The ride to the Red Fork took them eight days. It had been weeks since the last snowfall, and the air was sharp and cold but not so bitter as it might have been.
Four of the youngsters had come along; two were so scrawny they could sit the same horse without tiring it. But they were all of them grown enough, and either they'd grow to fit their swords or they wouldn't. It was out of his hands now.
On the fourth day, Jeyne rode beside him, solemn and still in her saddle. Her big grey eyes followed Arya as she rode well ahead of them with one of Harwin's men close on her heels. He didn't notice that Jeyne had unwrapped the long scarf from around her face until she spoke. "You're worried about her," she said in a low voice, breaking the long silence.
He trained his eyes on his palfrey's ears. "I'm worried about a lot of things. Don't tell me you don't worry about Willow every day."
Jeyne smiled at him. "I'm no fool, Ser, and surely not a blind one. Don't talk to me like I am."
Experience had proven that when Jeyne pulled out the "ser" he had lost the argument.
But she didn't press him this time. "I do worry about Willow," she said instead. "Every time I draw breath, I worry. It's no use. But I do it anyway. There's times it feels like the one thing I can do."
Arya's bundled form swayed a little in her saddle, and his breath caught in his throat. "I know what you mean," he muttered, and they fell back into silence.
That night, they heard the wolves.
Gendry sat with his back to the fire, and let the soft noises of the sleepers filter through his ears and tried to focus on the sounds of the forest instead. It was difficult. Reynold snored, and Arya still talked in her sleep. When the first howl broke though the muffled quiet of the trees, Gendry jerked himself straight and tightened his gloved fingers around his sword hilt. It was close, so close. Arya's murmured words had stopped and her breathing quickened, unnaturally loud in the quiet camp, but she tossed on her bedroll as though still asleep. Then another howl sounded, and then another, and another, and another to his left, to his right, before him and behind. Gods be good, he thought irrationally, wildly, they're all around us.
There was the sound of shifting cloth as Jerome started awake and sat up. The howling continued in a mournful cascade of sound. No sooner than one began to trail off did another lift its voice to replace it. Another glance behind him showed that young Addam had awoken as well, and sat with wide eyes, hands pressed over his ears in horror. The sound of Jerome baring his steel roused Reynold, and soon the seven of the eight were awake, staring blindly into the thick trees where the howls rang out again and again without abating.
Gendry's eyes lingered on Arya, who still thrashed about on her bedroll and whimpered. A shiver ran through him. She was still asleep, he was certain. A howl rose above the pack, deep, guttural, expectant, and Arya seemed to contract in upon herself, a tight ball of wool and fur and fitfully sleeping girl. Why did it make him so afraid?
No one else slept that night. When the howls grew more distant and the eastern horizon turned a pale pearly hue, Jeyne roused Arya and they set out again. The group of them, unsettled by the eerie night, spoke but in whispers. Arya kept her silence and would not meet his eyes.
That night the wolves came again. Gendry stoked the fire higher and higher, and sat with his sword in his lap until the sun came up. Even when the noise receded, he still heard the howls echoing in his heavy head.
On the sixth day, the wolves howled even in the daylight and hounded their heels so close that Gendry expected to see the entire monstrous pack every time he looked over his shoulder. The horses were driven wild and wanted nothing so much as to flee at full gallop. As the day passed into night, Gendry began to think they would never reach the Red Fork and was quite convinced that he might never sleep again. When full darkness fell, he built the fire still higher and they all huddled around it as the calls of the wolves surrounded them once more, so very close.
But that night, Arya did not sleep. She sat beside him and stared into the trees, her face empty of any expression. She was shivering. He said her name without thinking, and the light of the fire caught in her eyes when she turned to look at him. He shifted to put his back to the others and leaned toward her. "Do you know what's happening?" he asked in her ear, his voice low and harder than he meant it to be.
She looked at him for a beat and tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. "We should hurry tomorrow," she whispered finally, not even attempting to answer. She dropped her bundled head onto his shoulder, and pressed her face against his cloak to shield it from the wind. Gendry could not say if either of them slept that night.
On the eighth day, they finally crossed the river and the snow began to fall. Arya rode beside him that day, but kept her mouth shut and her eyes trained on the thickening forest around them. The trails they followed were narrow, and Gendry could not always make them out, but he trusted Jerome's guidance.
It seemed the pack had been slowed by the river, for their calls were fainter than they had been since they first began. But still Arya stared into the trees, searching.
"What are you looking for?" he asked Arya at last, after she turned too far in the saddle and bit back a growl of pain from straining her leg.
She shook her head. "Dead men," she whispered.
A wolf howled.
"Death doesn't mean what it used to," he said, taking care to keep his voice low.
She exhaled, her breath showing thick and pale in the cold, damp air. "My brother is alive. Bran. He came to me in a dream and told me I wasn't alone."
He didn't say anything, and after a time she eyed him sidelong. "Do you think I'm making it up in my head?"
Gendry thought about it for a long time. "Thoros can see the future in flames and breathe like back into a man. I've seen things I can't ever explain, things I wish I could forget. I don't know your brother. I surely can't tell you he isn't able to talk to you in your dreams."
By evening, the trails had widened to a road, and soon the road was joined by other trails and widened still more. When the looming inn rose before them, Gendry was profoundly relieved. The wolves could howl all they wanted with strong walls keeping them at bay.
It was midmorning the next day before the Lady and her entourage rode in, right on the heels of a group from another outpost of the Brotherhood. They set to digging a fire pit five hundred paces into the trees almost as soon as they arrived, and Gendry heard that the gathering would take place at mid day, as soon as the company had settled.
As the morning slipped past, Arya sat in the common room of the inn with her head down and her hood up. The shadows under her eyes told of another sleepless night, and no wonder. She had not once mentioned what he had told her of her mother, and he had honored her request for silence on the matter, but he imagined that she could think of little else. It was surely the case with him.
One of the women who kept the inn had given Arya a carved stick to help her walk steadily, but when he stood beside her and told her they should head to the fire, she left it lying on the trestle table and leaned on his arm instead. He felt absurdly grateful to be of use at last.
Their walk into the woods toward the fire was a slow one. The ground sloped down, which was a boon, but the fresh-fallen snow made the walk treacherous. Gendry kept his eyes trained on the path before them while Arya scanned the trees and the few men scurrying past them. When she stumbled to an abrupt stop with a sharp intake of breath, he followed her line of sight. The fire pit was dug into the low point between three rises of ground, and some fifty or so men and a handful of women milled about it, great dull bundles of cloaks and overcoats. On the opposite rise stood a lone figure in grey, staring down immutably at the scene below.
"It's her," Arya whispered, and he should not have been surprised that she could tell at this distance.
"Aye," he said, and pulled her gently back into motion.
They were still fifty paces from the fire when the wolves descended. They slipped over the rise like sand from a closed fist, scores of them, more than he could guess in a glance. Those gathered around the fire noticed almost immediately, with the murmurs lifting to shouts and the scraping sounds of steel being bared cutting through the still air.
"Torches!" a voice from near the fire shouted.
"No," Arya said. "Oh no." She pulled at his arm and they moved faster despite her unsteady steps.
The wolves slipped into a half moon formation around the fire pit, but stood back well beyond the reach of any weapons but bow and arrow. "What are they doing?" he wondered aloud, half horrified and half in awe at the sight before him. "I've never seen..."
They reached the fire, but Arya pulled him past it, pushing through the now silent throng with no regard for bared swords or the open flames of their torches.
"Look at the beast!" Someone cried into the stillness, and "Kill it! Arrows!" shouted another. Arya jerked away from him, and, quicker than he would have believed, had pushed past the front line of the crowd and stumbled a dozen paces through the snow toward the pack.
"No!" he heard her shout, though whether she was speaking to the men or the beasts he could not say.
"Back, girl!" someone cautioned as he pressed to the front of the crowd, but she paid them no heed.
When he could finally see, he froze in place, breath stolen away from his chest.
Arya stood with her feet planted wide apart in the snow to keep steady, staring down the largest wolf he had ever seen or imagined. As broad as a horse and surely as heavy, beast stood almost as tall as Arya at the head, and its yellow eyes glowed with an eerie light. The pack milled in an uneasy half circle around it, but continued to keep a healthy distance.
"Arya," he pleaded, but she ignored him.
"You're blocking my shot," Anguy said angrily.
"Pull her back," another suggested, and a man rushed forward with arms outstretched towards her. The wolf growled, a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate in Gendry's chest, and then lunged in the man's direction.
"STOP," Arya screamed, her body a blockade between the arrows and flame and the ring of beasts before them.
"No, no, no, no," Gendry chanted. He found himself moving forward, thoughts a muddled panic, but an arm jerked him back before he'd taken two steps. Jerome shook his head once, hard, and jutted his chin back towards the woman and the wolf. The arrow hadn't flown, and the wolf stood still, now closer to Arya than to the pack, and made no further move to threaten the quickly retreating brother who had reached for her. The smaller (normal, he thought) animals slunk and paced back and forth, but did not press forward to attack. Arya stood with one hand flung behind her back in a gesture that echoed her command to the men, and the other stretched out before her, entreating the wolf. What is she doing? he wondered wildly, but as soon as the thought passed through his mind he knew the answer. He had known since the first night they heard the wolves.
The massive wolf took a step towards her, its ears flickering forward and back like leaves in a gale, snout jutting up into the air as it sniffed.
A woman moaned in horror somewhere to his left, and he could hear Thoros muttering a fervent prayer behind him. A glance up the opposite hill showed that the Lady had not moved, but still stood silent atop the hill with her terrible eyes locked on the girl. He didn't have the time or presence of mind to dwell on what she might possibly think of this.
The wolf took another step, and Arya took five. She was shaking, her wounded leg trembling beneath her. Gendry thought he might choke on the very air, but he dare not move and risk breaking this awesome spell.
Arya shifted all her weight to her good leg and stretched out both her arms. She was speaking very softly but he could not hear the words. She leaned, leaned, and suddenly, she was falling, hands scrabbling at the empty air to regain her balance. But in half a heartbeat, the air wasn't empty. The wolf bounded forward and Arya's hands closed on long thick fur. Her arms slipped around the wolf's grey neck and her body sagged against its chest.
The dire wolf (for that it what it must be, he told himself) turned its head back towards its smaller cousins, milling restlessly at the edge of the trees, and snapped her jaws once. A low rumble emanated from deep within her chest, and Gendry felt the flesh on his arms and neck prickle and shiver in response. The pack seemed to understand. In twos and threes they slipped back up the rise and melted away into the brush of the forest.
Arya still clung to the dire wolf's neck. Her whole body seemed to be shaking from the effort of standing.
Gendry shook himself loose from Jerome's grip and stepped closer.
"Arya... are you..." he began, but broke off when the wolf's yellow gaze snapped to him. He didn't think the girl had heard him, despite the wolf's reaction.
Arya Stark was crying.