A/N: Sorry for the long delay. My computer is still broken. Unemployment sucks, but a lovely friend allowed me to borrow her laptop. Comments and reviews are always lovely. Chapter nine is in progress. Thank you.

Chapter Eight

The crowd ripples as a second man sinks to his knee, nothing more than murmur in the slow piling of snow and corpses.

He was not their man, nor the last, but for the third. Narrow faced and paling, the third man's gaze is stony as his friend is quietly blanketed to rest. His eyes dance with his passing breath from one body to the other, and to Sansa perched on the dark horse, and to the man before her to whom he nods and drops his sword. The man grasps at his sleeve where a wound is red and weeping, before retreating into the crowd.

The Hound's back, broad in its expanse faces her, as his glare is pointed and precise over the pack. They are still and frigid as the cold, but for the light of their torches as the flames lick the night. He adjusts, freeing his boots of the drivel of ice formed about his feet. His sword is put away, sheathed at his side, but his eyes are steel as he turns and gazes up at the young girl.

Wrinkling in her jarring, Sansa stiffens as the Hound is up quickly in the saddle. He curls around the girl, an open hand resting on the curve of her, as the horse is stirred about with a click of the Hound's tongue.

Sansa gapes into the night, though little there is to see: above the churning storm and the dead below it. They would have taken me to the queen, to Joffrey, or worse.

Anger boils in her gut, but grief too has its grip. Two lay dead, and the boy gone some time ago. It's my fault, thought Sansa as the horse carries her into the lonely drift of the night.

…

Stranger curls his way through fenced foothills, treading slowly on slick roads and the frozen heather of pastureland. They pass an old man squatting over a lame horse, and a bootless boy marching for home in the dark. And as they went on, rising with the hills and dipping into the valleys, Sansa squints into the night. A pale glimmer of firelight dies into the horizon, and as she learns forth to take a better look the Hound's fist is in her collar.

"No more." The Hound spoke above the wind.

The girl is daring, turning to look back and into his face. Shrouded against the cold, Sansa cannot see the gray waste of his eyes, nor the jagged plain of his burnt cheek. Yet, his attention is caught. Sansa pleas in their silence, aching for a warm bed, a hot meal, if not simply a dry place.

"It's cold." Sansa's words are a whispering cloud.

The moon is a ghostly glint in one eye and then the other, as Sandor shakes his head once and absolute.

Sansa isn't surprised. The chafe of his anger, the distemper in his stillness is plain, for the dark did little to conceal his foul mood. Though she did not believe concealment to be his intention, but the girl did not pry nor did she press. She simply lay her head down to rest, and Sandor stiffens as she begins to tremble.

They carry on into the bleakest hour of the night, though the world is gray around them. The snow dusted the endless fields, the slow incline of the meadows. It made plain the obstacles of the road: dips, holes, logs and boulders, until the deforested plain of farmland becomes dense canopy and the winding maze of an aged forest.

Stranger snorts a heavy mist, a cloud of white curling and rippling in the dark, as the leather of his reins is pulled back taut as a bow string, and the animal yields.

The Hound dismounts and the frozen earth crunches in accommodation. Through their travel bags he sorts blindly, his fumbling muted, but such a clatter in the quiet. Fabric tares and the spark of flint and steel cuts through the night as the torch is lit.

Sansa slid from the horse, but the cold has weakened her limbs. The girl's leg buckles and into the snow her knee ruts deeply. She wobbles to her feet, the Hound's hand resting heavily on her shoulder as he steadies her. She turns, the crackle of torchlight at her ear. The Hound's face is draped in shadow and the orange glow of firelight. Sansa struggles to look at him, his expression so severe, his mouth twisting, and what is worse is the blood still splattered upon his face. Sansa tries not to remember the sounds the men made before they died, but the wound is fresh and so she does. He looks a monster.

He is a monster. The young girl had to look away then, suddenly ashamed.

The Hound wrenches his hand away and spat upon the cold ground. The silence grows around them, as he retreats into himself, inert in his trance.

Her mother's lessons speak loudly, as they have for much of her life. An apology is needed, but she could not look at him, and the Hound would not like that. Besides, she is much too afraid, and he hated that too. If only she could say that it was not his face that scared her so.

Wordless, the Hound takes his horse by the reins and leads on through the lurid wood. He does not take note of Sansa's pursuit. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps he does not care.

The girl keeps mind of her feet. There are hidden roots as thick as her arm, drifts, and holes concealed by the snow. Though Sansa would never allow her eyes to wander so far from the path, the torch may light their way, but the forest is darkest beyond. Sansa was afraid of what she might see.

The path takes a sharp incline. Sansa digs through snow, mud and vine to make it breathless to the top. Her hands are cold, painfully so, but her face had warmed as her heart quickened during the climb.

A clear line of purple brims the horizon, catching her eye, as a pale beam of light teases the dark sky and her heart lightens. The Hound will want to eat. If she is lucky, the man will be in need of sleep as well. And why not? Sandor Clegane is mortal, the same as Sansa Stark. Besides, the girl thinks it would be nice to sleep in the light. The sun could warm her face, and mayhaps she will not dream such shadowy things in the day.

The Hound is nearly down the other side of the hill, luring Stranger with honeyed sweet words. A steep fall, Sandor takes care in the animal's step, until beast and master make it safely to the bottom.

The Hound ducks down on his haunches, looking over and patting the animal down: muscled thighs, slender legs, and clumsy hooves.

The torch is raised well above the Hound head, as he looks askance into the wood, and squinting up at the twilit sky. He sees the girl up on the hill, the man's gaze unquestionable, as he snuffs the torch into the ground. The snow hisses, as man and horse move along.

Sansa frowns, pacing at the top. She tries her footing, not looking down, while grasping slender trunks, growths of tall grass, and spurred weeds, before slipping to her bottom. Her heart is but lodged into her throat, as her buttocks smacks into the cold mud.

I will not cry. I will not cry. Sansa chants as she wipes the dew of her shame from the well of her eyes, and slides to the bottom on her rear. Her bum is wet and cold, and her fingers bleed hot blood, but she scurries on.

Two black stones gleam under the cover of the Hound's hood. He pulls it tightly around, warding off the chill, as the sky clears and the cold grows bitter.

Sansa gasps and gulps, still short of breath. She smiles in her abashment, her face most certainly red, and her rear most certainly wet. But her partner says nothing, and suddenly the girl feels sillier then she ought to.

The fog rolls in from the highlands, and slips into the valley of the wood, as the sun grows brightest abaft the hills. Their shadows dance silently, tall as giants on soft moss and canvases of rough bark. It is a forest of evergreen, its scent pungent and its needles scattered, but the broad leaf of a hardwood is sparse but present. Some are yellow and red, others gold and brown, but many are still as green as the first day of spring.

Sansa rounds a bluff, its broad face of sullen gray stone weeps in the gilded morning. On its other side is a glade of tall green grass and a thorned sprawl of wild roses. Goats and kids nuzzle through the fresh dusting, and nip on sweet mint, and the red and pink buds of roses.

Tucked away in the shaded tree line are the remains of a house. What is left is charred and broken and useless, but a barn still stands adjacent to the ruin. Its wood frame is in poor shape; it's rotted and withered, and moaned like old Nan in the brisk chill. It'll not survive the winter, though the thatching still remains in good health.

"Stay here with the horse." The Hound squeezes her shoulder. He's warm beneath the leather of his glove.

Sansa nods her consent and ducks into the grass, as the horse feasts on the crisp green. The threaded curtain is thin and lithe, and dances with her shifting weight. On her knees the snow melts around the heat of her, and it seeps into the rough fabric of her breeches. The pain is sharp and in her bones, but there are worse pains; Sansa can name many.

The animals hear of Sandor's approach. Their ears twitch and stand on point, before they raise their heads, and part way.

The scarred man disappears inside the barn, its doors left open in its abandonment. But as he reappears the scent carries over.

Death.

The Hound is bent over, grunting his disgust, and releasing his breath. He drags one out, and then another before gasping into the fresh air, and reentering.

Sansa stands, seeing the bodies. Their fur is shredded and their skin black with decay. Goats, pigs, others too wretched in death. A dozen or more the Hound piles them up. The girl hides her face in her hood, but the smell can't be smothered.

"They're all like that." The Hound greets her approach, frowning at the sky and then at the dead. "Locked in their pins. No food. No water." He wipes his face with a tattered rag, red and breathless. "I have work here still, and so do you. Go. Gather the wood for the fire. I tire of this buggering cold."

"Yes." It is all the young girl can think to say, as her gaze lingers on the mangled beasts. She further presses her nose in the fabric, fearful of the rot. An illness takes to her stomach, and Sansa can't look any further; her eyes falter.

"Girl…" The Hound presses into her shoulder.

"Yes, Ser. The wood." She said smiling dolefully at her feet.

Sansa does not wait for the Hound's scolding. She'd known what she'd done and smiles for it, if only to herself. The Hound would only try and scare her, as is his strange way. It's an aging tune. The girl knows it and knows it well, but she is wary of him still. No one would ever raise a hand against her, in this the Hound made good on his promise. But what would he ask in return? He would sell her of course. To her brother, if the gods are good, or to a banner man. But is it all for gold?

The girl's mind flutters, remembering the boy and his wet kisses and the others. They had wanted something too, and many of them are dead for all their grasping. Don't you want to be my lady?

Sansa wipes away hot tears, back handed and gritty with mud. And her blood boils into the woods.

The sun is still low in the sky and gleaming through the rows golden and bright. She lifts her hand against it; its black and she's blind, so she carries her head low. Picking through the wet, the girl keeps what she can, snapping the thin kindling and swatting at the billowy seeds of weeds. She sips from a chilled puddle, putting her heap aside. The wobble in her balance she steadies. Sansa pulls back, swallowing a mouthful, but then frowning at her watery reflection, before smashing her balled fist into the water. When the puddle spits at her, cold water and freezing mud. Sansa falls back crying with her wet fists knuckles deep into the short stubs of her hair.

The tremor of her anger carries through the spit and spatter of her fit. She damns the boy, the Hound, and herself. I'm as stupid as they say. She wonders if her prospects would have improved if she had left with Ser Dontos. He was a drunk and a fool, but at least he was a knight. And the Hound was no knight. Yet, it was her brother she longed for more than any knight. Day and night she prayed, but he never did come for her.

A great crack sounds off through the wood, and Sansa stands upright, her tears waning. The twittering of morning birds cease, and they rupture from the trees, black as smoke. They flee, as elder growth breaks under the weight of the first snow. The branching tumbles to the forest floor, where a shadow weaves its path in the powdery plume.

The dog carries his head to the ground, sniffing its path through the snow. Sansa made no effort to move, to call the dog to her attention, not a sound, but the dog pauses its stride to lift its snout to the wind. He has her scent, looking across the way. The animal doesn't growl but merely moans, tucking its tail away carefully between its legs, as it shies away, disappearing into the grove.

The animal was gray and pitiful, as she has seen him once before, and that alone is enough for Sansa to turn for camp.

…

As the girl nears the clearing her pace slows into a stop, the last fumbling steps ending in the shadow of the tree line surrounding the glade where they make camp. She takes a wary glance to her back and to the sides, feeling sheepish and green. It is a dog, as she is a girl, and that is all.

A dream.

Sansa steps into the glade, stretching on her toes as she makes quick work of its circular expanse. The Hound sits on a log on the far end, shielded by the tall grass, where a goat lay limp and lifeless across his lap. The Hound's good eye catches site of her quickly, leaning over the grass for a better look. Shaking his head he waves her over.

The girl obeys, approaching the scarred man as far as she might dare, before dropping before him and staring into the blue dome. The sky is clear, but afar are boiling clouds. It smells of rain.

"Where is the wood?"

It takes little for the girl to summon the courage to look at the scarred man. It bothers her still to see his twisted mark, but as the days pass its appearance becomes common place. Sansa sees that he's angry, but the Hound it seems was born thus, and it too is losing its guile. "I must have forgotten." It wasn't a lie.

The Hound has nothing to say to that. His hands are deep in their bloody work. The blade glides easily though the animal. Sansa has never seen her food prepared. It is a messy business, though she is not so silly to have believed otherwise. Still, the smell is not to her liking. And she'd seen enough of slaughter.

"What's the matter?" The Hound makes another slice with the blade. When Sansa did not answer he went on. "You've seen worse." He smiles, but his eyes are gray and cheerless. "Here. Try." He stands, the blade ready for her grasp. "It's warm. And wet. Like a kiss." His smile broadens. "Go on. Go on now. Take it." Insistent, he shakes the blade. His hands are red, and the knife glistens with the goat's life's blood. "No. You'd not want that. You have me."

"I never wanted him to kiss me," Sansa whispered. She didn't know why it mattered, but she went on, "That woman sent him in. He was only meant to start the fire, but then he kissed me."

Sandor sat down then, still and quiet for a time. "Go on, girl. Gather that wood before it rains."

They speak no more of kissing.