Warning: Violence and gore
Sandor
The siren blared instantly far behind them, da, diiii, da, diiii, like a trumpet calling for a battle assembly in films where people wore armour and wielded swords his father used to watch. When he was still alive, Sandor mused. And that seemed like a lifetime ago, just like the forced fencing lessons of his youth.
Shrill and ominous, the sound was coming right after them as if the sight of Sansa's head in their car meant green on the traffic light. Blatantly ignoring the true colour of her hair.
"Get down!" Sandor yelled at Sansa as he did the same. His large head was too big a target to be left standing upright. And he didn't particularly relish having the other half of his face arranged to match the ruined one if he could choose. Asymmetric was just fine. He could live with that.
Joffrey ducked as well, under the steering wheel. The car temporarily lost direction. Sansa shrieked. "Not you, moron!" the Hound barked in disbelief. "Turn somewhere, anywhere, best in a street too small for a car they are having."
They were having a fire brigade van. Despite all the water, fires have apparently been frequent enough in Venice.
Sansa began crying. "I'm sorry," she said, "I thought you were them."
Why does she always have to apologise? he wondered.
"And who are exactly them?" he asked, busying himself with his door. Varys would always equip his car with some emergency aid gadgets. It was only a matter of digging deep enough to find something he could use.
"One called the other Brune. Brune didn't call the first one by any name..." she stammered, somewhat incoherent. They both reeled left and right, and landed all over each other when Joffrey did as he was told and veered in an obscure one direction alley next to an unimportant canal. Sandor's mouth ended up stuffed with blue silk. He was tempted to bite in it, to see what she would say, but he decided against it. He has already frightened her enough as it was for one day,
The manoeuvre came not a second too late. Sandor pulled the window open to judge the situation. The canal stank. The damp air behind them sizzled, and a trash can went down in the dirt with a clang, just on the place where their car would have been. It meant that the pursuit came close enough to open fire, and the alley they got in might be just broad enough for the van to pass. They didn't have much time.
He spat blue silk which turned out to be her sleeve, still clinging to her arm. He saw he managed to rip off the synthetic covering the door when he had stumbled over her. Sansa gave him a look as if he were a naked savage wearing feathers. His cheek still itched from where she slapped him, and he wondered what else she could do with such lethal force. His thoughts got very unprofessional at best in the blink of an eye. He gave her a broad grin, enjoying it thoroughly when she lowered her eyes. Smiling made him uglier than usual, he knew. He made a mental note to find himself a woman soon. It might be what he needed to clear his mind. There was another course of action possible but coaxing girls into bed wasn't his thing. Best if she slept with young Mr Baratheon. He could only do her a favour of beating Joffrey bloody if the boy treated her with anything but respect.
"What is that?" she asked, calm and composure reigning on her pretty face once more.
"Nothing," he said brusquely.
That was the package within the door. It was green, and the stuff in it smelled inflammable. He wished it was a gun. He always preferred firearms to explosives. But in his line of work it would not do to be picky. Sandor grabbed the parcel gingerly and regretted he quit smoking.
"Anyone has some light?" he asked, knowing it was in vain.
Surprisingly, the girl, Sansa, reached into her purse, and handed him a box of matches with the same polite gesture she had used to pass him the salt during dinner.
The world behind them burst in a big whoosh of green flames as soon as he released Varys' present in the air and tossed a match toward it. He did it only when the car advanced a bit further, bumping on the irregular cobble stones of the alley pavement in small speed. Varys was unique in what he did. The best man in planning spook operations and providing his agents with means to succeed. The stuff only needed air to keep burning over seven feet high, creating a thick unnatural foaming curtain between them and the enemy. Sandor felt cold sweat flooding his brow. Ashamed, he lowered his eyes. You're not a man, he told himself, you're still that little boy and you know it. They won't notice, he hoped, hiding his fears as good as he was able to.
At that moment, their car decided it would not move any further. "Watch out! I'm losing it!" Joffrey screamed and pressed the break hard. They hit the low stone wall next to the canal and stopped. Sandor got out immediately and saw one of their tyres was pierced. A second man, firing, when we were turning, he assumed. It was only good that the boy managed to stop before they fell in water or worse. But they were still way too close to the green fire for his liking.
"Everyone out!" Sandor yelled again. Both of his charges were petrified, so he pulled Sansa out first and returned to get the little shit too. He didn't want dead children on his team, obnoxious or not. There was a small bridge across the canal, close to where the car gave up on them. Behind, their pursuers caught up and they were trying to use a fire extinguisher on the cursed fire. A man gasped with pain. As was to be expected, traditional fire fighting methods would not work on stuff provided by Varys. It won't last though, he knew. They would find a way to put it out, or to cross, and very soon they would be upon them, two of them at least, if he made his math well. Two armed men, and perhaps the third one, driving.
He remembered Joffrey's gallantry when the evening began, and thought he could use some of it too. Without thinking, he lifted the girl off the ground and took one of her shoes.
"What-?" she started when he put her back down, and he shushed her in his most polite tone, hoping she would stop asking questions and just obey.
"Mr Baratheon here will help you out now, that's what the really good agents do, they help the ladies, understood?"
She had the grace to nod.
"But where-?" it was Joffrey's turn to start.
"Right here," Sandor said and pushed him into the canal. "Under the bridge." Joffrey waddled in the shadow of the small stone construction above him, too cold or too shocked to protest. Sandor didn't care. The Hound knew that the little shit with his military training must have at least figured that the gentlemen who were after them had guns. At the same time he fervently hoped that Sansa didn't quite understand why the trash exploded and that the reason was that people were actually shooting at them. He didn't think anyone has ever fired at her before, and the last thing he wanted was a hysterical woman on his hands.
"Miss Stark," he said, nervous to get going. "Go to Joffrey, will you?" He almost said please, but thought better about it. He could not adapt all that much to the presence of a lady.
She lowered herself graciously into the cold stinky water and glided under the bridge with the same ease she had when she walked in the ballroom, shadowing other ladies with her poise and manners. It was a wise choice. The water was waist deep and that way she would remain significantly drier than Joffrey.
Sandor ran over the bridge and left one flat female shoe at its end. Visible, but not too obvious. Natural, it has to look natural. On the other side, he hid in the shadow of a porch leading to another damn palace, its ornate windows dark in the wee hours of the morning.
He didn't wait for long.
There were two of them, their steps echoing on the stones so loud that he couldn't miss it even if he were not who he was. They carried a gun each, and they moved with a confidence of a vulture looking after their prey. Except that, in the night, the Hound was the predator, lurking, and they were about to be hunted like deer.
Before they would pass him, he lunged and slammed one of them into another, grabbing his gun while he was still on the move. Proficiently, he shot the man he pushed away to the shoulder and when he slumped over his companion, he aimed for his partner's shoulder. The other man was left handed so he aimed left. He felt a sharp pain in his leg and did his best to ignore it. In the next moment, the second man was down too. The street was silent and empty. The water rustled lazily in the canal.
Good, he thought.
They would both live, but they wouldn't run, or walk, any time soon. And the alley was entirely too dark for anyone to find them before morning hours. Maybe a waste truck would pass at dawn and rescue them if they were very very lucky.
"Brune?" he tried. The man who went down first reacted to the name.
"Give my warm regards to your boss, whoever that is," the Hound said, walking away with two guns. It made him feel way better.
The girl and Joff were in the canal, almost in each other's arms. Not that he could blame them, with the night's chill. He could see that the boy was sweet talking Sansa. He supposed that it was marginally better than scaring her.
"Get out," he said gruffly. "Behind me, Mister agent, Miss Stark." He pulled them out again because they went painstakingly slow. Why is it that they can't move any faster of their own accord? His anger flared and he fought to push it down.
The green ungodly fire he made lessened, burning at some places, smouldering on others. There was a leather jacket over a part of it, that the good men who fired at them used to pass. He jumped over it all, superstitious, not willing to put his shoes in churning embers. Joffrey, on the contrary, walked through it without any problem. Sandor felt unmanned, but he could not help himself. Fire was not his thing.
The van was parked at the beginning of the alley, the driver nowhere to be seen. He motioned to Joff to take the driver's seat and waited in a shadow of a door post carved as a half naked woman, several steps behind. As soon as Joffrey got in, the driver
emerged from the back of the van, and wrapped something, a wire, perhaps, around Joff's elegant rich throat.
"Hel..p.." Joff begged through clenched teeth.
For a second Sandor was afraid he would not have a clear line of shot to the third enemy, but the man proved himself too eager to get to Joffrey. His head popped up above his would be victim. Soon, his obviously too small brains were all over the driver's seat. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary. Any other part of the man's body the Hound would've aimed at, or a moment of waiting, and he may have had to explain to Stannis why his precious nephew died on his watch.
That was that. End of my working hours for today, he thought.
"They wanted to kill us," Joffrey complained, incredulous. "Why would they want to do that?"
"What did you think this was when uncle Stannis brought you?" Sandor snarled. "A video game?"
He nearly got to the car, ignoring the green look on Joffrey's face, partially due to his choking experience, and also to the human remains on the back of the seat he now occupied. Wrenching the passenger door open, he figured there was something wrong.
Sansa was not there.
Was Brune able to walk back that fast?
His heart was in his throat when he leapt back. He was relieved and terribly pissed at the same time when he saw her standing still behind the smouldering fire. She was pretty, paralysed and utterly unable to cross.
"You took my shoe," she reproached him, and, naturally, excused herself again. "I'm sorry. I just can't jump that far. I'll burn my foot."
He didn't know what got into him.
He padded through the still warm embers, not once but twice. The second time he carried a pile of wet female misery through them, and all the way to the fire brigade van, when she could have just as well walked the rest of the way. The sweet smelling scent of her filled his senses and calmed him like a drug you'd normally need prescription for. He put her down next to the half naked statue.
"I'll be right back," he said,
"I can walk," she offered.
"Wait," he insisted, not bothering to check if she did. He was not accustomed to repeat his commands to the people he worked with.
When he was satisfied that the back space of the van was devoid of firemen, true or false, he returned for her, and carried her the last steps of their short way. He lowered her on a bench in the back, as carefully as he could. Since he picked her up, he was trying and failing miserably not to enjoy the experience. He felt pathetic and tired.
"Best don't look in front," he told her. She looked puzzled.
"The previous owner made a mess of his car," he tried to explain. "Sleep if you can. I'll wake you up when we are somewhere."
"Thank you," she said, trying her best not to shiver. Obediently, stubbornly, she turned her back to Joffrey and to the bleeding corpse behind him. He wondered if she had seen it at all, or if she had chosen not to by the force of her will.
Good girl, he admired her, closing the back door.
Sandor Clegane slumped on the passenger seat and glanced at the driver's seat. The key was left in the ignition. Amateur, he thought of a man whose skull now decorated the van.
It was only when Joff started the engine that he dared look at his leg. The muscle tissue was bleeding under the knee. He was lucky he walked that far, on sheer adrenaline, more likely than not. A stab wound, he realized. Brune must have had a knife at hand. First aid kit was under every seat of Varys' cars, rules of service, number this and that, he always forgot which one, but there was none in the vehicle they were in now. He could stop the bleeding with his tie, more or less, but that was about it. The gash was not shallow enough and it did not look promising.
As it seemed, he was going to need a doctor before Sansa and he would need a priest. The sham marriage would have to wait for another day.
A/N Thank you so much for the reviews. From now on, the updates will be slower.