Late March, 299 AC
The mud squished between Arya's toes as they made their way along the farm road. She'd finally given up on her rotted shoes, and her feet hurt. The men claimed they would soon find her another pair, but Arya didn't believe them. They were outlaws, and outlaws were all liars.
The outlaws surrounded Arya's pack, half riding and half on foot. Some had armor, but it was rusty and mismatched, and their cloaks were stained from long use. Almost all of them had wild beards that hid their lips and made it hard to tell their mood.
There was Jack, a one-eyed man with scraggly brown whiskers, Dennett, a short and stocky greybeard, Lem, a big man with a bushy brown beard in a dingy yellow cloak, and Greenbeard, an even bigger Tyroshi with green-grey whiskers. The only beardless one was a skinny red headed archer named Anguy who looked to be Gendry's age.
Gendry walked by Arya's side, a black eye blooming on his sullen face. He still blamed himself for the rest of them getting captured. When the outlaws took Arya, she'd argued with them loudly in the hope that the others would scatter. Instead, Gendry had tried to free her, and in all the commotion Nan had begun screaming, revealing the hidden nest in the blackberry thicket.
At first they'd all been terrified, afraid that the men would steal the horses or rape them. But they'd let Arya and Gendry keep their swords, and when Nan wouldn't stop screaming Lem had taken her from Jeyne and rocked her to sleep. Arya wondered if Lem had a family somewhere, waiting for him to come home. Jack didn't. Both of his brothers had been killed by Lannisters some moons past.
Meri and Jeyne rode the horses, little Nan sleeping in her sling against Meri's chest. Jeyne nibbled at a hunk of yellow cheese while Meri yawned. They'd been traveling for days, sleeping in the oddest places.
First they'd slept in the trees of the yellow wood, in a village of little huts built high above the ground. The next few nights they slept in a vault beneath a sept, amongst cobwebs and casks of wine. The begging brothers had given them what food they could spare, and they'd blessed the outlaws as soon as they asked for word of Lord Beric Dondarrion.
At each place the men asked for word of the lightning lord who seemed to be their leader. It felt like years since Sansa and Arya watched the handsome lordling ride forth to deliver the king's justice to Gregor Clegane. Were there Winterfell men still with him, or had they gone to Robb? Arya dared not ask, lest they suspect who she was. A common girl would not ask for Alyn and Harwin of Winterfell. She wondered how far north Yoren was now- she owed the sour man her life.
"We may hear sommat this evening," Anguy said as they made their way through burned fields. "We'll be sleeping on High Heart, and there's an old woman there what knows things."
High Heart was well named. The great hill loomed over the flat land. Climbing it seemed to take hours, and they were panting and drenched in sweat by the time they reached the top. The hill was crowned with weirwood stumps, immense and pale and hard as rock. Arya and Gendry counted them while Meri sat on a stump and fed the baby, the nanny goat chewing on a nearby shrub.
As she looked over the flat plains Arya wondered where Sansa was. Although she hadn't seen her sister since the outlaws caught them, she could feel that she was near. Was she hiding on the hill? The weirwoods had been cut down but there were plenty of bushes and trees that remained.
The leaves rustled in the wind as night fell. Meri and Jeyne curled up for warmth, Nan between them and Gendry wrapped around them, but Arya couldn't sleep, for there were whispers on the wind. At last she gave up and crept to the campfire.
Lem and Anguy stood beside the dull embers of the fire, and between them was a woman Arya did not know. She was tiny, her face a mass of wrinkles, her skin pale as milk, her hair a cloud that fell to her feet and whipped about in the wind.
"Tom's not here to sing for you," Anguy was saying. The old woman spat on the ground.
"This I know, and more besides. How will you pay me for my dreams?"
Anguy handed the little woman a wineskin, and she examined it for a moment, frowning.
"The lightning lord awakes again, and wishes he might sleep. He's far afield. You'll not find him, not until the manticore clutches bees in his claws."
"We'd hoped for better news, crone," Lem complained.
"I hoped for a song or a kiss, but I'll not be getting them either."
The little woman stared into the darkness, her eyes red in the glow of the dying coals.
"Come, she-wolf," she called. "I'll share my dreams for a hair from your tail."
Lem and Anguy stared at the little woman, frowning. Long moments passed, then Anguy cried out as a red direwolf slunk out of the darkness. Lem drew his sword, his eyes white with fear.
"Put it away, foolish man," the little woman said as the red wolf crept to her side. "If she wanted your blood she'd have torn your throat out days ago."
The woman turned and smiled into the gloom, a claw-like hand extended.
"You too, child, you cannot hide from me."
Ice trickled down Arya's spine. Warily she approached the dying fire, her eyes fixed on the direwolf.
"The old gods rise from their slumber," the woman whispered. "But they are not the only ones. Winter is coming, child, aye, and the cold gods walk again."
The hairs rose on the back of Arya's neck as the wrinkled woman took a swig from the wineskin, her lips stained red as blood.
"I dreamt two wolves in the darkness, one with wings, the other black as night. A grey man sent them to swim with the merlings, but the winged wolf ran away chasing after a three-eyed crow. I dreamt a kraken came from the east, and his eye and his lips were blue. I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams. I dreamt of a maid chained to a mountain beneath the shadow of a dragon's wings. The dragon bathed the maid in fire, and the mountain crumbled but the chains remained."
The little woman turned to Lem, her dim red eyes far away.
"You came to seek your lord, but your lady has found you. Weirwood child, wolf child, the Queen and her sworn sword."
"We have no lady," Lem grumbled, his eyes fixed on the red wolf as the little woman plucked a hair from her tail. "And we'll not serve the brotherfucker queen."
The red wolf met Arya's eyes, then slipped back into the darkness. The crone laughed, and Arya shivered.
"A queen is a queen whenever she's crowned. Acorn and seedling, sapling and tree, they are all the same oak." She turned to Anguy. "Archer, you'd best find a fletcher. You'll need many arrows before winter comes, aye, weirwood for the shafts and dragonglass for the points. The Others fear the frozen flames."
The very blood seemed to freeze in Arya's veins, and she heard the click clicking of Old Nan's knitting needles. In the Long Night the Others came, Old Nan had said, her voice low. Cold and cruel they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins. Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men all fell before them, until the last hero set out to find the children of the forest…
In the morning Arya wondered if it had all been a dream. Neither Lem nor Anguy said a word to her, besides a grunt as Lem offered her a lump of cheese and stale bread. Yet as they left the hill she saw wolf tracks, dew puddling in the muddy prints. Why had Sansa said nothing to her?
Descending the hill was easier than climbing it, and the outlaws' mood seemed to improve as the sun peeked from behind the clouds. They saw a few stray horses in the distance after breakfast, and Jack and Dennett managed to catch them. Only afterwards did Arya remember she could have called them. They moved faster with everyone riding, Arya and Gendry on Hammer, Jeyne and Meri on Faithful. Lem had Nan again, his eyes sad as she dozed against his chest.
"We'll have a hot meal tonight, and a roof over our heads," Anguy promised. "There's a keep nearby and the lady is a good woman."
It was just after dusk when they forded a brook and came up upon the castle. Acorn Hall was its name, and the lord was away fighting raiders. Lady Smallwood welcomed them kindly, though she was very angry when she saw they had a baby and three girls in tow.
"What were you thinking?" She demanded as she pried Nan away from Lem and handed her off to a maid.
"We found them in the woods," Lem said haplessly. "Surely it was better they come with us than starve or get taken by lions."
Lady Smallwood harrumphed and marched all three girls upstairs, sending servants to heat water for the immense tub.
"Men," she muttered as the maidservants stripped Jeyne and Meri and a protesting Arya and hustled them into the scalding bath. "Did they at least have the sense to feed you?"
That was unfair, and Arya told her so. The men might be stinky and swear a lot, but they had shared their food, and given them time to milk the goat for Nan. She'd been speaking for a while when Arya realized that Lady Smallwood was giving her a funny look.
"Either you're highborn or you were raised by wolves," Lady Smallwood said. "You needn't tell me who you are, but you should know no common maid would run her mouth so boldly."
Meri giggled as Arya gaped at the lady, and a maid dumped water over Arya's head and began scrubbing at her filthy hair.
By the time the bath was finished Arya felt as though she'd been scrubbed with sandpaper. Her skin was pink and soft, but for her blistered feet. Lady Smallwood frowned over them and found shoes for all three girls.
"My daughter Carellen is about your size," Lady Smallwood told Jeyne, "but her gowns should fit your highborn friend." She tried to put Arya in a light green gown covered in acorns, but when Arya saw Jeyne's wistful look she refused. Jeyne took the acorn dress, Meri was given a servant's old wool gown, and after much pleading Arya was dressed in a boy's breeches, belt, and tunic. It was then she remembered something important.
"I lost my sister," Arya said quietly after dinner, when Lady Smallwood was seeing her to bed. "She'll need something to wear when I find her."
They left the next morning with spare clothes but without the nanny goat and Nan. Lady Smallwood refused to let the outlaws keep her, and ignored Arya's protests.
"You did a good thing saving her, but children have no business raising babies, let alone dragging them through the war. She'll be safe here, I promise you."
Lady Smallwood had tried to keep all of them, offering Gendry the forge and Jeyne and Meri a place among the servants. Jeyne was so quiet that Lady Smallwood hadn't realized she was highborn. Arya she offered to keep as her ward, and teach her needlework and dancing and singing.
"I have few men, but I've got strong walls. Lord Beric is away east near Harrenhal, last I heard, and it may be some while before he returns."
But Arya refused. She wanted her mother and Riverrun, not Acorn Hall and lessons on being a lady. Besides, if she were meant to stay here, then Sansa would have come in, not hidden somewhere nearby as a wolf. She'd dreamed of the red direwolf last night, hunting rabbits and drinking from a brook.
Arya wasn't surprised when Jeyne and Merissa declined to stay. They'd remained with Sansa a month as a wolf, they wouldn't leave her after she went missing for just a week. Much as it annoyed Arya to admit, Sansa inspired loyalty like a lady in a song. It did surprise her when Gendry refused to stay. She'd seen him wistfully examining the forge after dinner, holding a hammer like he'd been born to wield it. But he'd refused to stay anyway, and he wouldn't say why.
"It's worse 'n ducklings," Dennett grumbled as they set out from Acorn Hall. "We can't watch all four o' 'em, not when we should be fighting lions."
"I can fight," Arya protested, her hand on Needle.
Greenbeard chuckled. "Perhaps, skinny squirrel, but children should not fight unless they must." He stroked his whiskers thoughtfully.
"The lightning lord may be far afield, but we know where he'll come eventually. We can drop them with the others and be on our way."
That annoyed Arya. She wasn't a sack of flour to be dropped someplace safe.
"Drop us where?" Arya demanded.
They made no reply, but Greenbeard and Lem and Anguy looked at each other and smiled.