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CHAPTER 11

SANDOR

He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were heavy as stones. He tried again and despite the blurry sight, he could see the girl working by the fire. Has she made the fire all alone? he wondered. He wanted to move but his body didn't respond and the effort made him feel dizzy. Fucking wound, fucking fever. His eyes closed again against his will and he fell into another deep fevered sleep.

This time he was surrounded by a tall curtain of green fire. He wanted to cross it, but every time he tried, the flames burnt a part of his body. He tried harder and finally passed through it, yelling. Then he found himself in a large Sept where an ugly dwarf was placing a purple cloak over a young lady's shoulders. The lady was very pale and had blue eyes, and when she looked at him she was crying silently, her eyes were asking for help. He ran towards her, but suddenly a huge man was standing between them. He was holding a longsword and laughing at him. Three dogs were embroidered on his chest. Even though he couldn't see his face he knew it was his brother. He tried to fight him, but he was bare chested and in his hand was only a wooden spear. He threw the spear towards him and it impaled the man's chest, but no blood came out of the wound. Then Sandor felt as if a thousand hands were touching him; his arms, his chest, his injured side. The pain was unbearable. Gregor walked towards him, raised the sword and hammered him… and then he woke up screaming.

It took him some moments to realize he was again in the wood. He breathed deeply and looked around. He watched at the sky above the canopy; he might have been dreaming for a long time because it was dark now and the fire was about to go off. The girl was sleeping next to him, huddled up under her cloak and blanket and apparently he hadn't awakened her. Sandor ran his fingers over the stitches on his side, but couldn't find them. His torso was wrapped with clean fabric and so was the wound on his arm. It was a piece of cloth torn from one of her dresses, he noticed. She had also put his cloak over him before going to rest. This is the second time a Stark girl has had to help me, I'm certainly getting old, he couldn't but to mock at himself. He stared at her body lying on the ground and realized he was pleased by her attentions—the stitches, the bandage, the cloak—it was because she needed him to be alive to get to the Wall but nevertheless her concern seemed so real... He could still feel her light kiss on his palm. There was no need for that but she had done it anyway. He clenched his right hand and kept that little moment deep inside him just before another burst of fever made him fall asleep.

The next morning the sun woke him up by shining right in his face. He put a hand over his eyes and noticed her bustling busily by the fire again.

"What are you doing?" he snorted.

"You finally woke up! How are you feeling?" She looked at him with a hint of relief in her eyes. The girl took some things and walked to the tree to kneel in front of him. "I didn't want to wake you. You've been shivering and talking in your sleep… I was very worried…"

"Better now I feel like if I've been sleeping for a century!. Did you make the bandages?" he asked. She nodded at looked at the ground. "You fell asleep and the cuts were still bleeding… I didn't know want to do… I thought that might help…"

He looked at her. He should say something about it but couldn't find the right words. "It's fine; it'll help" he managed to say as he stroke his side over the clothes with his right hand.

She handed him a wooden bowl: "I've tried to prepare something to eat. Our Maester at Winterfell always gave us this soup when we were sick. Maybe it helps. I've also made the fire by myself." She looked proud of herself so Sandor took the bowl and tried it. It tasted like… water. Hot water with sliced vegetables. He grimaced at her: "Did anyone of your family get better with this?" he grumbled "Even the monks meals tasted better!"

Sansa frowned and rose "I was raised to be a Lady, not to cook in the forest or to sew anyone!" she said angrily.

"Did they also teach you how to throw stones to soldiers? 'Cause that you really do it right!" he mocked her. She blushed and looked away. "I… I just wanted to help… but you…you still think I'm the silly little girl you met years ago. You still think I know nothing about real life."

He stared at her from the ground where he sat holding the bowl. She wasn't a little girl anymore; she was a brave woman. He could have bled to death had it not been for her and somehow he had disappointed her.

"I know what you went through in Kings Landing and I can imagine the rest. Life hasn't been fair for you since you left your home. Sadly, you know too much of real life, little bird."

She sat again; her anger gone for now. He ate the soup; at least it was warm. "It isn't so bad. It has vegetables," he said. Although she was looking away, he could see how she began to smile shyly: "I hated it too when Maester Luwin prepared it. I preferred lemon cakes," she said, and they both laughed at it.

When he was done, he rose slowly leaning on the trunk of the tree. He still felt weak and dizzy so when he stepped forward he needed to put a big hand on her shoulder to keep from falling. She took his arm: "Are you all right? Maybe we should stay here a bit longer until you got better?"

"No, we need to move on. We've lost too much time and someone in the inn could be looking for us. Pack the things, we're leaving," he said with finality.

Sandor put on a clean shirt and his cloak; although his movements were slow and careful the wound still gave him a great deal of pain. He needed all of his strength to mount Stranger but he couldn't allow himself to rest any longer. She prepared their things quickly and they left as soon as she mounted her mare. Once on the horse everything was easier; he only needed the horse to take him.

The hours passed as they rode by the Neck. She rode next to him but they barely spoke, although she peeked at him from time to time. They stopped to eat something and after a while continued travelling until dusk. By then, the pain was unbearable and he almost fell from the saddle when he tried to dismount. He got to stand until he rested against a giant rock. The effort of the day had left him exhausted, but at least they had managed to go half the way. Now he figured Moat Cailin should be only one days' journey away.

He unbuttoned his cloak and found the shirt stained with blood again. "Bloody hells!" he cursed. Sansa took a bag from her horse and hurried to kneel where he was. "You're bleeding again!" she gasped. He tried to take off the bandage around his torso but the fever had returned to him and couldn't do it properly, so she helped him. Her fingers untied the knots of the bandages and she began to unwrap slowly the fabric. As she did so, her fingertips touched his chest, her touch giving him goosebumps. He stood still, letting her do what she needed to do, absorbed in the movements of her hands. She poured some wine over the wound; it stung like a million needles stabbing him, but he barely paid attention to it—all of his senses were filled with her proximity: her hair placed behind her ear, her concentrated gaze, her hands making the new bandages…he would be perfectly content to lay there for hours, just watching her. Maybe it was the fever, maybe his stupid imagination or maybe it was simply that he was going mad in that journey with her, but he seemed to feel her fingers touching his body more slowly that they should as she put the new fabric around him. His body tensed under her touch; she should be noticing it. Then she wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of her hand: "You're burning with fever…" she gasped with her face only a few inches from his filling his entire viewing space. He grabbed her hand, uneasy and excited; lost in her blue gaze and pulled her closer. He had already lived that situation before, a long time ago, that horrible green night he ran to her chambers. But this time she wasn't scared, but worried and expectant. Don't do that, little bird, he thought, don't look at me as if you care… The dying sun painted everything in a soft reddish colour that made her hair shine.

"Sandor..." she whispered.

He knew he wasn't aware of what he was doing when he pulled her to him and kissed her. It was a short, hard, clumsy kiss—the only way he knew to do it. She tensed under his lips but after the first few seconds of surprise and nervousness, she closed her eyes and kissed him back—a short soft warm peck, the only way she could do it. Their lips only touched for a few seconds but it was like a moment suspended in time. He looked at her when they separated, surprised not to find any disgust on her face but rather a bit of embarrassment as she blushed looking down. "Little bird..." he moaned, still holding her hand tight. She looked at him again, smiling slightly, and then she slowly huddled up between his legs and lay against his chest. They remained that way, with him holding her, both wrapped in their cloaks, until the sun went down.

"Go to prepare some of that soup of yours," he said when it was dark. She rose and left, and so the moment was gone as quick as the wind blows. He sat there, eyes closed, with a new and strange warmth in his body. The rest of the night was quiet; they ate in silence and then she lay to rest under her cloak next to him. Only that night there weren't nightmares in his dreams.

The next morning they woke up early and rode again for hours, until the remaining three towers of Moat Cailin appeared on the horizon. It was claimed that Moat Cailin was raised roughly ten thousand years ago, by the First Men; a great stronghold, with twenty towers and great wall as high as that of Winterfell's. Now most of its towers had fallen into ruins and were completely covered in green moss, but it still was an effective natural choke point which had protected the North from southern invasion for thousands of years. Its three towers commanded the causeway from all sides and they need to pass between them.

"Do you think we could bribe that man, Gunter?" she asked.

"Hope so, 'cause it's the only way to pass. All men like money; I don't think this would be any different."

Hope we have money enough, he thought to himself, or we'll be fucked.

They saw the Bolton's banner flying on top of one of the towers: the pink flayed man of Dreadfort. Sansa shivered. "I never liked Roose Bolton, he frightened me when I was a child," she muttered.

They covered their heads and rode slowly towards de stronghold.

"STOP! YOU THERE!" a man yelled from atop of a tower when they were arriving. "WHO'S COMING?"

"Only a pair of travellers on their road to White Harbour!" he shouted back.

"Nobody can cross. Lord Bolton's command. Go back!" said the man.

Sandor looked up to the castle. There were at least 20 archers at the battlement and a similar amount of foot soldiers.

"Let me talk with your captain Prister. His friend Pate sends us, we have something for him," he said.

The man hesitated for a bit but finally went to look for the man. Sandor and Sansa dismounted and waited beside the horses. Some minutes later, the man called Gunter was leaving the castle. He was a tall slim man, in his thirties, and he looked angry.

"So, want do you want, man? I haven't got all day!" Gunter snorted

"We just want to pass and follow our path." Sandor said again.

"Nobody can cross to the North, I'm sorry."

"Pate, at the inn, said you were a reasonable man," he said while handing him a bag filled with coins. Gunter opened it greedily and then eyed them wickedly. "Do you want to bribe me? Do you take me for a fool? Lots of people knows Pate, I bet you've never even been at his inn." He turned to go "Like I said, nobody can cross. Now go!"

Sandor looked around and calculated his chances: he could for sure kill the man, and maybe some of the soldiers, but not all of them before an arrow reached him. And the girl would be alone among the rest of the men. He tried to think quickly when suddenly he heard her saying: "Pate told us about Jocelyn."

The captain stopped and turned back "What did you just say?" he asked staring at Sansa.

"He said she was eager to see you again…" she almost stammered. The man walked again where they were. Sansa looked for something in her pockets and she handed him a shiny thing: "This bracelet was from my aunt… you can give it to Jocelyn next time you see her. She'd like it," she said.

Smart girl! Sandor though pleased.

The man looked at it and frowned. "You know I can kill you both and keep it all," he threatened.

Sandor shrugged and put a hand on his sword hilt: "Not before I kill you first. And so you won't enjoy the money nor your girl. You better let us go on our way."

Gunter hesitated but finally shouted: "Open that door and let them pass!"

They mounted again and rode through the wooden keep rotted away a thousand years ago. Great blocks of black rocks lay scattered around, half sunk in the ground, where the wall once stood. Despite the ruinous state it was in, the keep was still impressive. The men of the garrison looked askance at them but none tried to stop them. Once they crossed it, they rode more quickly until the towers of Moat Cailin were out of sight.

She took off the hood of her cloak; "We did it!" she said. "Finally, you got me here" A big smile lit up her face as she looked at him.

"Aye, we are here, little bird."