Northern Conqueror

Chapter 2: Dogged Journey

Chapter 2: Dogged Journey

Sansa had never felt safe during the start of her travels. Being alone with four men, even knights of the Vale, left her fearing what she might wake to most nights. What might happen should the men decide they were far enough from the Vale their knightly vows no longer mattered. When Petyr was right and their desires outweighed their honor.

That was gone with Brienne and Podrick. Podrick may have been a man, but he didn't seem the type, almost childish despite Brienne once asking if he wasn't too old to be a squire. Even if he tried, Brienne would surely cut him down.

Still, she wasn't safe. She remembered the screams, the barking dogs, the yells and clash of steel.

The second time she heard them, she froze. Her heart stopped beating, her breath stuck in her throat, threatening to choke her. When she saw Brienne leap to her feet, ready to rush off and help the screaming woman, Sansa dashed to her side and grabbed Brienne's arm.

"Don't," she begged. "Don't leave me. Not again."

"Again?" Brienne asked, brow furrowed, shifting slightly as she glanced toward another scream.

"The others, the knights I was with before, they rushed off and died. I heard them die."

Brienne nodded, looking to Podrick. "The horses."

They ran west, traveling with the wind, through a stream and the fields of a small farmstead.

Once Brienne was sure they weren't being followed anymore they stopped to rest for the night. Even as the sun set she stood vigilant until Podrick took her watch. The dogs had chased them through the afternoon, driving them further from their destination yet again.

When the sun rose and Sansa stirred, Brienne knelt beside her while Sansa looked over her hair to make sure it was still dark. She only had so much of the dye, and it had to last until they reached the Wall.

"I had a thought, my lady, if you'd hear me."

"Of course, Brienne."

Brienne removed a small sheathed dagger she'd tucked into the back of her belt. "If they should come upon us at night, we may not be able to run. They could come as a pack, a group of them large enough that Podrick and I would not be able to stay at your side, or would be forced to ask you flee while we stayed behind. I'd ask you take this, keep it at your side, so that if the worst should happen, if I should die, I might hope where my sword can not protect you this dagger may."

Sansa looked at the small dagger she'd seen Brienne use to skin the game found during their travels.

It was that dagger she pushed through the eye of the mutt that threw her to the ground weeks later. It was that dagger she aimed at the man in Bolton armor before Brienne's sword pushed through his neck. It was that dagger she clutched as she walked behind Brienne and Podrick when they came upon the half-flayed woman, watching Brienne hold back tears as she slit the writhing girl's throat to end her slow misery.

And it was that dagger she returned after taking the sword and dagger from a dead Bolton man with a silent vow to drive them into her own throat if they ever caught her.

They took what they could from the men they killed, took their provisions, their coin, let whoever found them think bandits took their lives. Yet they hounded them, Brienne telling her the dogs might have caught their scent from their last battle and tracked them. Again and again they came, again and again the Wall remained a distant dream.

She found herself dreaming of it, of stepping through towering black gates. In her mind it was grand in it's own way, Castle Black. Surely it would match the others she'd seen, glorious in it's stoicism. Like Jon, surely. He'd have done well, made a name for himself.