SANDOR
Rarely had Sandor ever felt dwarfed in comparison to another living thing. He was smaller than his brother, but still quite large and large enough that could compete with the likes of wolves and bears. The dragons had made him feel quite small and insignificant, but they were enormous legendary beasts and he was but a human. This fucking giant wight, however, was another matter entirely. In the shape of a man, but ten times the size, it was already a formidable opponent, but given that this giant was a wight and one that nearly came up eye-level with the ramparts, this would be no easy feat to bring the thing down.
The only person stupid enough to try and have a go at it was Euron Greyjoy who had dodged in and had to retreat about half a dozen times because he could not get close enough without being nearly trampled to death or sideswiped by the wight's massive hands or pushed back by the man-sized wights forming a protective circle around the giant's legs.
There was one other who was slowly gaining ground, but it was not due to stupidity or intelligence, but rather a lack of any conscience at all. Gregor was advancing but distracted by at least seven wights that were stabbing, hacking, sawing, biting, clawing, and they had absolutely no effect on him. He continued to move forward and the giant must not have noticed him or did not realize that he was not a wight. Sandor thought that all the wights shared a collective intelligence connected to the Night King, but the scene in front of him proved him wrong, for the smaller wights were doing everything in their power to stop Gregor to no effect and yet the giant did not perceive him as a threat.
Still, being weighted down by wights was making Gregor's progress slow and if he was the only one who could get in close enough to the giant to kill it, he would need help. It went against all of Sandor's few principles, it made his stomach turn at the thought, and it angered him to no end, but he would have to defend the man, the thing he hated most in this world if he wanted to survive. The giant was the biggest threat at this moment and Sandor was the only one who realized that Gregor was the key to eliminating that threat.
He shoved his way through the congregation of battling clumps to reach Gregor and pulled two wights off of him whilst pressing against Gregor's back to keep him moving forward and half-hoping his brother wouldn't turn around and notice him. He wouldn't put it past Gregor's not-quite-dead self to realize that he, Sandor, was right there and that Gregor could easily kill him before continuing on to the giant. Gregor had no better concept of morality now than he did while he was alive. It didn't matter to him who died tonight, so long as he got to kill something or someone, and Sandor was at the top of that list.
He felt someone pushing against his back and glanced over his shoulder to see Euron Greyjoy, Jaime Lannister, and Beric all leaning their weight against him whilst fighting off those wights that were attempting to get to Gregor. Sandor felt a heavy gust of wind above him and knew it was the giant's arm swiping overhead, narrowly missing them.
Changing course on the fly, Sandor gave one final shove and the giant's sights fell upon Gregor whilst Sandor and the others remained hidden in Gregor's shadow. With the giant occupied, Sandor rushed in, calling for anyone within distance to follow him as he stabbed the giant in the leg. One hit should have been enough, for he had seen Mormont and the Dothraki fell giants out on the moors, but this one did not succumb to the fatal stab. Joined by Euron Greyjoy and Jaime Lannister, they made shredded meat of the wight's shins, but whatever power was keeping it upright by way of the Night King, it was not going down easily and was ignoring them in favor of trying to grab Gregor. Huffing with the effort of essentially fighting a tree trunk with roots that grew deep, Sandor was on the verge of forfeiting the battle when Beric struck, driving his sword into the giant's leg where its ragged clothing took to the flame, setting the entire beast alight in one giant heat wave.
Sandor took an ungainly step back as the force of the heat drove him into retreat. What should have been a low, thundering roar from the giant as it realized it was on fire instead came out as a lower but still ear-splitting shriek and Sandor covered his ears against the sound. As with most people in the courtyard, his gaze was drawn by the towering giant whose flame-engulfed form stood out like a beacon. It lit up the entire courtyard and the wights fled from it, offering a few moments of respite for the defenders.
For how much he loathed and feared fire, Sandor also could not look away from the spectacle before him and harbor some pride that he and Beric had taken the giant down, and his moment of spectating cost him. One second he was watching the giant teeter over him and the next, he was face-down in the mud with something digging into the back of his scalp. He surfaced from the muck and rolled just in time to avoid Gregor's boot smashing down where his head had been seconds before.
He should have known his luck would not hold out. Not even the end of the world could stop Gregor from finishing what he had waited his entire life (and now death) to do.
Sandor had lost his sword when he took the hit from behind and so he drew the dragonglass dagger, furious that he had allowed himself to be disarmed so early in this battle against his brother. Gregor swung wide at him and Sandor easily stepped back, but for as long as Gregor had a broadsword to keep him at bay, Sandor would have difficulty getting in close. He could run, but now that Gregor had set sights on him, he would pursue Sandor throughout the castle and the grounds and ignore all else. Sandor was his target now and he no longer would contribute to the cause of defending the castle, so he needed to be eliminated.
Gregor brought his sword up overhead and as it came down, Sandor sucked in his gut and moved in, close enough to knock Gregor's helmet aside and stab the Valyrian steel dagger into Gregor's nape to no effect. He had hoped that a weapon that was supposed to be able to kill the worst enemy ever known to man would be more than enough to be a finishing blow to whatever the hells sort of creature Qyburn had made Gregor into, but those red eyes glared back at him almost with satisfaction that he could not so easily be killed.
Before Sandor could withdraw his dagger, he felt his windpipe blocked off and only became aware of the hand at his throat and the wall of fire behind him for a splitting second before he was on all fours, gagging, choking, sobbing for breath. Fighting to stay lucid and find his way back to his feet, he tilted his head as far back as he could to see the fiery giant ripping something in half in its last moments before the fire consumed it. Then it began to fall and Sandor saw flames come crashing down to engulf him.
He was a child again, watching the fire swim up to meet him and start to eat away at his flesh as Gregor held his squirming form down. There would be endless, agonizing pain, but this time, there would be no servants to pull him away, to douse him with water. The fire had sampled him once before, and after a lifetime of searching for him, it would devour the rest of him under the flaming body of a dead giant.
Something hit him hard in the back and he went sprawling in the mud, then he heard screaming that stood out from all the other desperate, dying voices around him. He knew that voice. Flipping over onto his back, he saw Beric's lower body, smashed and trapped beneath the burning corpse of the giant. The flames had already caught onto his tunic and armor, rippling across his chest and trickling up to his neck.
There would be no saving him. Sandor had killed this man before and been sorely tempted to do it several times over since then, but there was no Thoros of Myr to bring him back. His damnable Lord of Light had left him to this fate, had chosen him to die in this manner in a twisted and disgusting form of irony. As Thoros had thrown Sandor aside in the face of the wight bear, so had Beric done the same now, and both would die for it. Both servants of fire and flame had given their lives for him and as they were born again of fire, so would they die of it.
But Sandor could not watch Beric burn to ash in front of him. He could not watch this man succumb to the fate that should have been his. He heard a maddened sound in his chest, screaming, laughing, swearing, possibly all three, and approached the burning giant even though his body was doing everything it actively could to make him crawl away and once again hide from that which terrified him. His only thought was to not watch this man die alone in such pain.
He dug his hands into the mud to form a protective layer over his skin and then grasped Beric's forearms to begin pulling. It should have been impossible to drag him free, but his lower body had been completely crushed by the giant and resembled little more than minced guts as Sandor hauled him away from the fire and then threw handfuls of mud onto him to douse the fire as best he could. Beric was making the most awful sort of sounds that Sandor could not block out, but he knew that anything he did to the man now would not be felt, for he was too far gone already.
Taking a knee, Sandor looked down on the charred mess of what had moments ago been a foolishly brave and devoted man. No words came to him now; there was nothing he could say to ease Beric's passing or to thank him for a sacrifice that might amount to nothing. After he had found his lord, Beric had been too noble for his own good in trying to give men second chances when they didn't deserve it. He had had questionable motives at the best of times and at the worst, he never shut the fuck up about his salvation, but it was thanks to him that Sandor was here, that he had come to find his own redemption and purpose.
How was Sandor to thank him for that? How could he show Beric that he was grateful for all of it, even with the endless monologuing of the Lord of Light?
Please, Beric's lips mouthed. Don't leave me like this.
But what did he mean? There was nothing Sandor could do for him, no way to save him. How was he supposed to leave him?
With blood spilling over his lips and a tear squeezing out of his single eye, Beric's gaze centered on Sandor and he choked out the very last coherent sentence he could form, "Don't–let–him–raise–me."
He knew what a desperate, pleading, dying man sounded like because he had been that man once, only his cries for a quick death had gone unanswered. Beric wanted to die now and stay dead, fearing for his soul if the Night King should bring back the corpses of all those who had fallen already. What a terrible existence, to be forever damned to walk the earth as a corpse with only some faint semblance of a memory as to what life had been, to never rest, never find solace in any sort of afterlife. Stuck forever in a body that would not respond, a slave to a master that only dealt in torment over an icy empire. The only way to ensure this did not happen, though, was to burn Beric, and he had surely had enough of that.
Almost in a comical manner, Sandor happened to look sideways and see the still moving torso and head of his brother lying just feet away with Sandor's Valyrian steel dagger still in his neck. Stomping down on the face to anchor the body and pull out the dagger, Sandor returned to Beric who was convulsing something horrible now. Turning Beric's face away with a gentle touch that he knew Beric could not feel, Sandor positioned the dagger point at the back of his skull and then drove it into the bone.
How kind of the raging battle around him to not interfere with his actions just now. He knew there was no time for it, but he would not have wanted his body to rise again as an eternally damned monster and so after closing Beric's remaining eye, he lifted the latter and set his body down beside the giant wight. Methodically, slowly, and with no real satisfaction in it, Sandor took hold of one of Gregor's arms and lugged the half body to a spot not beside Beric but still close enough to the giant that he would catch fire.
He rolled Gregor toward the flames and then backed away, watching those soulless red eyes fixated upon him until the fire enveloped all that was left of the thing that had once been his brother by only the loosest definition of the word. As determined as Sandor was to not die by fire this night, he knew that the only other option was to die by ice and so he wanted to be sure that whatever hells he ended up in, Gregor would not be there to continue tormenting him.
/ /
BRONN
He knew something had taken a drastic turn when he saw the Stark boy barrel past him on a horse. How a crippled boy had managed to mount a horse was the least of his concerns, but since that boy was supposed to be in the godswood to draw the Night King and White Walkers in, Bronn knew the plans had changed. His entire purpose had been to keep the wights back and hold the walls while Jon Snow and others dealt with protecting the boy and leading the Night King into an ambush, but since that tactic appeared to have been abandoned, now what was he supposed to do?
"Oi, where the fuck are you goin'?" Bronn called after the boy's retreating back as the latter steered the horse toward the main courtyard to flee out the hunter's gate now that the north and east gates were overrun. He was still watching the horse's backside disappear into the throng of wights when he saw a blade cutting through the air to make contact with his nose and just managed to parry it in time.
The wight locked in combat with him was a big fucker, though, and with its weight pressing in on him and making his already shaky legs buckle, he was quickly running out of time to think his way out of this one. His eyes detected a flash of brilliant red far off to the left and though it made no sense for her to be here when everyone who knew her had pleaded with her not to be, he was relying on her now if that was indeed her.
"Shoot, Sansa!" he roared, and a moment later the wight fell with a dragonglass arrow in its throat. Bronn wobbled slightly as he adjusted to no longer having the wight bearing down on him and looked to Sansa Stark who was still holding her bow aloft in firing position some dozen feet away from him. "What took you so fuckin' long?" he complained.
"Fear of hitting you," she answered indignantly.
Then, Bronn noticed a man at her side who also had a bow, but who was leaning heavily against the wall.
"Seven fucking hells," he said almost in a state of elation at the sight of Littlefinger standing there wounded and likely useless, but present. In rare form, Bronn mentally took back all those colorful insults he had said of the man earlier. Wherever he had gone, whatever he had done, he hadn't run, and Bronn had a healthy suspicion that he knew exactly where Littlefinger had gone and if he was correct, he now owed the little sod his life.
He had no opportunity to thank him for it, though, and likely never would, for he saw the black dragon perching atop one of the walls near him and as it sprayed its fire out onto the swarms still attempting to climb the walls, it did not see the White Walker taking aim at it from behind with what appeared to be a javelin made of crystal.
"Oi!" he shouted out in warning, but he knew it would not be enough to make the Walker divert its attention to him when he posed no threat in comparison to a dragon. Luckily, someone else distracted the Walker. Unluckily, that someone was Jaime Lannister. The Walker sent his javelin flying before it drew its sword to match Ser Jaime. The javelin barely missed the black dragon's shoulder and as the dragon sensed its near-demise pass so closely next to it, it took flight in alarm and Bronn could just make out a head of silver-blonde hair fall from its back and topple out of sight.
Torn between Ser Jaime who would most assuredly die against the Walker or the dragon queen who might already be dead from the fall or worse, Bronn paused beneath the east gate archway. It was a case of which person could contribute more to the fight: a one-handed warrior or an inexperienced woman who commanded dragons, a man who knew and respected Bronn or a woman who barely knew him and had threatened him and tried to kill him?
He saw Ser Jaime go down on his back and Brienne of Tarth plunging in to stop the blow that would have impaled him…
Bronn ran out the gate, swerving right to where he calculated the Targaryen woman had fallen. She was surely either trampled by wights by now or at the very least, lying broken somewhere in the snow drifts, but logic told him that the dragons would be raising hells right now if their mother was dead, so even if she was dying, she was still alive, not that he held out much hope. The trench fires illuminated the base of the walls and it seemed that the dragon had cleared this particular section, for there were no moving bodies to be found here, save for one.
She had landed in a massive snow drift and lay gasping for breath as the shock waves traveled up her spine. Her legs kicked to try and free herself of the deep snow, only for her to disappear deeper into it. Then, when Bronn was about to figure that he would have to go digging around in the snow banks for her, he saw her tumble out onto her side. She was flipping onto her stomach to crawl away when a wight made a dive from the walltop and after landing with a horrible crunch, jumped up to no ill effect and lashed out at her. She searched about wildly for a weapon from a fallen ally, her fingers fumbling for something made of dragonglass, but even if she did find something, she would not be able to lift it in time.
Bronn unsheathed the dragonglass dagger from his belt and tucking his arm back, unleashed the full force of his throw. The wight crumpled with the blade in its back. Bronn ran to his kill, snatched up his weapon, and pulled the Targaryen forcibly to her feet before stuffing some poor dead bastard's dragonglass hatchet into her hands.
"Stay right with me," he ordered.
She was light and springy to the point where he hardly heard her footfalls in the snow behind him, but he was not relying on her battle prowess if they came into a spot of trouble trying to get back into the castle. The east gate was swamped once again with the dead making their way inside and the north gate was not a safe bet either if they had to cross through wights to get there. Their only other options were to wait out the storm here or try for the hunter's gate which the Stark boy had supposedly gone for earlier, but since that gate was supposed to have been barred after the initial retreat from the moors, Bronn didn't like either of their chances.
Still, enemy movement was less likely on the other side of the castle if the dead were so preoccupied with coming through the closer gates and it seemed that they were siphoning off from the south since the east gate was so accessible. Even if the hunter's gate was barred, the chances of wights wandering around to the unoccupied castle walls seemed minute next to the chances of being discovered dodging around and hiding until unlikely help came for them.
Bronn doubled back from the way they had come and the Targaryen woman stayed on his heels as they ran, hugging the castle walls to stay out of sight of wights still making their way over the trenches toward the east gate. Their luck held with nothing to stop them or delay them, but as a man who found the lack of obstacles to be cause for concern rather than relief, Bronn felt his pulse beginning to pick up as his warrior instinct warned him of impending danger, though he could not say in what form.
They were along the south side of the castle now where the sights and sounds of battle were quieter, almost easy to ignore. Here, where the fire did not burn and the cold could be felt more bitterly, it somehow grew colder with every step he took.
"What is it?" asked the dragon queen behind him.
"Something's wrong," and he knew that she understood by the fact that she did not question him on what he meant. On a night like this, for something to feel so incredibly wrong, there could only be one reason why. He felt her hand slip into his and together, they broke into a mad sprint to outrun that which was coming for them. The cold tore at Bronn's lungs as if he had already been running for hours, but he dared not slow down or look anywhere but ahead despite there being only darkness to see.
When he judged that they were coming upon the gate, the cold solidified as if he had run headlong into a curtain made of the thinnest sort of ice. He skidded to a halt along the frozen ground and the Targaryen collided with him from behind, nearly sending both of them face-down into the pockmarked snow, but he kept his feet as he saw something glowing in the darkness.
He could not form words for the Targaryen, but he did hold out his hand as a warning for her to stay back, because what could she do? What good would she be if Bronn himself felt utterly and completely fucking useless at the sight of the illuminated blue eyes swimming into focus? He should not have been able to see what he was seeing, but almost as if the figure was emitting its own light source, it became fully apparent and what little courage Bronn had left trickled away as the darkness revealed the last enemy, the ultimate enemy in all his terrifying glory.
Bronn was not one to complain about how life was bitterly unfair to most. He had known that since childhood and had decided to use that to his advantage rather than become a victim of it. But this was absolutely fucking unfair.
The Stark boy's vision come to fruition. Bronn stood alone, staring down a lone figure of ink black and ice blue. Expressionless and cold, it watched him and Bronn felt that terrible plunge in his stomach as he knew true fear. And what's more, by the look the ugly cunt was giving him, he knew that Bronn was the one who had downed the dead dragon, and took it as a personal affront.
He tried to remember everything the Stark boy had told him leading up to this moment, a hint or a clue as to what Bronn's purpose would be and why it had to be him confronting the Night King instead of someone else. The boy's words had been infuriatingly cryptic, his visions frightening and full of despair. All that Bronn could gather was that the boy had forewarned him that he would indeed come face to face with the essence of evil, not that he would defeat it. He had been told that futures had been altered, but the ending remained the same.
What was his ending, then? How did he die?
What's it mean, boy? his thoughts cried out in frustration and hopelessness that he was alone to find the answers himself.
The penetrative, fixed gaze of the Night King had rooted him firmly in place up until this moment as it had in his vision. The Night King drew from his back a weapon of pure crystal with a devastating blade, the tip of which he pointed at Bronn, marking him as he had done in Bronn's nightmares.
Armed only with the dragonglass sword and an equally useless dagger, Bronn hefted the former high and as he did, he felt a great rush of heat as back, instinctively dropping to his knees and covering his head as fire burst in front of him. A billowing, towering line of fire separated him from the Night King and under cover of the flames, he saw a giant, scaled black claw reaching down for him.
"Wait, no, not again–"
His arms were pressed into his chest with the flat of his blade pushing uncomfortably against his ribs as the dragon bore him away from the Night King's sight but as Bronn saw the ground shrinking away below him, he caught sight of the lone set of blue eyes watching him. The Night King had seen his face, knew what he had done, and would come for him before the night was over. He hadn't escaped his doom, only delayed it.
He swore to the heavens. Twice now this night he had been unceremoniously snatched up and given an uncomfortable, petrifying ride and he did not want to give the beast a chance to give him a third ride. As much as he sought the thrill of battle and danger, flying through the air entirely at the mercy of a dragon's whim (and one he had attempted to kill, no less) was not the sort of excitement he wanted to experience again.
From his vantage point, he could see the Targaryen clutched in the dragon's other claw, for which he was grateful because he had entirely forgotten about her at the sight of the Night King. What an unfortunate ending that would have been if he had done all that and gone through such a fuss to rescue her, only to leave her on the ground to be killed or worse by the blue-eyed cunt.
They were descending now and Bronn braced himself to be dropped as he had the first time, but the black dragon took much more care to release its cargo than the green dragon had and opened its claw just enough that Bronn was able to maneuver himself around and slide out of its grip at his own leisure. Once his feet touched ground, the dragon took flight again with its mother now astride its back where she belonged and out of Bronn's sight and responsibility without so much as a word of gratitude.
Aye, you're welcome, he thought darkly, though he supposed the dragon's timely arrival near the hunter's gate was the only gratitude he was liable to receive, which was fair enough.
The dragon had brought him to the main bailey which was strangely and eerily empty. He could hear muffled sounds of battle from outside the walls and within, but none around him. It brought him no relief to be here and not on alert. His aching muscles had wanted a moment's rest all night, yet now that he had it, he was suspicious as to why that was. The battle could not be nearing its end, could it? How many fighters were left? And where in the seven hells had they all gone to leave such a large section of the castle grounds empty?
He cast his eyes over the corpses on the ground in search of a familiar face that might give him some indication of how the battle was going. If he recognized no one, that could only bode well, but if he saw the most experienced of fighters lying among the dead…
The bodies here did not move, save for one.
From out of the fog caused by hot blood and breath meeting with the frigid air, Jon Snow was crawling to him, holding a hand to his midsection where his innards were attempting to leak out. His other hand held his sword, steel glinting off the firelight to reflect the flames in its brilliance. Valyrian steel.
Running to meet him, Bronn pushed his bloody hand aside to see the extent of the damage, but Snow shook his head, lips pale and closed tightly as if he were afraid that he might vomit if he opened them.
By all accounts, Jon Snow was the luckiest bastard alive. Bronn had heard tales of how he had survived things that made Bronn's own luck seem mild and unimpressive. The gods favored this one as they favored no other man, so for Snow to be cut down now, it did not evoke feelings of hope within Bronn.
Snow pushed the pommel of his sword toward Bronn as a command and a plea.
A man of Bronn's station could only ever dream of wielding a Valyrian steel sword in battle. He had been touched by a spark of longing and indignation that Clegane and Mormont both earned weapons of such blessed steel before the fighting began when he was just as capable a warrior and yet was being sent to the front lines with only dragonglass. Now, the marvel of a sword was being gifted to him in desperation because Snow had no strength to offer it to anyone else.
It was Bronn's choice to take it, or not, and he realized at last what the Stark boy had meant. His decisions, his choices, had brought him here to this moment in the bailey with Jon Snow, to accept the sword and the responsibilities that came with it, or to turn away from it all and continue fighting in the way he knew how with a blanket of safety and security in knowing that someone else would have to find the courage to do what Jon Snow was asking.
Bronn would have to go right back out from whence he had just come because he was the only one alive that he knew of in capable condition who had a Valyrian steel sword. The castle had almost fallen, his people were dying, and for all he knew, he was alone, the last man standing. If he did not end this, no one would. A sellsword born in the filth of his southern village was the last hope for humankind and what a fucking pitiful thought that was.
The difference was that the first time, he had happened upon the Night King by chance. This time, he would have to make the decision to face the bastard himself. It was his choice, to do as he always had and lit out when the danger was too great, or to stand his ground in a manner that did not suit him at all.
And the Stark boy knew which option he would choose.
/ / /
SANSA
She could not remember at which point fighting back had turned to running, but when she could find no more arrows and the numbers were too great to stand against, she found herself sprinting for her life–until she remembered that Littlefinger could not run. Cursing herself for abandoning him in her moment of weakness, she turned back, only to see that he was right alongside her, now green and looking on the verge of collapse. When faced with absolute terror at the prospect of finding the strength to continue on when the alternative was to stand and die, people often discovered that strength buried deep within, and Littlefinger must have been accessing the very last reserves that his body had left to offer to be able to keep pace with her when he had lost so much blood already.
There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to fight where they stood the slightest chance and Sansa could not defend the two of them forever, if at all. She held out her arm to prevent Littlefinger from running further and then shoved him down low against the north wall to the guards hall as a throng of Lannister soldiers formed an offensive line and made a suicidal charge around the corner where Sansa could hear them being slaughtered. She made herself as small as possible as she saw wights trampling over corpses, their blades fresh with the blood of those Lannister soldiers.
Atop the first keep across from them, Sansa saw three archers picking out targets below to defend those soldiers still alive, though scattered and quickly losing ground. Squinting against the ash and steam, Sansa could make out the small, narrow frame and strawberry blonde hair of Alys Karstark and felt a swell of pride for the young woman who was a far better archer than Sansa could ever hope to be, and just as brave as her grandfather ever had been. Her sights followed a wight along the ground and Sansa watched her arrow take out one of the cadavers that had been about to run Theon Greyjoy through with a spear.
On Theon's left was his uncle Euron, wielding a sword in one hand and an axe in another and cutting a vicious circle to keep the wights back. On his right–was Sandor. Sansa could not help the exclamation that escaped her at the sight of her lover and her friend. She was about to stand and call out to Sandor, but thought better of it as she realized that making herself known to him just now would distract him and, as he was surrounded on all sides by wights, he could not afford one second of distraction.
What could she do? How could she help when she had but a small dagger and the responsibility of protecting a dying man beside her?
Her eyes fell upon one of the elevated fire pits only about fifteen feet from her. She knew there was a high likelihood of the flames not spreading, of them spreading too quickly and consuming those she was trying to save, of so many things going wrong, but if she didn't do something, she would have to crouch here and watch two deaths that she could not stand to see. She had been rescued by both Sandor and Theon on numerous occasions in more than one way and could not call herself worthy of their protection if she did not try to do the same when offered the chance.
Pulling her sleeves down over her hands to protect her skin, she hurried over to the fire pit, grasped the metal rimming, and tipped the coals toward the cluster of wights closing in on Sandor, Theon, and Euron Greyjoy.
One wight caught fire and as it began thrashing about, it passed on the flames to three more standing around it. Those closest to the trio of fighters were not aware of what was happening behind them, and though several wights were now going up in flames, those at the front moved in for the kill. Theon took a blade to his outer thigh and fell to his good knee. Sandor stepped in front of him while Euron stepped away from him.
The fire spread, taking from one wight to the next until over half of the circle was alight and Sansa saw through the brilliant light reflecting from his eyes, that Sandor's fear was about to overtake his courage. If the surrounding fires were to be believed, he had had to confront his greatest fear so many times already tonight and as brave as he was, even he could not outlast a deep-rooted terror. In her attempts to save him, she had unleashed the very last ounce of self-control that he possessed.
Then he spotted her and she let out an ungodsly sound to draw the wights to her, away from him at any cost. Her plan half-worked as those wights on fire turned in her direction, but the other half still surged forward at the three men who were watching her selfless act in awe. She watched the too-large maddened eyes of Euron Greyjoy sparkle with amusement and insanity before at least seven different blades stabbed at him and he went down hacking, laughing, and giving the most unhinged sort of battle cry.
Sandor took advantage of Euron's demise to throw Theon over his shoulder and cut his way toward the first keep, but Sansa could not stay to see if he would make it, for already the burning wights were closing in around her and she had to retreat. Trying to keep Sandor in sight whilst running backwards, she saw a distorted image of something slicing him across his back and him roaring in pain and anger.
Her boots pivoted in the snow as her body fully intended to break through the gathering of the dead to reach Sandor with all thoughts of her own escape gone from her mind. Someone grabbed her from behind and started to pull her away, toward the guards hall door, but she fought to keep walking forward until something slapped her hard across the cheek, leaving the skin stinging.
"You can't help him," said Littlefinger in a wheezy, pained voice.
"Let go of me," she told him, surprised her words had not come out in a rabid snarl.
"You have to leave him," Littlefinger insisted, trapping her wrists in his filthy hands. When she continued to fight him, he rammed her hard against the door, sending a fresh wave of pain up her spine as she made contact with it. She tried to bite his knuckle, but he tightened his hold and bared his blood-stained teeth. "No, Sansa!"
She wanted to tell him how much she hated him and spew out every curse, every insult, every hurtful word she could think of to make him, to make someone pay for the hurt she was feeling and the inability to control her reaction to it. Someone had to atone, someone needed to hurt as she did, to suffer as she was. Instead of achieving any retribution or satisfaction, she allowed Littlefinger to kick open the guards hall door, thrust her inside, and then begin barricading the door. Without fully being aware of what she was doing, Sansa helped him, pushing cots and tables against the heavy timbers until they had used every piece of furniture within reach in front of the door.
Littlefinger grasped a bed post and promptly vomited blood all down the front of his tunic. He was deteriorating at an alarming rate, but there was nothing Sansa could do for him that she hadn't already done. The reality that her ally was about to expire in front of her hit her hard and she dropped to her knees to examine his wound again in an effort to make herself feel the tiniest bit useful, but he pushed her hands away.
"Leave it. Go to the back of the hall and prepare to find another way out in case they come through that door."
"We'll go together."
"I'm not going anywhere anymore. I can't." He sank down onto one of the cots with a final sort of sigh as if his body was exuding relief that it no longer had to work to sustain itself.
"Stand up. You are not dying here."
"But I am dying."
"You don't get to give up so easily, not after the years of lectures and lessons on finding a way to survive that you fed to me. Stand up, Lord Baelish. You will die when I say so, and not before," she said fiercely.
Sparing her a small, sad grin, Littlefinger scoffed at having his own words turned back on him. "You commanded me to die, and so I am only doing as my lady commands. I have not the strength to make it one more step, Sansa. I can't even find the will to stand up. I used up the last of everything I had to get you inside her and buy you some time. Don't waste my effort."
"No, you don't get to tell me to do anything. You will come with me even if I have to drag your body behind me. Your last act will not be a selfish one in refusing to give your very last bit of strength to–"
"Of everything I have been tonight, selfish is not an appropriate word to add to that list. I've done things that I never would have done under any other circumstances. I came for you, but only you, not the others in the crypts. I knew you would not run as I wanted you to, but I had the means to arm you and give you a chance, so I did. Their lives mattered no more to me now than they did before."
"What an awful, craven thing to say. If you've done all of this just to prove me wrong, you should have died on the walls where you belonged," Sansa spat, hurt that even his own mortality could not redeem Littlefinger.
His gaze was contemplative, curious, and perhaps a little confused as he regarded her trembling form. "You aren't upset that I'm dying. You're afraid to be left alone once I am gone. But you needn't fear being alone. There are still fighters out there and I am by no means the last. The world will not suddenly fall upon your shoulders when I am gone from it."
"You don't know that."
"That, I do know."
How could he possibly know what would happen to Sansa once he had drawn his last breath? He had no powers of perception or foresight any stronger than any other man–except Bran. And Bran had shown him–
The walls shook, the roof shuddered, and dust fell from the timbers. There came a thundering boom as something fought to get in.
"They're on the roof," said Sansa, taking her dagger with the blade up. How she wished for a sword right now, even though she had no idea how to wield one. Her dagger would not be enough, as it was a last resort weapon, and not one for someone who hadn't even the vaguest idea of how to use it as their main weapon.
Part of the ceiling fell away as stone, wood, and hay rained down on Sansa and Littlefinger to admit three bodies. Sansa threw herself sideways and then, clasping both hands around the dagger hilt, she plunged her blade down into the nearest body while it still lay upon the earthen floor. She withdrew quickly and as she made to stab the second, saw the third rising up eye-level with her with its axe raised.
Littlefinger hurtled his own dagger at it and its body pinned the second long enough for Sansa to dispatch it.
A pause, a look of gratitude passing between them, and a confusing rush of emotion, then more of the rooftop caved in.
She heard more feet above her, saw Littlefinger mouthing the words to make her turn heel and flee, and made to follow his last order to her but something latched around her ankle and brought her smacking down onto the ground where she felt a thin slice in her chin open up upon contact. Grateful that she had not bitten her tongue in half, she tried to shake off whatever held her down while also crawling for her fallen dragonglass dagger, but then she heard the rasp of an undead set of lungs at work behind her and knew that she was not going to make it. She felt the wight's claws digging into her, cutting through the material of her trousers and opening five deep punctures in her ankle.
Then the pressure around her ankle bone released and she saw Littlefinger laying atop it, holding it down with the entirety of his body weight as his legs finally gave out on him.
"Sansa, run!" he hollered as the wight turned its attention to the man holding it down instead of the woman just out of reach.
She was frozen in time, watching more wights battering down the door and racing toward them. Several stopped to fall around Littlefinger and begin tearing into him with their skeletal hands. His screams nearly shattered Sansa's eardrums in the closeness of the hall and she felt a sound, an explosion of fear and horror and strangely, infuriatingly, sadness rising within her.
"Gods damn you, go! Go, Sansa! " Littlefinger hollered.
Clapping a hand to her mouth to stifle whatever sound might be born from her throat, Sansa scrambled to her feet, snatched up the dagger that had fallen from her grip, and ran as she had never run before with the full use of her legs. No weighty skirts slowed her down, no reminder to adhere to the code and manners set before her as a woman of the court. She ran for all she was worth, feeling guilt that she should not be feeling for a man not worth feeling guilty over.
In the narrowed and arched hall, the last sounds made by Petyr Baelish echoed tenfold and Sansa felt hot tears brimming in her eyes, though she was ashamed to feel them.
What had just happened? Surely, she had to be hallucinating that Petyr Baelish had just done what he did for her. For her. The second most selfish man she had ever met had just done the most selfless thing, the unthinkable, and for what?
For her forgiveness. For her acceptance. For her.
He could not prove his sincere regret to her while he lived, and so she had sentenced him to die. And he had shown her in a final act of devotion, one last attempt at an apology that he would never know if she accepted, that he was sorry. He had given the very last thing he could give to her to absolve himself in her eyes, even if he never heard her say the words.
Could she forgive him now? Or was even his death not enough to redeem him?
Then she thought of the lingering look Bran had given Littlefinger in the godswood, long enough to tell him what his fate was, and if Littlefinger had seen his own death and accepted it, then he was far braver than anyone had ever given him credit for. She had thoroughly expected him to be cowering somewhere, out of sight of the battle, waiting to be killed squatting in his own puddle of urine, but he was the one who she had stayed by her throughout the night since fleeing the crypts and his valor had fueled her in a way that no one else's could because if even he could muster courage, she most assuredly could. About that, he had been absolutely right in that she no longer could rely on him and she was utterly, completely alone to confront whatever else the night had in store for her.
Even when she was a prisoner of Ramsay within these very walls, she had nurtured hope that someone would come for her, someone out there still cared for her and she could rely on them. She had hoped for the longest time that Littlefinger was that person and when he no longer was, she had found comfort in others, in her brothers and Arya, in Theon and Tyrion, in Sandor and Bronn. But Littlefinger had come back to her in the crypts and been the ally she didn't know she needed or wanted when she had no idea if anyone else was alive and to lose him after she had instantly become accustomed to having him in her company again, he had been correct; she did not know what to do without him.
The isolation frightened her. The thought that she would have to make her next decisions alone and the uncertainty of what that entailed made her want to seek shelter in the hearth and wait out the rest of the battle, but that would mean that she was doing the very thing that she had admonished Littlefinger for. She had ordered him to die and told him that she would not allow anyone to die for him, that he would be dealt with swiftly if he chose to hide.
What, then, was she doing now? She did not have to be the deciding factor in the battle, as Littlefinger had told her, but she did still have to fight. Her participation mattered, that much was clear after what she had already accomplished tonight. When she wanted nothing more than to conceal herself, wait for it to be over, and deny the responsibility of being strong, she had to endure, just as Littlefinger had, just as Sandor had, just as everyone still alive had to.
If she had saved any lives tonight, it was because Petyr Baelish had saved hers. Now she would have to make that sacrifice mean something.