Ramsay
He'd kill them all. He'd escape, he'd recover from the two arrows in him and what felt like a broken ankle and then he'd come back and he'd kill them all, very, very slowly, flaying them alive with the smallest possible knife. Perhaps he'd find some way of killing his pampered half-brother, so that he would be the heir to House Bolton and therefore untouchable when he returned, but he would return and he would kill them all.
He wiped the blood out of his eyes and then frantically crawled through the undergrowth, trying to ignore the agony from his ankle. Thorns scored his hands and burrs filled his hair. There seemed to be blood everywhere, in his eyes, in his mouth and in his boots. He scowled and then giggled to himself. Yes, blood. That was important. He could see something up ahead and he parted the bushes carefully. That was the old path. He knew where he was now. Somewhere on the other side lay the slope up to that outcrop and that spring. He needed water.
Grabbing a tree trunk he hauled himself to his feet and then quickly hopped across the path on his good leg, before collapsing into the undergrowth on the other side and listening carefully. No shouts, no calls. Perhaps he had outsmarted them and sent them the other way. And then he started his shuffling crawl again, trying not to cry out every time his ankle hit something.
They shouldn't have been here. These were his woods! His! He snarled the word again and again as he crawled, lost in a rage. Those self-righteous pricks in their own livery and their servants and their arrogant belief that he was committing any kind of crime by hunting in his own woods! He had been about to corner his prey, who had led him a very pretty chase, the little slut. He loved the hunts now, they were the best idea he had ever had. Reek's advice had been valuable. He had a habit of coming up with good advice every time that Ramsay got angry, which was often these days. He had heard that his brother wanted to meet him, and when that day came he'd kill him and take his place.
And then they had arrived. The two young Warricks and their sister. With their men. They'd taken one look at the naked slut and then at Ramsay and Reek and then it had all been up. Reek had gotten an arrow through one eye, so he'd been useless and it had been up to Ramsay to defend himself. He'd gotten one of the Warrick huntsmen with an arrow in the shoulder and then he'd run. Because then the arrows had come, and the pain and the screaming and the wild flight through the trees, until the fall down the small outcrop that had hurt his ankle. Kill his brother. Yes, kill that bastard.
He felt dizzy for a moment and an sickening feeling ripped through him and he stopped crawling to shake his head. He needed water. He needed that spring. He needed food. Rest. A chance to bind his foot and keep going. South perhaps? Kill Domeric.
The slope steepened suddenly and he slid down it, leaves and branches going with him, his hands going out to try and slow his slide. His broken ankle hit something and he yelped with pain and then gritted his teeth and rode it out. When he came to a halt he looked up. He was in a small dell. And there was the spring. He grinned wildly – and then he stopped moving and looked around. He was being watched, he could feel it. And then he saw the watcher and relaxed. A raven, on a rocky outcrop. Just a raven a stupid bird.
He crawled forwards slowly, his eyes on the spring – and then he looked back at the raven again. It was just sitting there and staring at him. Fixedly. That was not a normal stare for a bird. And then he heard the soft sound of dry leaves being trodden on. He looked over and then pulled his knife out and rolled onto his back, before pushing at the ground with his free hand and good foot until his back was to the outcrop. Who was there? The raven stared down at him. It was starting to annoy him.
Branches shifted and he looked over just in time to see a wolf stride into the dell and then sit down on its haunches. It too just stared at him. Ramsay licked his lips. This was not good. But he had his knife and he was at bay. Nothing could beat him. Nothing. And then raven cawed three times. The wolf got up off its haunches and stood. And then… it seemed to double in size, swelling to become a great direwolf, or what he presumed was a direwolf. He blinked hard and then shook his head in denial. When he looked back it was just an ordinary wolf again.
He swallowed convulsively. Something… something was very wrong here. Had he hit his head? Was the wolf real? And then it snarled at him and he gripped his knife firmly and prepared to defend himself. But as he did he felt a weight on his shoulder and he looked up as the raven alighted onto his shoulder – just in time to see its beak jab down into his eyeball, faster than any raven should be able to move.
Pain annihilated the world and he screamed in agony, flailing at the filthy creature and then falling to the ground, his hands around his eye and his knife in his lap. And then somehow through his screams he heard the growl and the thud of paws and then he felt the even more hideous pain in his neck.
In the last moment before the pain and the flood of blood into his lungs snuffed everything out he thought he heard an old and very creaky voice say: "A life brought back and a life ended." And then nothing.