The boots of the army of the north had churned up the earth and turned it to mud that sucked at Dacey's feet. Dawn had not yet come and most of the men were hiding in their tents from the rain. It was a dismal day on campaign but an easy one. They were encamped in safe lands with ready supply nearby. She wondered how many would spend the whole day in their tents, gnawing at stale bread and chewing tough pork. It sounded quite appealing to her.

Dacey's heart was not so easy. Her nightmares had woken her early in the morning and she had walked into the rain to be free of them, but all she had found was news, and none of it good.

"Lady Dacey," the guard outside the king's tent said, placing the haft of his spear between her and him. "The king is still abed. Surely you cannot mean to enter as you are."

"Shove off it Haller, I've been on campaign with you for two years now, and I've news that the king will want to hear."

Haller's mustache twitched. "I can make no-"

"Just tell him it's me already and let him make up his mind."

Haller's mouth opened and closed, and then he disappeared inside the King's Tent. Sometimes it is just as well that I have an ax for a tongue. The man reappeared a moment later. "He will see you milady, I-"

Dacey pushed past him. The king sat at the edge of his bed on a snow-bear pelt, dressed only in a thin linen tunic split down to his breastbone. Dark purple bruising showed itself there like… she could not bear to think it but the thought came anyway. It was very like the dark purple of a rotted corpse. Gods knew she had seen enough of those in her lifetime.

"Lady Dacey," The King said, "You have news?"

"Yes," she replied. "Your sister has been kidnapped and Lord Baelish is dead."

"Oh," the King said, a sense of vague disappointment clouding his features. "Who is it who kidnapped her?"

"The Hound. The brother of the Mountain, who I am sure you remember. They say he had a catspaw with a knife sneak into Lady Sansa's quarters and take her. Lord Baelish was killed as they cut their way free."

The king closed his eyes with weariness. "This will make treating with the Vale difficult."

Dacey's lips pursed. Was that all the emotion he could muster for his own sister? Dacey thought of what she would say if it had been Lyanna or Alysane, and the grip on her ax's haft tightened. "This all happened only six or seven hours ago. We would have heard sooner, but the Valelords hoped to recapture them before word got out. If we send hunters out we might yet be able to capture them."

The King nodded. "Of course. You will go since you are already ready at arms. I will see who else can be rallied."

Dacey bowed deeply. "My thanks for your trust, your Grace," and then she turned and left. Her heartfelt pulled in two directions as she walked. The king only wanted his sister to be another tool, another ax in hand with which to beat the Lannisters. That thought sickened her. A girl of thirteen, barely blossomed… it was not right to sell her away so quickly. Every part of her revolted against it.

That thought is treason, she reminded herself, but she could not shake it. Even so, she would find Sansa Stark and bring her home to her brother, if not for the sake of the King, then for the sake of Sansa herself. The Hound was a lesser villain than his elder brother had been, but a villain all the same, and Dacey would not let any maiden stay in his power for long if she could help it.

The sounds of dogs barking broke the stillness of the morning as she entered the part of the camp reserved for use by the Brotherhood. Their tents were plainer stuff than the Northern army's tents. They were tents made for hunters, made of simple fabrics, stitched with rough needles… but they were in far better repair than the faded glory of the North and the Riverlands.

More of the Brotherhood were ready at arms than the Northern camps. That much was no surprise. The Brotherhood were irregular soldiers who fought and killed at every hour. They had been fighting longer than anyone, and their struggle had been fierce and personal in a way that a grand cavalry charge never could be. Haunted eyes peered out at her with suspicion. That was nothing surprising either. Many in the Brotherhood regretted joining themselves to the King's Cause. Is that something we have in common?

At last, she saw him. "Anguy!" she called. "How fare you this fine morning?"

He smiled in reply and she could only love him for that. After all that had happened, Anguy still greeted her with a smile. That was half of why she had sought him out. Love Jon though she might, she could never forget her troubles around him

"Where's the fine morning?" He said, "Is the rest of the camp all sunshine? Is it only the Brotherhood that's cloaked in rain and fog?"

"Alright, it's a shite morning." She leaned on her hip. "What say you to a hunt?"

"A hunt? Now? Here? What sort of game d'you think we're like to find about here in the rain? There have been three sieges of Raventree in the war, there's no game for miles about here."

"The kind that runs on two legs and sometimes four."

Anguy's eyebrows rose a notch. "Deserters?"

"Of a fashion. They say that Baelish had the Hound in his employ."

"Seems a bad notion."

"It was. The Hound killed him and stole away Harry Hardying's blushing bride."

"Ah, fuck."

"Come on now, where's that cocky Marcher spirit?"

Anguy shrugged. "Don't know, musta left it back the Marches somewhere." He laughed. "But nay, milady we'll find your princess, sure enough, it's just going to get my socks wet. That's the only concern. I'll get the boys roused along with their dogs. Apologies in advance for the smell."

"With how bad you all stink I think I'll barely notice the dogs."

"The dogs? They're the sweetest of the bunch. Wait till you smell the trackers though. Only the Lord o' Light knows how the dogs find anything with these sorry sods walkin behind 'em. HEY!" He yelled into a nearby tent. "We're off to save a princess you sorry lots! You want any of that glory or d'ya mean to sleep away the day?"

The trackers bitched and moaned but within the hour they had everything ready for the hunt, everything except their quarry.

"How were we supposed to get on the Hound's scent again?" Anguy asked.

Dacey sighed. "We have to hope the Vale knights cooperate."

The camp of the Vale practically glowed with all the colors and banners and tents. Fresh dyed cloth with scarcely any stains on them, scarcely any patching. But as fresh and unused as the tents were, the men were even fresher, walking about in the rain in polished steel as though someone was watching. Dacey and the Brotherhood looked like a pack of brigands to the lot of them, she had no doubt, but it mattered little. They had only come here for the scent.

Dacey and Anguy entered Raventree already dripping wet and covered in mud and grime. The castle was built of old stone and black hardwood. Dacey wondered what had happened to Tytos Blackwood. She had liked the fierce old man in the time she had known him. At least until he had betrayed us. Did the King's vengeance call out for their blood as well? They had not betrayed the King, only the doomed fellows who had been hopelessly clinging to the idea of an independent North. Tytos had chosen to live, and with time Dacey came to believe he had chosen wisely, even if fate had been cruel. And now the King would either ignore him entirely or else have him and all his children gutted like fish.

They were headed to the solar where Nestor Royce was supposedly running affairs but were caught off guard when a reedy man appeared from a room on the side, wringing his hands earnestly and asking if he could be of assistance. The man was the castellan of Raventree, apparently, and Dacey imagined he was most eager to see them gone from his castle as soon as possible.

"You want something to set your hounds on the scent? Yes, yes… if you had come an hour later, I might have nothing. Every damned knight in both armies fancies themself the next Aemon the Dragonknight, off to save the princess from a monster. I still have a few items, a few personal effects which should serve… just a moment."

In the end, they got a silk handkerchief and they were back out in the rain and the mud. Finally. Her heart could stay calm when her body was in motion and the wind and the rain and the motion of the saddle could distract her from the pains of the soul. Even better than motion, was motion in service of a righteous cause. Rescuing a young girl from a ruffian? There was no shame in that. An hour passed, perhaps two, but who could say. Light rain and wind and the occasional howling of a wolf were the only way she could measure the time.

She gradually came to know the trackers. They were a pair of brothers from eastern parts, somewhere around the Claw, fond of cursing and complaining and chewing sourleaf. They seemed reluctant to share how they had ended up in the Brotherhood without Banners so Dacey did not press further. They knew their craft, and that was enough.

Suddenly they pulled up to a stop. "What is it," she asked, "Have you found something?"

"A fuckload of rain, that's what we've found," the lead tracker said with a scowl. "That and hoofprints from a thousand crowfucked Vale knights who are off trying to save their damsel. Jackasses, every last one of them." The tracker spit out his sourleaf and gestured rudely at a bit of fabric stuck to a limb. "This one here's crossed our path four times already, every time going a different direction. Bastard's probably fallen into a ditch by now and good riddance."

Dacey kept quiet. The Vale knights were green as grass and had armor that shone like silver, but she could not begrudge them that. She would not claim any superiority over them because she had been bloodied and dirtied and worn bare from use. Any nobility in suffering had lost its appeal over a year ago.

She scowled. They stopped and all her troubles caught up with her. They needed to think, not just mindlessly chase after the dogs. Where would Sandor go next? The Lannisters, that was the popular notion, but what little of the trail they had found had pointed away northward. Did he hope to meet with the Ironborn at Moat Cailin? The idea seemed ridiculous. Or perhaps they had a notion of finding some secret path through the neck, and going on the Winterfell…

"Anguy, we're fools."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Can't say you're wrong. You have wisdom to share?"

"It doesn't matter where they're going, not really. The tracks don't matter either. They're headed north on two horses with three riders and it's raining. If they come to a river they'll need a bridge or a ferry, but they don't know the territory so they'll be searching at random. We can just ride hard for the nearest crossing and pick the scent up from there." She paused. "Assuming you know the territory, anyway."

That was something like a joke, though neither of them laughed. Anguy had been riding hard in this exact area for almost two years now, and probably knew the lands here better than the face of his own father. He sighed, "Sure enough, I know the way. If they change course suddenly we'll lose them but..."

"We have choices to make, and any one of them could turn ill. We may as well pick the path that has a chance of success," Dacey said. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled and the dogs took up their barking.

"The Riverlands is full of wolves these days," Anguy observed idly. "Not as afraid of men as they once were either."

Dacey laughed and cuffed him on the shoulder. "Are you afraid of a few wolves? We've enough arrows and spears to kill a hundred wolves."

"More worried about the common folk, they don't have protection against wolves," Anguy stated. "But that's a problem for another time. Let's keep moving."

They crossed three rivers that day, making camp on the far shore of the third. The rain let up at last and they built a small fire and ate roast rabbits with onions.

"So what's the Hound's plan?" Anguy asked her over their campfire. "He's stolen the girl and killed the next best thing to a Lord Paramount, but what next? He's too big and ugly to smuggle himself onto a ship and he'd never make it across the neck in the first place. Bolton killed the ironborn on the neck but there are still deserters and the like hiding in the brush, ready to kill. I know he's supposed to be a fierce hand with a blade; I've seen him in action myself, but... Even the best fighter can't take much worse odds than two to one."

Dacey stared into the fire a moment. "Maybe he's broken," she said eventually. "He doesn't have a plan, he just knows he can't keep going on the way he is, so he makes a change, or tries to, even if it's doomed to fail. He tries some mad scheme like this not because he thinks it will work but because if he fails at least then he'll be dead. It happens to men if they fight long enough, and reports are he wasn't quite right in the head to begin with."

Anguy laughed. "So like us then."

"More or less." She stopped again and stared into the fire, and before she knew she was talking again. "When I left Bear Islands I was angry and mean and filled with rage and vinegar. My family was an embarrassment to the North, a jape gone sour. I thought I could change that if I earned glory at my king's side. And for a while, I thought I might. We were always winning at the start, and I felt sure that if I could just win one more battle, take one more keep, then I could earn the recognition my house deserved. It felt good. I didn't feel too big or too clumsy or too poor. I felt like I mattered, like the awful history of my house had been forgotten and we'd all moved on.

She waited for Anguy to say something but he only kept silent, and before she knew it, the words were spilling out of her again. "When we lost the King, I lost everything. My friend, my brother, my king, my purpose. On top of that, I just didn't matter anymore. Victory or defeat made no difference. I sought glorious glorious death, over and over again but I never found it, glorious or otherwise. I found King Robb instead. I thought-" What had she thought? That all the brave boys who had died would come back to life with the King? That he would fight and win and somehow by fighting, undo all the damage that had been done?

She paused, watching the fire crackle. Why was she filling her head with such dark thoughts? "I don't think it matters if I matter, anymore," She said at last. "I just want to be Dacey Mormont again, but I don't know if I can."

"You mean, you don't know if the Red King will let you." Treason, the words were treason, but she did not contradict them.

/&*

The next day passed in the blur, a gray day under a sky of slate. They rode hard past rocks and trees and unploughed fields and unattended houses, seeing scarcely a single living soul. The people hide from soldiers, and they've had much practice. Night fell early but they kept riding on even as the sun set over the horizon.

"We're close," The tracker said, "My dogs can almost taste the scent now, they hardly need to see."

The hills were alive with wolf calls, but they disregarded them. There was no room for fear, not now, and the Princess would be safer with them than with the Hound on his own. She must come first, she had to come first. Dacey needed to do something right, needed to save even a single person. Just one innocent girl, was that too much to ask?

There! In the darkness! Just ahead! Moonlight glinting off fresh steel! It was the Hound, she was sure of it. Yes, she could see him better now, she could see his dark silhouette outlined against the moonlit sky from where he stood atop a small hill. Sansa and the Hound's squire were nowhere to be seen. The squire must have Sansa, Dacey realized.

"Maxwyn, take half the riders and circle around the hill," she ordered. "Keep after the girl, she's the one that matters. Try to take the catspaw alive for questioning if you can. Anguy and I will deal with this brigand."

Her horse slowed to a walk as it picked its way up the stony hill. Sandor loomed above them like some giant out of myth, like a god from one of the old stories, silent and strong and breathing fog from out his Dog-shaped helmet. Sandor was a legendary fighter, one of the best in Westeros, but Dacey bid her heart be still. He had no chance at fighting them, outnumbered as he was. Besides, you don't have to kill him, she reminded herself, you just need to stall him long enough for the others to catch Sansa.

"Didn't take you for the sort to give yourself up in some heroic last stand, Clegane," Dacey said.

"I don't take you for someone who knows a single fucking thing about me," Clegane snarled.

"We'd like to take you in alive," Dacey replied, "The King will want to know who paid you." Wolves howled in the distance as if to herald the promise of vengeance.

Sandor laughed. "I suppose that's how this looks, isn't it?"

"You took the girl for what then? To rape her?"

"I helped them escape because they bloody asked," Sandor replied. "And fuck me but I wasn't going back to your Red King and neither were they."

Blood pounded in Dacey's ears. What sort of lies were these? Was this the best he could come up with? "Get off your horse before I have Anguy shoot it out from under you, blaggard, you'll answer for your crimes soon enough," she said, her voice thick with rage. How much did the reasons of a man such as this even matter?

Sandor dismounted but kept a ready hand on his sword. He had lost this fight before it even started and everyone knew it. His last stand might have worked at a narrow bridge or in a mountain pass but in the open, on a hill, when his pursuers outnumbered him ten to one? Dacey was only glad that he had not tried to sell his life in some desperate last charge. That was likely smarter, in a sense, as he would keep them all tied down here, giving his squire a better chance to escape with the girl. It wouldn't matter of course, but she could admire his tactics. Sandor had more brains than his brother, at least.

Screams of laughter and anger called out from the forest, and soon enough the rest of their hunting party emerged, dragging the squire and the princess along with them.

"Let me go, you shits, let me go! I'm Arya fucking Stark!"

"Sandor was helping me," Sansa screamed, "it was my idea to go north to Jon!"

Dacey's head hurt. Her eyes went from Sandor to the squire to Sansa again, unsure. She looked to the riders who had captured the others, but they only shrugged helplessly. What was this madness? She did not know Sansa, did not know Arya, even Sandor she could only place by his scar… But did it even matter? Her orders remained the same, bring them back to the King. Whatever their reasons for fleeing, surely...

Another wolf howled, this time too close, almost right upon them.

"Shit," Anguy said. "If they're that close, it's no accident."

Dacey's mind blazed with possibility. Stick to your orders, complete the mission. "Doesn't matter who's who if we're all dead. Throw down your sword, Clegane, or we'll kill you where you stand. We've no time to treat with you! Everyone, get a fire going atop this hill and get ready to fight!" Wolves would not hunt men, not usually, but when food was scarce and their numbers large, anything might be possible. "Form up, form up!"

The men moved as one, lopping off branches and casting them into a pile. Sandor's sword clattered to the ground and he worked to tear away at the branches himself. They would want a raging bonfire by the time the wolves came. Even without fire, they might manage, but with the fire… Dacey dropped from her horse, rushing to the pile, tinderbox in hand. A spark, a spark, but nothing caught. Everything was too wet, too muddy. Finally a spark took, and a gentle flame sprouted from the pile. Finally, finally… Nurse the flame, shelter it from the wind, feed it with little sticks and leaves, build it up until it was hot enough to dry out the larger branches...

"Ah," Anguy said, his voice weary. "Shit."

Dacey rose and looked down the hill.

The forest was full of eyes. Firelight gleamed in the eyes of dozens, hundreds of wolves. "Gods," Dacey breathed. A pack of hundreds that does not fear men, a pack that moves through the woods, killing men and women alike. A hundred reports she had heard came rushing back to her, setting her teeth on edge. A pack led by a demonic she-wolf, a spirit from the seven hells wrapped in fang and fur.

A great black shadow moved through the trees, eating light as it walked, blocking out the reflections of the eyes. First one paw came out of the woods, then another, then came the head. A giant smoke-dark beast with gleaming golden eyes glared up at them, as tall as a horse with paws like a bear's.

"Anguy..."

"If I shoot that thing I'm just going to piss it off."

Dacey's hand went for her ax…

"Nymeria!"

What?

Clegane's squire was down the hill, running away from them, running straight for the demon wolf. That beast will snap him up in a single bite. The wolf saw her, the wolf… bent. The squire — no — Arya Stark reached up to scratch it between the ears. The wolves, all the wolves, laid down as one.

Dacey's hand dropped to her side. The gods sent the King's Direwolf as a protector, but what was this? A wolf come to protect the Stark line from… from what? From her? But the King was the head of the Stark line, blessed by the gods themselves, come back from the dead to…

A low chuffing bark sounded behind her, and she turned along with half her men. Coming out from the forest came a great gray wolf, larger and stronger than the black wolf below, coming out just above them on the ridge, its yellow eyes full of fire. Grey Wind. She felt a great deal of sadness in those eyes, a sense of regret and loss, but also determination. Her eyes stung and she suddenly felt very, very weary.

"Lady Dacey," Anguy's voice was taut with fear. "Lady Dacey, what do we do?"

She laughed. She could not help it. What were are we to do, indeed. Five hundred wolves and the will of the gods against dozen men in leathers? She did not doubt that the wolves would kill them if they tried to take Arya away from them against her will. The direwolves alone would be a match for twenty men in steel, but the pack alongside them, all fearless and strong... Dacey pushed her hair back from her brow.

"What can we do?" She said, "We let them go."