Niflheim's abode
patreon
KoW - Chapter 46
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 00:34:04 +0000 UTC[A.N: This is the last non-Robb POV chapter you’ll read in a while, the next chapters should prove important, as they end the first arc of the story.]
Sandor Clegane
The little bird walked slowly through the thicket of trees.
Her eyes stared forward, glazed, as if staring somewhere else. “Lannister men, some handful of miles to the east.”
Sandor grunts, used to her witch ways, and gently pushes her west.
It has been a measure of days since they escaped the Red Keep, or, since she followed him out.
He’d not realized she was following him until she pulled him away from some roaming guards and into a dark tunnel. Clegane could remember that day clear as day.
--*
The hound made to be stealthy as he walked through the halls of the red keep, he’d managed to evade suspicion until then because of his previous affiliation, but his time is getting short, and it is getting more likely that news of his desertion had begun to spread.
Fortunately, the surrounding battle meant that most of the guards were stationed in the ramparts or parts of the castle close to Maegor’s Holdfast, if it wasn’t close to an armory, granary, or treasury, then it was barren.
As he made to turn, however, he was firmly held by a dainty hand to his shoulder.
Sandor turns back suddenly, his eyes open in alarm and a hand on his sword, only to find Sansa Stark looking to his eyes with a warning gaze, slowly shaking her head.
Before he could even formulate a response, he heard the sound of armored men walking toward them.
“This way.” Sansa hisses out, turning toward a stray door.
Clegane acts before he thinks, swiftly opening the door and pushing them both inward.
The room was quiet and still. Dust covered the floor, and cobwebs hung in the corners. A broken chair lay on its side near the fireplace, which hadn’t been used in years. A bit of light came through a small window, casting soft shadows on the floor. No one had stepped inside for a long time.
Sandor puts an ear against the dark wood, keeping silent until he heard the sound of footsteps completely disappear.
Hiding a sigh of relief behind a grunt, Sandor turns to the sound of a feminine sneeze.
There was Sansa Stark, jamming a Valyrian steel greatsword into a small gap in the wall, and pushing with her utmost in order to jam what now looks clearly like a hidden doorway.
Many, many thoughts went through the Hound’s mind at that moment. How did she sneak up on him for so long? How did she hear those guardsmen before he did? Where did she get that sword? How did she escape her guards(captors)? And how did she know about a secret door in an abandoned chamber?
But something about the situation, perhaps the shock, pushed him to ignore all those doubts. So he crept up to the struggling girl, gently but firmly pushed her away, keeping the sword jammed on the door crack, and with a mighty heave, the door shattered into many pieces, too old and fragile to resist his strength.
Sandor pushed away the stray door fragments away and looks back toward the girl.
“Where to next?”
--*
For some reason, Sansa Stark had gathered extensive knowledge about the intricacies of the Red Keep’s hidden tunnels, and had managed to lead them all the way to a secluded spot within Rhaenys’ Hill, relatively close to the Dragon Gate -one of Kingslanding’s seven gates- and the one that stood opposite to the King’s Gate, which was at the time besieged by Stannis Baratheon, which made it the least defended.
Thankfully, news traveled slowly during a battle, and whilst knowledge of his desertion reached the Red Keep, it hadn’t reverberated to the Dragon’s Gate garrison.
They somehow made it out that way, and very strangely, came across two stray horses with saddlebags filled with rations that a knight would usually carry.
It was very weird, and as time went on, Sandor learned that it was probably related to Sansa and her queer ways.
They rode away from the city northward, making quick time toward Harrenhall (Sansa’s request, once again.), keeping clear off the roads and with the help of the stark girl’s senses, evading detection.
What about food, you ask?
The answer to that question literally falls in front of Sandor’s feet(His horse’s hoofs, but who cares?).
A chicken, with talon marks over its neck indicating that it was killed and stolen by some sort of falcon, hawk, or vulture.
Sandor looked up at the sky, glancing strangely at the cawing form of the hawk in question, circling them while they ride.
“Lord Hayford was quite fond of falconry, I hear.” The red-haired girl pipes up from his right, feeding a small chunk of bread to her pet pigeon. “Hawks do not feel loneliness, not as we humans do at least. They do feel unsettled by changes in routines, to a person’s presence, and would acquiesce to much to regain their previous stability.”
“Which book did you learn that from?” Sandor almost glares.
“I am not fond of books.” An amused smirk comes to her face, and Clegane couldn’t help but think that this girl, northern sorceries, mysterious secrets and all, is still a girl.
He could see it in the childish glint in her eye at the prospect of teasing him, her stiff posture, the much too tight grip on her reins, her shifting around awkwardly in the saddle as she found her inner thighs chafed against it.
She made him feel protective, reminding him of his sister like that.
Sandor grunts. “We should make camp here, cook the meat and sleep for the night, I’ll take first watch.”
Sansa nods. “If you say so.” She says.
They dismount, and quickly enough, a fire is lit and the night is upon them.
Sansa stared lidlessly at the embers, holding a makeshift skewer of chicken meat over the flame.
“Ser.” Her voice is low enough to be unheard, so Clegane pretends not to.
“Ser.” Her second time is louder, and so he is forced to answer with a huff.
“What is your plan, once you take me to my brother?” Sansa asks.
Sandor stays silent for a while, he would have answered quicker, but in fact he did not know himself.
“Get me a chest of gold, should your brother leave me my head.” He answers.
“And then what?”
He sighs, taking a big bite, the sound of his chewing echoed through their makeshift camp, eliciting a slight expression of disgust form the lady.
“Probably, get to a port and sail away, to one of the free cities, work as sellsword, drink myself into a stupor until I fall into someone else’s sword.” He speaks with the food in his mouth. “Not much to look do for a man who only knows how to kill.”
Sansa turned toward him, she looked at him with sadness, no doubt pitying him for his supposed suffering.
It was so very naïve, especially for a girl who saw some measure of the horrors held by the world.
“My brother will get crowned in Harrenhall, he tel-…. He has no choice, as none in his army would follow any of the other candidates, that means he needs to stay south.” And she gets to be a princess. “My brothers are still in Winterfell, Bran and Rickon. I think Arya will go there soon, but my mother will surely be. I don’t know where to go.”
It was clear to Sandor that her words were spoken simply to be released, not to create a dialogue, so he kept his silence, letting the girl speak her mind loudly the first time in what must seem like ages.
“I can go back to Winterfell, but it’s cold out there, and I found that I like the hot weather more than the summer snows, but it is safer, and it would be good to see the winter roses again.” She says. “And that will leave my brother alone, he’s not someone who would show it, but he misses them, and I think he’d be lonely without family close by. So I think I may stay south, close to Robb. Maybe in Riverrun, I hear it is quite lovely with a nice garden, and I’d love to see my mother’s childhood home.”
“But if I do stay south, it would be more dangerous, at least I think so. I don’t want to be a burden to Robb, but I think he’ll need help, especially….” She shakes her head, looking toward Sandor with focus. “Once we reach Robb, you will have brought his sister and a relic of his family back. You will be rewarded well, enough to find you somewhere to be, so you don’t have to be a sellsword.”
Sandor couldn’t help but chuckle. “I wouldn’t have done shit, little bird.” He says. “I didn’t do shit from the moment we left the capital.”
Sansa frowns. “I do not know how to skin animals, Ser.” Sandor opens his mouth, but is interrupted by a raised hand. “Nor could I open that secret door, talk with the guards at the gate, nor wield a blade. I cannot even distinguish between north and south, so I wouldn’t have even known where to go, were you not with me.”
“You are honest, some would say to a fault, and you clearly do not enjoy killing even if you are very good at it.” She says. “I have had my eyes opened to the cruelties of men with easy smiles and empty words, I would rather have someone like you.”
Sandor simply stays silent, not knowing exactly how to respond.
For much of his life, most of it, actually, he had gone through life pushed by an agonizing desire to exact revenge.
Vengeance that was stolen from him at the hands of sansa’s own brother’s vassal, which made him feel somewhere between gratitude and resentment toward the man. Yet, many had attempted to do what he dreamed of doing, and there were no guarantees that even he would have succeeded.
So he is now without direction, unknowing of what to do with his life but go along the whims of life.
‘Maybe…’ He thinks. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, being a sworn shield.’
He’d had experience at it, and he certainly was able to resist smashing that Lannister fop into paste, how harder would guarding a little girl be?
Especially one that resembled his sister so, so much.
‘Cerella would have been what? Three and twenty(23)?’ He muses. ‘She’d have been married by now, pushing out oversized little monsters. How would she have looked at that age? And her children, would they share her colors, her easy smile?’
The tears threatened to escape his eyes, so Sandor shut them down quickly and smothered the flame.
“You should sleep.” He says. “Tomorrow should be the last stretch out of the Crownlands and into your brother’s territory, the sooner we rise in the morn’, the quicker we reach safety.”
His words were fortunate, as they coincided with Sansa’s sleepy yawn.
She wiped the sleepy tears from her eyes with the hem of her woolen dress. “I should heed your words then.” She says.
Sandor helps in making a makeshift bed out sheets of hemp and cotton clothes for the girl. Sansa swiftly lies down, used to the discomfort of sleeping outside, and Sandor makes to cover her with her own cloak.
Under the darkness, he almost sees another silhouette, one of a brown haired girl with a joyous smile.
‘Robb Stark should better pay well.’ He thinks.
Comments
Alnatura
Tftc. Strong in the force Sansa is.
