Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

тwo-αɴd-ғorтy

HER LUNGS BURNED and the cold air was hard to breathe.

"Keep going, Gendry," she commanded him. With each step, she was falling farther behind. The bastard turned back to look over his shoulder, concerned that he could no longer make out her labored breathing. "Don't slow down on my account! Run, boy!" Anya shouted, waving him toward the Wall.

He didn't listen, though. Gendry turned back. "Lady Anya!" He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her up to stand straight. Anya pushed him away and he stumbled back. "I can handle myself," she assured him, "now go, you're faster than me!" Hesitant but compliant, he nodded and turned back, sprinting off toward the Wall. Anya only prayed that he wasn't too late.

The gusts of wind that stabbed through her layers and furs were like the breath of an ice dragon. The trees of the dark forest were bare of leaves except for those with pointy green needles. Above the forest loomed the Wall, just appearing and still leagues away. Anya pressed her hand against the trunk of one of the trees and leaned her head against the rough bark with a racing heart and shallow breaths. The forest speaks in many tongues, Ned used to say, listen well but do not answer.

Then there was a shadow through the trees. Small at first, but then it grew larger and split from one into three and three into nine. Even in the heavy snow, she could make out their eyes, bright blue and filled with hate. Anya closed her eyes for a brief moment as she drew Dark Sister from its sheath. The wind grew colder, the snowfall thicker. A sound rang out in the air, like the cracking of ice on a winter lake and then the shadows advanced.

The blade was crystal, sharp as Valyrian Steel and clear as ice. It hadn't even hurt when the Walker caught her on her forearm with the tip it, all she felt was the cold. Anya ducked as the blade swung at her neck and turned on her knee, slicing through the monster's abdomen. Then it was gone, as were the wights that had followed him. Or that was what she thought.

Something blunt hit her on the back of the head, pushing her face down into the thick snow. Dark Sister inches from her grasp. Then something was pulling at her legs, dragging her backward. Her scream pierced the still, frozen air.

A black rider came from the trees and fire engulfed the remaining wights. Anya scrambled to stand and gather her sword and dagger. Before she could protest or scream again she was on the horse with her arms holding tightly to the rider. She pressed her cheek into the black rider's back, her hands digging into the layers of leather and fur that covered his torso. When they slowed, she relaxed only a little until stiffening at how familiar the rider seemed.

It was a cave beneath a weirwood tree where he had taken her. The rider dismounted, and she saw only a sliver of his face, though by blue eyes alone Anya knew who it was. Her heart was racing, and she nearly threw herself into his arms. "Benjen," she whispered his name and slipped from the saddle. Benjen Stark seized her and crushed her against his chest. She was crying and holding onto him with a fierce determination to never let go again. "I thought you were dead," she wept, no longer fearing her tears would freeze upon her cheeks.

Anya took a step back, and he pulled down his hood and face covering. His skin was sickly pale with a blue tint and he was cold, so cold that it took her several moments to realize he was not wearing gloves and that his hands had been frostbitten. Patches of skin on his cheeks and nose had taken on the same blackish hue. "Only partly," he laughed, but it sounded more like cracking ice than the warm chuckle that Anya had once known. "I have missed you more than words can express, dear sister." Anya fell into his embrace, and he held her tightly against him.

Benjen knelt and ran his hand over an odd-looking stone that had the runes of the First Men engraved into its smooth surface. Whatever it truly was, she knew it was something ancient and powerful. Anya knelt next to him. "I knew I should have followed you up here all those years ago. You can't keep yourself out of trouble."