpected did happen on one of his early visits to the Street of Silk. He was not yet done when the woman he was with moved very differently, with more… abandon. It set him in a mood to change the angle from the usual one, wondering what she would do. His attempt was met by her body adjusting to his in the most pleasing way. A small sigh escaped her mouth, sounding not at all as the whores always moaned… Between observant and more aroused by it, he tried out as many different strokes as he dared and could think of. In the end, the woman was a shuddering mess in his arms, and the Hound felt a surge of pride as great as on that sweet day in training when he had first bested Ser Jaime Lannister in a sword fight and shoved him face down into dirt.

It is true then, Sandor discovered. The women could have their pleasure just as men.

The simple realisation did not make him change his habits, nor look for a wife. He would never love. He would never be weak like his father became for loving Gregor. Women were a part of the world who still saw him as a monster, while it knighted and my-lorded his brother. Sandor's prowess with the sword he had in his breeches would never change any of that. Only cold steel might, one day.

Yet later, whenever he recognised those same signs in a woman, and it was not often, he would indulge in it and take it as far as he could or knew how. No harm in taking a little joy in life. They would always go separate ways in the morning. He never tried talking to them afterwards. One wench from the alehouse wanted to say something to him, but he had just made a flat face, and left.

That night, after the Hand's tourney, duty called the Hound to the feast. All his time off was spent by the whole day of jousting. So to the feast he went, exchanging his black soot armour for a red tunic with a leather dog's head sewn on his chest, obliged as anyone else in court to adjust his appearance to the occasion. Not that the change of clothes would make him any more presentable.

To his surprise, Stark allowed his elder daughter to attend the revelry with her septa, and Cersei must have threatened Joffrey in some language he understood to keep her happy and occupied. The little shit sweet-talked Sansa as he had never done before. If the feast was not already so noisy with singers and the Moon Boy and his japes, he might have even started singing for her. Sandor was… disappointed.

She was basking in the false company of her prince, forgetting her tears and the death of her wolf. Joff can fuck her if he knows how and she won't say no, the Hound thought bitterly, downing more and more wine.

He realised he had thought her… different, this girl who had embraced her little pet on the Trident and let the furry Lady fearlessly growl at him.

But her sincere smiles had returned to Joffrey in his pretty blue doublet and told a different story. The girl must have been more empty-headed than even the most stupid ladies in the court. More like than not even the witless Lollys Stockworth would understand what Joffrey was, when faced with such flagrant example of the prince's cruelty as Sansa had witnessed on the Trident.

And she is pretty... The Hound drank some more, not caring.

The more he drank, the more he stared at her. No harm in looking, he thought. No other guest on the feast would pay any attention to a sworn shield standing in the shadows. In the torchlight, Sansa was a vision of finery. The Hound was by no means an expert in ladies' fashion, but the details of her gown and hair from close by looked more meticulous than on any ladies he had seen waiting on Cersei in his long years at court, and he had forcefully seen quite a few. An ornamented, fancy armour...

Whenever Joff served her a choice morsel of a dish, she beamed, bashfully, truthfully, with happiness illuminating her features.

She believes in her illusion, he realised, she thinks it true. He could not hear all the courtesies she was wasting on Joffrey, but he was hearing very well the sweet timbre of her voice, chirping as a bird's, trilling, twittering to the arrival of a new day in the branches of a tree... He could see the movement of her throat and chest, fluttering.

The empty phrases she was saying reminded him of those pretty birds people brought from the Summer Isles to the capital. They were kept in cages and trained to repeat every word their owner said. Most men were eager to always hear only the echo of their voice, and never the truth. And the birds obliged… They were very valuable, just like the Hand's daughter, a noble maiden from a great house.

Robert didn't save on wine for his feast. The Hound drank some more of it, dark red as he liked it, while Joff was making his betrothed drunk on iced summer wine. The girl's septa succumbed first. Head falling on the table, she began snoring. The Hound guffawed in the shadows and put away the last goblet of his wine still full. He began to feel the tingling in his body and he could not afford to wake in a ditch for the second day of the Hand's tourney.

He needed to sober up in order to kill his brother.

The girl didn't even notice the passing out of her septa. She only had eyes for her golden prince, so eager to love a lie.

By that time Sandor was not drunk only on wine, but on her beauty and on her voice. He felt… giddy… as never before. His thoughts wandered unbidden into imagining her crying out from joy as he claimed her, staring at his face with open eyes all the while. Her figure filled in his mind's eye, her hips, her breasts...

That would be a song worth hearing, little bird…

He was too drunk to feel the shame and anger over his weakness. Sober, he would be strong again. He would not desire any noblewoman who turned her eyes away from his face, yet at that moment, staring at Sansa, he just kept imagining the impossible.

Joffrey called his dog to see that nothing befell his betrothed on her way back to the castle. The Hound was immediately alert, quickly stepping out of the shadows to do his duty of a wet nurse. The girl looked at him quaintly, as if she could see what was on his mind from his drunken gaze. Her prince left her without another word. At least he won't have a chance to make you naked. The notion that Joffrey could succeed in that sickened him profoundly. Too much wine, he thought.

Sandor looked back at Sansa with sobering eyes, saw her small frame of a child, saw the unease on her face, saw the spine, stiffening.

Serves me right. She is not what I imagined. And she never will be.

He immediately became consumed with the need to tell her what Joffrey was, in case she truly didn't know. He snarled at her how there was no chance the prince would take her back himself. She was petrified and didn't move.

And then he softened, pulling her onto her feet as he would help a fellow guard who had fallen during sparring, wishing for her not to be afraid of him as everyone else was, too inebriated to question why that was important to him. He even tried to comfort her by explaining he was drunk as a dog and needed to sleep as much as she did.

Predictably, the attempt didn't work as well as Joffrey's sweet talking. She was still stiff and almost trembling, but at least she followed him. From the riverside where the feast was held, they had to pass through the bloody tourney grounds in order to find a cart to take them back to the city. It was walk or carry her. He suspected she would hate the later.

The Hound snatched a torch to light the way. He didn't want either of them to break a neck toppling over a splintered lance or a broken shield. Sansa trailed behind, silent as a ghost, and he could almost taste her fear.

The Hound seethed.

Can't you tell? he thought, unhinged by her. I won't bite you.

And then she had the bad sense to compliment him for riding gallantly and call him Ser Sandor. He raged back asking if she found Gregor gallant as well.

Her pretty face frowned in that calm expression he had seen in the tourney, pondering her answer, considering his words. She managed a simple courtesy. No one could withstand Gregor. And it was true enough.

Yet he couldn't quell his rage so easily. He ended up telling her what she was, a pretty bird reciting empty words she had been taught…

She rebelled, said he was unkind and frightening her, demanded they should go. The faint trace of unkempt anger where only fear had been until that moment only made her more lovely in his eyes.

The illicit imaginings returned with force in that instant, but he chased them away with ease, obsessed with yet another, much stronger need...

More than he ever needed wine or a woman, he was compelled to say to her, in case she truly didn't know, how it was no coincidence that Gregor killed Ser Hugh of the Vale, ignoring the danger this could mean for himself and his household if she repeated his words to her father. Robert would kill Cersei for high treason.

Finally he remembered with anger every single time she averted her eyes from him on the kingsroad.

What does she know? What does anyone know?

On an impulse, he forced her to look at the ruin of his face. His hand looked huge on her childlike face, forcing it up. He squatted and shed merciless torchlight on his scars. She had to look.

She startled him by examining his eyes first, and he was more bewildered than ever. Drunken, sullen and stiff, he squeezed her chin firmly, in the lack of a better thing to do. His eyes never left hers. It felt as if there was no going back from what he had just done.

Then she looked at the good side of his face, gaunt with the hooked nose, studying his long thin hair with more time than necessary. He saw her face, white and unmarred, as good as she could see his. Her bright blue eyes finally ventured to the other side where no hair grew, first to the missing ear and then to the twisted mass of scar, black slick flesh with craters and cracks which must have gleamed red and wet in the firelight… Finally her eyes rested on that piece of bone visible on his jaw.

And when she saw it all, she began crying…

Seven hells stirred in the dark pit of his soul. Obeying an unknown instinct much stronger than any other he had ever experienced before, Sandor snuffed the torch to spare her any further pain. She could not bear to look…

He laughed softly, bitterly, merging his entire being with the somber shadows of the night.

From the darkness he spoke. Quietly, truthfully, he told her what Gregor had done to him and why.

He had never told anyone before.

She said nothing, just as he expected. No pretty words for this.

Silence stretched between them, long and morose, spoiled only by the uncertain ragged sound of his breathing.

Yet he finally didn't feel her fear any longer…

A soft hand found his massive shoulder, a bird's touch, a feather touch, a consolation for a man who had never received any for his pain.

"He was no true knight," she whispered. Throwing back his head, he laughed in reckless abandon, for the first time in so long that he could not remember the last time he did it or if he had ever done it. She stumbled from the force of his reaction, but he instinctively caught her before she would fall.

He was forced to agree with the girl. Gregor was no true knight.

Sober as never before, he took her back to the castle without another word, as a proper guard and nothing more, brooding in his self-imposed solitude.

When they were almost at her chamber door, the new fear came upon him… When was I afraid?

She's just a pretty talking bird. She'll tell…

He imagined everyone at court laughing at him when they found out, Joffrey, Cersei, the king, his Hand, even the little rat of Sansa's sister. He had to stop it the only way he knew how. He would kill her if she told anyone and that was exactly what he had made her understand. Her fear was back by the time he finished talking, palpable and strong, and Sandor was firmly the Hound again.

For long days after, he was examining all faces in court, searching for a trace of recognition, for the first laugh, for any sign of knowledge, but none came his way. Good, he thought arrogantly, happy that his warning was heeded.

Yet sometimes he hoped that the reason she did not tell was not because he frightened her, but because she was… honest... like her stiff father who would not let the condemned wolf be butchered and who was relieved when the other wolf could not be found...

And sometimes another belief came over him, a more dangerous one, that she had simply chosen to keep his confession their secret.

Because she was truly sorry for him… Because she…

Cared?

Thoughts just like that one had already almost killed him several times in the past three years and today was no exception.

The guards in the second fortress on the way up to the Eyrie were not impressed by his appearance as a man of the Seven. And the Faith he didn't keep would never take him to the end of his journey; he had to do it himself.

He realised too late that the path from Stone to Snow was very well visible from above. They had seen him coming since he started that day's climb, and he could consider himself lucky that they didn't feather him with arrows. There were three of them and they came on him as ferociously as if they had been Gregor's pets.

"The Warrior give us strength!" one shouted. "We have our orders. No one passes here."

The man didn't stop to explain whose orders they were, and neither did the Hound. He was only a second too late to block the first blow with his empty shield arm. And all because the bugger had to attack him when he was still looking at Sansa in his mind… The slash caught Sandor on the forearm and gave him the necessary opportunity to cut the man in two.

The other two regrouped and took a more prudent stance. They picked on him from each side, using the advantage of the high ground. His back was to the steps leading down the mountain, and if they could make him yield some space, he would fall down and his body would never be found again.

Not bloody likely, he thought. I have come this far and I will go all the way. I'll fly to the Eyrie if I have to.

He didn't let them gain a single inch of ground, answering to their sword picking with short strikes, waiting. He was not drunk, only tired from walking. It would take a long time for those two to wear him down.

He let the blows run their course, and then, very suddenly, fed up with the waste of time, he let out on purpose that snarling laugh of his, as a rabid dog in a fighting pit. One of the two men buzzing around him like flies was distracted, and it was enough to open his belly.

The last one had the good sense to run. It was a pockmarked fellow who could have been the commander, now that the Hound had a moment to notice the better quality of the plate and steel he wore. He didn't use the steps. He just slid down the frozen slope on his armoured arse, before the Hound could pull out his sword from his friend's body. The runaway gained speed as he went, with the assurance of someone who wasn't taking that way down for the first time.

The Hound checked his arm. The bleeding was very slight, from one of the old burns, and it was already stopping.

He passed through the open fortress door at dusk and found a dry wall where he could half sit and half lay to rest. He was alone. The three men were the only ones left guarding the place. They had no arrows, he realised. They had nothing. Somehow it made him less satisfied about killing them.

Snow was a castle by name but not by size. There used to be a timber keep and a stable behind a single watchtower, but those were no more, due to winter or old age.

This is it, he thought, there will be no fire tonight.

To continue climbing to the third fortress at night-time could mean a broken neck. Yet the man he failed to kill might reach Stone alive, a pursuit might be sent up, all the way to Snow… A raven could maybe still fly to the Eyrie and inform those who guarded Sansa about his errand.

I'd better go.

He leaned on a wall to catch only some hours of sleep, as a soldier in the field or a member of a hunting party would. And when he closed his eyes, the dream he avoided the night before was back to him.

In this dream that haunted him for so long now, the sea and the sky burned green forever.

He was bending over Sansa on her featherbed in the Red Keep, fully armoured, and the reek of blood was on his body. Yet instead of putting his blade against her throat, he was pressing his cruel lips on hers.

And instead of finding them as he remembered them in waking state; thin, closed and trembling from the last notes of the song he had taken at knifepoint, he would always find them full, soft and yielding…

The Hound woke, holding onto the memory of a kiss he had never given.

I have to go on.

He looked at the pitiful walls and left them behind. They provided no safety for him.

My deliverance may be up there or I shall find none.

At least he would not get lost tonight. The mountain was threateningly steep now. He could not possibly miss the path leading up, and walking was better than dreaming.

The wind was an enemy in itself now, stinging and howling as a living creature from some hell the septons didn't know or they would surely preach about it. A hell with no burning, the Hound noted with satisfaction.

He had to use his sword as a stick to lean on, advancing always as fast as he could. He would not risk his neck, but he would not slow down.

All around him was snow.