Viola lagged behind the rest of the group as they slowly made their way from the Quite Isle and back towards the riverlands. She could feel that Stranger was itching to run, desperate to feel the wind against his skin and the cry of metal and screams. He was a warhorse, after all. It was what he was bred and trained to do. Riding was still so foreign to her, despite spending near a year on horseback, it was far different being the one in control. Stranger, thankfully, was for once, patient with her, though nipped constantly at Septon Maribald's donkey, and tried to kick Dog more than once a day. Once Podrick had dared ride too close to her, and his boot grazed his side, and Stranger threw the fit to end all fits, nearly bucking her from his back as he had the day Sandor had tried teaching her to ride.

As the days turn into a week, and that week near a fortnight, she was becoming more comfortable pushing him to a slow trot after taking riding tips from Ser Hyle as well as Lady Brienne.

Brienne, for her part, had taken Elder Brother's words to heart, and had been warm towards her when forced to hold conversation, though she could still see an ounce of reluctance, and perhaps pity behind her eyes.

Each night when they camped, Brienne would teach her the correct stance while holding Sandor's sword in her hands. It still felt odd and heavy in her hands, but she found such comfort in having it on her, even if she doubt she would be able to swing it against anyone else with the ability to so much as hold a sword. She had vowed to herself as she set off from the Quiet Isle that she would be buried with this sword, with any lucky, atop her husband's cairn. The cairn they had yet to find.

Septon Maribald had been patient with her for four days as they searched the banks of the Trident mere miles from where the cottage Sandor had left her at, but they had found not a stone, much less a pile of them as Elder Brother had advised. Ser Hyle and Brienne grew impatient after the first hour, threatening constantly to leave her behind with sharp sneers, but Podrick stayed by her side as she crashed through the underbrush and walked through the shallow parts of the river to cross the other side, all while Dog and Septon Maribald watched on from the banks, quieting the others and asking them to show mercy.

After the fourth day, Viola had reluctantly agreed to abandon her search, if only for the time being. After she found Father, they could come back together and he could help her search, and after the war, when they had more time, she would ask him to carve a monument for her husband to place atop his resting place to prove to everyone that he was loved.

The journey went well after they continued onward, if only for a short time. It didn't take long for bodies to begin popping up along the roadside, all strung up with nooses and in varying states of decay and rot. Viola's skin crawls as their empty eye sockets stare down at her, and once, Stranger had attempted to walk beneath one, and his bare foot grazed against Viola's neck, making her squirm in the saddle. She had been more careful after that, forcing Stranger to walk around the dangling bodies, even if it meant going off trail and stomping through the river until she could be certain that the path was clear.

The closer they got to the inn, the more uncomfortable they all became until the tension was thick and made them all sweat, despite the chill in the air. The bodies became thicker and fresher until it was near impossible to keep from brushing against one on the narrow roadway. Had it been like this when she came through with Sandor and Arya? It was hard to remember from the haze that surrounded their departure as she drifted in and out of consciousness, but she would have remembered dozens of dead bodies, wouldn't she?

"What is the name of this inn we're going to?" Podrick asks as he clears his throat.

"The Old Inn, some call it. There has been an inn there for many hundreds of years, though this inn was only raised during the reign of the first Jaehaerys, the king who built the kingsroad. Jaehaerys and his queen slept there during their journeys, it is said. For a time, the inn was known as the Two Crowns in their honor, until one innkeep built a bell tower, and changed it to the Bellringer Inn. Later it passed to a crippled knight named Long Jon Heddle, who took up ironworking when he grew too old to fight. He forged a new sign for the yard, a three-headed dragon of black iron that he hung from a wooden post. The beast was so big it had to be made in a dozen pieces, joined with rope and wire. When the wind blew it would clank and clatter, so the inn became known far and wide as the Clanking Dragon."

Septon Maribald explains to Podrick, who gazes at him from atop his horse, his little face full of wander as he drinks in the story. Viola herself had heard this tale from Masha a dozen or more times throughout her life. She clenches the reins in her fists with anger at what had become of the woman who had loved her as though she were one of her own.

"Is the dragon sign still there?" Podrick asks quietly.

"No." Viola and Septon Maribald answer as the same time.

"Ah. It seems you know this quaint little inn." He says with a smile.

"I grew up across the river from it. My friend worked there, so did her husband, and my mother. I knew Masha well."

"My condolences, then. She was a kindly woman." Septon Maribald crosses himself and mutters a prayer to the Gods before continuing on with the tale, for Podrick's amusement. "When the smith's son was an old man, a bastard son of the fourth Aegon rose up in rebellion against his trueborn brother and took for his sigil a black dragon. These lands belonged to Lord Darry then, and his lordship was fiercely loyal to the king. The sight of the black iron dragon made him wroth, so he cut down the post, hacked the sign into pieces, and cast them into the river. One of the dragon's heads washed up on the Quiet Isle many years later, though by that time it was red with rust. The innkeep never hung another sign, so men forgot the dragon and took to calling the place the River Inn. In those days, the Trident flowed beneath its back door, and half its rooms were built out over the water. Guests could throw a line out their window and catch trout, it's said. There was a ferry landing here as well, so travelers could cross to Lord Harroway's Town and Whitewalls."

"We left the Trident south of here, and have been riding north and west, not toward the river but away from it." Brienne says with doubt in her voice.

"Aye, my lady." The septon agrees. "The river moved. Seventy years ago, it was. Or was it eighty? It was when old Masha Heddle's grandfather kept the place. It was her who told me all this history. A kindly woman, Masha, fond of sourleaf and honey cakes. When she did not have a room for me, she would let me sleep beside the hearth, and she never sent me on my way without some bread and cheese and a few stale cakes."

"She sounds like she was a great woman." Podrick says, a hint of pity and longing laced in his voice.

"That she was. I heard that one of her nephews tried opening the inn again, but the wars had made the roads too dangerous for common folk to travel, so there was little custom. He brought in whores, but even that could not save him. The Mountain killed him as well, I hear."

That had been who she had seen in the inn that day with Sandor and Arya! It had been so long since she had seen Arthur Heddle, he had taken up work in Saltpans when she was a young girl and had not returned. He had the Heddle look about him, but most people in these parts do, so she thought no more of it. Then everything happened so quickly after that, she had no time to dwell on it.

"I never dreamed that keeping an inn could be so deadly dangerous." Ser Hyle sighs.

"It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones." Septon says as Dog barks his agreement.

"Does this inn have a name now?" Podrick asks.

"The smallfolk call it the crossroads inn. Elder Brother told me that two of Masha Heddle's nieces have opened it to trade once again. If the gods are good, that smoke rising beyond the hanged men will be from its chimneys."

"They could call it the Gallow's Inn." Ser Hyle jests as he steers his horse around yet another body.

Before they even reach the newly built gates of the inn, a ringing and clanging from inside the walls could be heard echoing throughout the trees. A sound Viola had not heard there in many years, not since Masha's brother Tanner had died of the same illness that had taken Mother.

"Either they have themselves a smith, or the old innkeep's ghost is making another iron dragon." Ser Hyle says as he pushes his horse to a gallop. "I hope they have a ghostly cook as well. A crisp roast chicken would set the world aright."

Sure enough, as they pass through the gate, the red glow of a forge shines through the gloom, and the clanging of metal grows louder. Arya turns her attention towards the porch where four young girls stand on the inn's porch watching a young boy swing from the rusted chains strung across the yard.

"Girls," Ser Hyle calls to them, "run and fetch your mother."

"We have no mothers." One girl says.

"I did, but they killed her." Adds the another.

"Who are you?" Asks the oldest sternly as she pushes the youngest, naked girl, no older than two or three years, behind her skirts.

"Honest travelers seeking shelter. My name is Brienne, and this is Septon Meribald, who is well-known through the riverlands. The boy is my squire, Podrick Payne, the knight Ser Hyle Hunt, and this is Viola, she knew the former innkeep Masha Heddle well."

"I'm Willow. Will you be wanting beds?" The oldest girl asks, her voice weary as the hammering suddenly stops.

"Beds, and ale, and hot food to fill our bellies." Ser Hyle says as he dismounts his horse. "Are you the innkeep?"

"That's my sister Jeyne. She's not here. All we have to eat is horse meat. If you come for whores, there are none. My sister run them off. We have beds, though. Some featherbeds, but more are straw."

Viola couldn't place Jeyne right off, but she knew the name well enough. Had she been the one born to Masha's brother Mikeal who lived in Maidenpool, or her sister Viv who had married a bastard boy and moved to Duskendale? There was also her good-sister Nan, married to Tanner, who had three grown children from a previous marriage, and those children were now grown and had children of their own. It mattered not now. They were likely all dead.

As Ser Hyle and the girl Willow bicker back and forth over the price of a bed, a dark-haired boy stalks from the foundry, hammer still in hand. Viola recognizes the boy, though she can't be sure of how. Could he have been another of Masha's relatives? Perhaps he had just grown up near here, had managed to survive the raiding, and now helps to look after the girls. He argues with the Willow a moment about whether or not to admit the guests.

"They have food, Gendry. The little ones are hungry." Willow cries as she stomps her foot.

She whistles and children pop up from every corner of the property. Some in windows, others in trees, multiple running from around the building brandishing rocks and sticks. Two have crossbows with nothing in them, others hold bows notched with arrows, a few even have knives.

"Wat, you help them with those horses." Willow commands. "Will, put down that rock, they've not come to hurt us. Tansy, Pate, run get some wood to feed the fire. Jon, Penny, you help the septon with those bundles. I'll show them to some rooms."

Viola reluctantly dismounts from Stranger and leads him towards the stables, not wanting to risk him harming one of the children. She gives them strict orders not to come close to him as she fills his bucket with water and shuts him in the very stall she had led him towards the last time she was here. The boys get to tending to the rest of the horses as Viola slowly moves towards the inn, her heart hammering. She had grown up here, had known this place as well as she had known her own home, but it was now nothing like she had remembered it.

While it had once been warm and inviting, with the smell of bread and cake wafting through the place to mingle with the quiet chatter of patrons and the giggle of children, it was now cold and unforgiving. This place may have born her, but it had also destroyed her. This is where she lost it all, her heart, her soul, and her husband. It had been the beginning of the end. Why did they not just keep riding?

Viola takes a deep breath and forces the door open, taking care to run her fingers up the notch marks on the door frame where Masha would measure all of the children she knew. Her heart aching as she runs her fingertip over the A and V situated near her naval, the A only slightly higher than the V.

Alna and Viola. Together forever.

Viola watches as the children push three long tables together, then wrestle with the benches to bring them forward. She wanders through the great room, touching everything, running her fingers over the warn wood and taking in every inch of the place to her memory. In the far corner, the bench Sandor had kicked at Polliver still sits cracked with one leg broken.

Children rush past her, too many to even attempt to count. All of them orphans, all of them starving. Septon Maribald gets to work making porridge and instructing the older; older being no more than ten, to stir the pot simmering over the fire as he takes turns taking two of the smaller ones on his knee and telling them stories. Willow barks orders, her finger pointing in every direction. She reminded her instantly of Masha.

As Viola nears the broken bench lying discarded in the corner, she sees the blood still splattered up the wall and pooled on the floor. It had clearly been scrubbed but was still there. Other blood spots pepper the floor, and Viola follows them with her eyes, trying to remember where she, Sandor, and Gregor's men had been standing when they were each injured; trying to recall which blood spot belonged to whom. The tiny droplets leading up the bar only to spread out before it belonged to her. Another a few steps before it, slightly larger, must belong to Sandor. She chokes on a sob as she etches the stain into her memory, wishing to reach down and touch it as she had run her fingers down the trail of dried blood on his sword, but does not wish to draw attention to herself. Perhaps tonight, or on the morrow, while the rest of the inn sleeps, she can come down and run her fingers across the stain; to touch a piece of her husband one final time.

A crash of thunder draws her from her thoughts, and she takes in the room for the first time since she had taken up her pacing. It had grown darker with the setting sun and rolling storm, but the roaring fire and a few randomly placed candles cast the room in a warm glow. The food, she found, was mostly gone, along with Brienne. A child sits naked on the table next to three other children, all digging into the pot of porridge with bare hands and smearing the sludge into their mouths with their entire fists.

A shout outside causes her head to whip towards the door, along with every other head in the room. Ser Hyle places her hand on the hilt of his sword and slowly stands and inches towards where he had placed his boots before the fire. Septon Maribald plucks a child from his lap and pushes her behind him, and Willow slams the door open with a crack, her hands on her hips and rage in her eyes. As fast as the door slams against the frame, four boys had already picked up weapon and aimed out of the windows. Others begin barreling up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time in order to reach the upper floors.

"Loose a quarrel at me and I'll shove that crossbow up your cunt and fuck you with it. Then I'll pop your fucking eyes out and make you eat them." A man growls in the darkness as Viola inches towards the open door.

In the gleam of a lightning strike, she spots a large man in a dog's head helm standing proudly in the center of the square. Her blood boils and rage courses through her. She howls in anger, ready to charge, drawing Sandor's sword as her feet hit the porch.

How dare he? How fucking dare this man!

A pair of hands grab her roughly around the middle and haul her backwards, back into the inn. She stumbles, still clutching the sword in her shaking fist, and falls on her ass onto the floor, Ser Hyle glaring down at her.

"Stay down!" He orders, his eyes gleaming with fury. "All of you, stay down!"

Shouting outside continues, though she can't hear it over the cracking of thunder and the pounding of rain. Lighting strikes in the distance, reflecting off of mail and armor and blinding her as they crash of metal beings to drown out the crash of thunder. She hauls herself into a crouch, peering between the legs of man and horse standing before the porch, only to see Brienne slash the man wearing her husband's helm across the chest with her sword. Ser Hyle takes down three, four, finally five men as their horses roar with terror. The children in the windows lose their arrows, but none strike true. Gendry, she had since learned the blacksmith's name, clutches a spear and holds off two men in the foundry doorway, taking them down as the blunt end of the spear sinks into their throats with a spray of blood.

She pins her eyes back on Brienne, her face pressed against the stolen helm as she whispers something into the mans ear, her sword plunged deep into the man's bowel and poking out of his back. Another roar sounds from the distance, and before anyone can act, a man barrels into her, knocking her face down in the mud. She kicks and fights, and as Viola finds her feet and makes to rush her, the man dips his face down, a shrill cry fills the air, and the man comes up with a piece of her face between his teeth, blood dripping from his chin in the pouring rain. He chews her flesh and eats it as though it were a tender steak. Viola leans forward and hurls at the scene, spilling the contents of her stomach over and over again as the image settled in the depths of her brain.

Ser Hyle stands in the center of the square, blood dripping from his drawn sword in a sea of broken and dying bodies. He had lost his supper as well, and he stood, still too stunned to speak or act as Gendry drives the point of his spear through the back of the man's head as more men ride up and circle them.

Viola does run this time, right into the center of the square next to Ser Hyle as Gendry lowers his spear and approaches the men on horseback. There are three of them, each shrouded by darkness, though Gendry seemed to recognise them at once. Before Viola can so much as raise her sword in defense, they dismount and surround them. Her cry is cut off as the handle of a sword hits Hyle in the back of the head and he slumps forward. The assailant stalks towards her, and in one final crack of lightening, Viola recognizes the freshly dyed green beard of the man who had taken her and Sandor.

"I see your dog has finally been felled." He barks down at her.

"That isn't Sandor." Viola seethes up at him. "Remove the helm and see for yourself."

Greenbeard does just that as the man with the yellowcloak approaches her, sack in hand, ready to tie her up as he had once before. Viola raises her sword, ready to strike should he come any closer. He chuckles at her, but bends to place the sack of Ser Hyle's head before binding his hands behind his back and tossing him into a waiting wagon that she hadn't noticed before as though he weighed no more than a sack of grain.

"She tells it true." Greenbeard calls as he approaches them. "Where is he? Heard he's been raping and butchering all along the countryside. We won't give him a trial this time, only a quick death from the noose."

"Dead." Viola spits, her eyes alight with fury. "Killed by his brother's men. That man stole his helm from his cairn and has been the one raping and butchering, not Sandor."

"That so?" Greenbeard says as he rings the rain from his beard.

"Where's Chisel?" Viola barks.

"How do you now Chisel?" Yellowcloak asks.

"He's my father. Heard tell he runs with you. I mean to find him."

"I told you she was Chisel's girl!" The man with the fox face who played the woodharp cries, though his woodharp was now missing.

"He's in the hill last I saw him." Yellowcloak says. "Got in just before we left. Said he aimed to stay awhile, reckon he's still there."

"Let's get a move on." Greenbeard calls over his shoulder as he follows Gendry over to where Brienne still lay in the mud, and together they load her in to the wagon with Ser Hyle.

Septon Maribald appears then, looking ragged and concerned. Yellowcloak clasps him on the shoulder and leads both him and dog towards the stables. A moment later the rush from the gates, disappearing in the darkness. Podrick comes willingly, allowing fox-face to bind his hands behind his back and place a sack over his head. Yellowcloak grips him by the elbow and helps him into the wagon where he sits trembling next to Brienne and Ser Hyle.

"You coming or what?" Greenbeards shouts as he leads Brienne, Ser Hyle, and Podricks horses from the stables.

Viola rushes past him and climbs onto the stable gate to throw her leg over Stranger's back. She flings the gate open with one hand, places her sword in the scabbard nestled at her ribs, then pushes Stranger to a gallop to come in between Greenbeard and Yellowcloak as Fox-face drives the wagon, the stolen horses linked together and walking in a single file behind it.

Glancing over her shoulder she sees Willow lead the children back into the inn as Gendry mounts a horse of his own and files in behind them.