Chapter 66 Chapter 65 Arya

Every morning when she woke up, she could feel the hollowness inside.It wasn't hunger, even though she ate very little.It was an empty place, a void, where the brothers, sisters and parents had been.Her head hurts too, better than before but still pretty intense.Arya was used to it, the lump would eventually dissolve the hollow in her heart but it remained the same.This hole will never get better, she told herself as she slept. Some mornings, Arya didn't want to wake up at all.She would rather curl up under the cloak, close her eyes, and fall asleep again.If the Hound left her alone, she would sleep day and night.

Then dream.Best when dreaming.She dreams about wolves almost every night.She was the leader of a pack of wolves, and she was the tallest, strongest, quickest, and fastest.She ran faster than a horse, beat a lion better than a lion, and whenever she grinned, humans ran away one after another.She was never hungry, and the fur kept her warm, and she was not afraid of the cold and wind.She has many brothers and sisters, fierce and terrible in groups, and they all obey her and never leave. If her nights belonged to wolves, her days belonged to dogs.Sandor Clegane wakes her up on time every morning, whether she likes it or not.He would curse at her in a harsh voice, or lift her up and shake her.Once he poured a helmet of ice water on her head.She jumped up, shaking and splashing water, trying to kick him, but he just laughed. "Wipe it up and feed the damn horse," he ordered, and she obediently obeyed.

They now had two horses, the Stranger and a sorrel mare, whom Arya named Cowardly, because Sangfeng said she probably escaped from the Twins, just like them.The morning after the massacre, they encountered it wandering in the fields, without a rider on its back.As a mount, it's fine, but Arya can't love cowards, and the Stranger rebels.But she took care of him as best she could, which was better than riding with the hounds.Besides Coward was cowardly, but young and strong, and Arya thought he would outrun the Stranger if the situation was critical. The Hound no longer watched her as closely as before, sometimes seemed to care whether she went or stayed, and stopped tying her into the horse's bed at night.I'm going to kill him in his sleep, she told herself, but never did, I'm going to run away on a coward, he can't catch me, she thought, but never did.Where should I go? There is no Winterfell anymore. Uncle is in Riverrun, but they don't know each other.Lady Smallwood of Acorn Hall might or might not take her in, and besides, Arya wasn't even sure she'd find Acorn Hall.Sometimes she thought she should go back to Sharma's inn—if the flood didn't wash it away—to be with Hot Pie, and Lord Berry might find her again.Anguy would teach her how to use a bow, and then she could be a bandit with Gendry, like Sister "White Hart" Winner in the song.

But it was stupid, like Sansa's dream.Hot Pie and Gendry left her when they had the chance, and Lord Bailey's bandits and the Hound wanted her for ransom.No one wants to be with her.They're not of my kind, not even Hot Pie and Gendry.I think those are really stupid, like a stupid little girl, not a wolf at all. So she stayed with the Hound.They rode every day, never slept twice in the same place, and avoided towns, villages, and castles as much as possible.Once she asked Sandor Clegane where they were going. "Go away," he said, "just know that. I don't want to waste my tongue, and I don't want to hear you yelling. Damn it, you should run into that damned castle."

"Yes." She agreed, thinking of her mother at the same time. "If I'd let you go, you'd be dead. Damn, you should thank me and sing me a sweet little song, like your sister." "You hit her with the ax too?" "I hit you with the back of my axe, you stupid she-wolf. With the blade of your axe, your brains would be floating in the Green Fork. Shut the damn beak, and I'll hand you over to Silence Nuns, they cut out the tongues of talkative girls." It's not fair for him to say that.Except for that one time, Arya doesn't speak at all.The days passed without saying anything.She was too empty to speak, and the Hound was too angry.She could feel the anger in him, in the expression on his face, in the twisted and tight lips, in the way he looked at her.Whenever he took the ax to chop wood, he would enter into a frightening state of rage, and he would frantically chop down tree trunks, fallen logs or broken branches--firewood did not need to be chopped so finely.After that he was often so exhausted that he lay down and immediately fell asleep without even lighting a fire.Arya hated the situation, and hated him too.On nights like that, she would stare long and hard at the axe.It looks pretty heavy, but I bet I can swing it.And don't hit him with the back of an axe.

On their wanderings, they catch glimpses of other people too: farmers in the fields, swineherds grazing, milkmaids, pagemen delivering messages along rutted roads.She never wanted to speak to them, as if they lived in a distant land and spoke a strange language, and they had nothing to do with her, or vice versa. Besides, it's not safe to be seen.Now and then a procession of riders passed the winding field roads, bearing the banners of the twin towers of House Frey. "They are hunting the northerners who slipped through the net," said the hound when the other party passed by. "When you hear the sound of horseshoes, bow your head quickly. There are no friends here."

One day, in a mud cave made of fallen oak roots, they came face to face with another survivor of the Twins incident.His sigil was a dancing pink maiden in a white ribbon, who claimed to be an archer in the service of Ser Marq Piper, though the bow had been lost.The junction of his left shoulder and arm was twisted and swollen, and it was said that it was hit by a mace, which shattered the shoulder and drove the mail armor deep into the flesh. "Yankees did it," he cried, "Yankees with little blood men on their chests. He saw my crest and joked that the red man and the pink girl should make a couple. Lord Bolton toasts, he toasts to Sir Marq, we all toast to Duke Edmure, Lady Roslin and the King in the North, and then he's going to kill me." When he said this, his eyes were full of tears. The fiery light, Arya could see, was the expression of real emotion.His shoulder was surprisingly swollen, and the entire left side of his body was covered with pus and blood.A foul smell, smells like a dead body.The man begged for wine.

"If there was wine, I would drink it," the Hound told him. "I can give you water, and mercy." The archer looked at him for a long time. "You are Joffrey's dog." "Now I'm my own dog. Do you want water?" "Yes," the man swallowed, "and be merciful, thank you." They had just passed a small pond not far away.Sang Feng handed the helmet to Arya and asked her to trek back to fill the water.Mud splattered her boots, and she used the Hound's helmet as a bucket, water leaking through the eyeholes, but there was still plenty in the bottom.

Seeing her return, the archer tried to raise his face so that she could pour the water into his mouth.As fast as she fell, he swallowed as fast as he could, and what he couldn't swallow ran down his cheeks and seeped into brown blood clots until his beard was full of pale pink droplets.When the water was done, he grabbed the helmet and licked the steel. "It's nice," he said, "and wine is even better. I want to drink." "So do I." The Hound thrust the dagger into the man's chest almost gently, using his body weight to drive the point into the tunic, mail, and lining beneath.Then he drew his weapon and looked at Arya as he wiped the dead man. "That's where the heart is, little sister. That's how to kill."

A method of killing. "Shall we bury him?" "Bury him?" Sang Feng asked, "He doesn't care, and we don't have a shovel. Leave it to wolves and wild dogs, leave it to you and my brother." He gave her a focused look. "We just 'recruit'." The archer had two silver stags and nearly thirty coppers in his pocket.There was a beautiful pink gemstone on the hilt of his dagger, and the Hound weighed it before tossing it to Arya.She caught the hilt and inserted it into the belt, feeling a little better.Although it is no more than a "sewing needle", it is iron after all and can be used for self-defense.The dead man still has a bag of arrows, but arrows without a bow won't work.His boots were too big for Arya and too small for the Hound, so they had to stay.She also took his round helmet, though it covered the bottom of her nose and she had to turn it up a little to walk. "He'd have a horse, or he couldn't have escaped," Clegane said, looking around, "but I bet he'd be gone. Nobody knows how long he's been here."

By the time they reached the foot of the Bright Moon Mountains, the rain had almost stopped.Seeing the sun, moon, and stars, Arya thought they were going east. "Where are we going?" she asked again. This time the Hound answered her, "You have an aunt in the Eyrie, gods forbid, and maybe she'll pay the ransom for you skinny thing. Take the mountain road and follow it all the way to the Blood Gate." Aunt Lysa.Arya felt hopeless.She wanted her mother, not her mother's sister.She didn't know Aunt Lysa, just like she didn't know Uncle Heiyu.We should have gone into the castle in the first place.Mother wasn't really dead, and Robb.The Freys didn't have to kill them.Perhaps Lord Frey was simply arresting them.Maybe they were being tied up in a dungeon, or taken to King's Landing so Joffrey could have their heads chopped off.We don't know. "We should go back," she decided suddenly. "We should go back to the Twins and find my mother. She won't die. Let's save her." "I thought it was your sister who was full of songs and dreams," growled the Hound. "Yes, Frey might have kept your mother alive for a ransom. But in the Seven Hells, I can't get her out alone." Come out, damn it." "You are not alone, I will come too." He made a noise, what seemed to be a laugh, "That'll scare the old man out of his pants." "You're afraid of death!" she said contemptuously. Clegane laughed. "I am not afraid of death, but fire. Now, be still, or I will cut your tongue out, and save the Silent Sisters trouble. Let us go to the Vale." Arya thought he wasn't actually cutting her tongue, just talking about it, like Pinkeye had said he was going to whip her so hard.But she didn't intend to try it out, after all, Sang Feng Krigan was different from "Pink Eye". Pinkeye couldn't cut people in half, or kill with an axe, not even hit them with the back of an axe. She went to sleep that night thinking of her mother, wondering if she should kill the Hound while he was asleep so she could save her mother herself.She closes her eyes and her mother's face is in front of her.So close you can almost smell it... ...she really smelled her.The smell was very faint, overshadowed by other smells—moss and mud and water, rotting reeds and the stench of people.She walked slowly across the soft ground to the river, licked a few sips of water, and looked up to smell.The sky was iron gray, the clouds were thick, and the green water was full of floating objects.Corpses filled the shallows, were beaten and moved by the flowing water, and some were washed ashore directly.Her siblings swarmed around, tearing at the rich flesh.The crows were here too, screaming at the wolves and flapping their wings, filling the air with feathers.Their blood was hotter, and when one was about to take off, her sister bit the wing.She also wanted to catch birds, to taste hot blood, to hear bones crumble between her teeth, to fill her stomach with warm flesh, not cold.She was hungry and there was meat everywhere, but she knew she couldn't eat it. The smell is stronger.She pricked up her ears to hear the howling of wolves, the howling of crows, the beating of wings, and the rushing of rivers.Somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of horses and human cries, but that didn't matter.It's the smell that matters.She sniffed the air again.There, she saw, the pale mass drifting down the current, turned by something.The reed bowed before it. She cut through the shallows, splashing and making a noise, and plunged into the depths.Legs churned the water, and the current was strong, but she was stronger.She followed the guidance of her nose and swam forward. The smell in the water was strong and damp, but what drew her was not this smell, but a pungent icy red blood, a nauseating breath of death.She chased it, just like she usually chased the red deer in Linwen.Finally, she caught a pale arm with her teeth and shook it, trying to move it, but there was only blood and death in her mouth.With her tired body, she dragged the body back to the shore with all her strength, and dragged it up the muddy embankment. A little brother wandered over quietly, with his tongue lolling at the corner of his mouth.She had to bark her teeth to drive him away, or he would have to eat.Now she shook the water off the fur, and the white thing lay face down in the mud, dead flesh pale and wrinkled, cold blood oozing from its throat.Get up, she thought, get up, eat and run with us. The sound of the horses made her turn back.They were coming downwind, so she didn't smell it, and they were almost there.Humans on horseback, black, yellow and pink wings fluttering, and long shiny claws in their hands.Some of the young brothers were grinning, ready to guard the food, and she bit them and drove them all away.This is the law in the wild: deer, rabbits, and crows run from wolves, and wolves run from humans.She left her cold and pale booty in the swamp where it had been dragged up, and fled without shame... The Hound didn't have to curse Arya the next morning, or shake her awake.For the first time since the Twins, she had risen earlier than him, and had even offered to groom the horses.They ate breakfast in silence, and finally Sang Feng said, "About your mother..." "Never mind," said Arya darkly, "she's dead. I dreamed of her." The Hound looked at her for a long time, then nodded.This matter was not mentioned again.They rode their horses toward the mountains. Clegane decided to venture into a small isolated village surrounded by gray-green sentinel trees and tall indigo soldier pines. "We need food," he said, "and rest. They're unlikely to know what happened to the Twins, and with luck they won't even know me." The villagers were building a wooden fence around their homes, and when they saw the hound's broad shoulders, they offered him food, lodging, and a small amount of money to work. "I'll do it if there's red wine." He yelled at them.In the end, he was content with ale, which he drank until he fell asleep every night. His idea of ​​selling Arya to Lady Arryn died here. "There will be frost going up from us, and the mountain road will start to snow, making it almost impassable," said the village chief. "Even if you don't die of freezing and starving, you will be caught by a shadow lynx or a cave bear, which is even more terrifying. Most of them are the aborigines. The Scorching Man became fearless after returning from the one-eyed Timothy battle, and half a year ago, Gunn's son Gunthor led the Stone Crows to attack a village eight miles away from here, and took away all Women, take every grain of food, and most of the men have been killed. They now have iron, excellent long swords and mail armor, and the entire mountain road is under control - the Stone Crow Department, the Milk Snake Department, the Mist Department, all The Gaoshan clan is rampant. Maybe you can solve some, but in the end they will kill you and take your daughter away." I'm not his daughter, Arya would have shouted if she hadn't been so tired.Now she is no one's daughter.She is nothing.Not Arya, not Weasel, not Nana, not Arlie, not Squab, not even Leprosy.She was just a stupid girl who ran with dogs during the day and dreamed of wolves at night. This is a peaceful village.They occupy two straw beds with few lice, the food is ordinary but full, and the fresh air smells of pine trees.Arya soon decided, however, that she hated the place.The villagers were cowards, and none of them even dared to look in the Hound's face, at least not for long.There were women who wanted to dress her and make her do her sewing, but they weren't Mrs. Smallwood, and she didn't do any of them.There was a girl who liked to follow her, the headman's daughter, about Arya's age, but a child who cried when she scraped her knees and carried a stupid rag doll with her everywhere she went.The doll was made to look a little like a soldier, so the girl called him "Sir Soldier," and bragged about how it kept her safe. "Go away," Arya had told her dozens of times, "leave me alone." But she wouldn't listen, and finally Arya snatched her doll, tore it apart, and ripped it apart with one finger. The rags in the stomach were pulled out. "Now he really looks like a soldier!" she said, and threw the doll into the creek.From then on, the girl did not pester, and Arya washed Coward and the Stranger every day, or walked among the trees.Sometimes she would find a stick and practice her "needlework," and as she practiced she would think of the Twins, and she would hack at the tree until the stick broke. "Maybe we should stay here for a while," the Hound told her two weeks later.He's had too much ale, but he's sane enough to be talking nonsense. "Eagle's Nest is impossible to go to. The Frey family will continue to search for survivors in the Three Rivers Valley. It seems that people who can use swords are needed here to prevent the aborigines from coming to rob us. We can stay here and find a way to deliver a letter to your aunt ’” Arya heard, her face drooping.She didn't want to stay, but she had nowhere else to go.The next morning, when the Hound went out to chop and ship logs, she crawled back into bed and slept. But after the tall wooden fence was finished, there was no more work to do, and the village chief made it clear that they could not stay. "In winter, we have trouble feeding ourselves," he explained, "and you... people like you bring blood." Sandor's mouth twitched, "So you know who I am." "Yes. As a matter of fact, no one visits here, but we go to the market and go to the fair. We've heard of King Joffrey's dog." "When those stone crows and all come, you'll be glad you got a dog." "Perhaps." The man hesitated, then mustered up his courage. "But they say you lost your will to fight at the Blackwater. They say—" "I know what they say." The Hound's voice was like two saws rubbing against each other. "Pay the wages and I'll go." On leaving, the Hound was given a sack full of copper coins, a sack of sour ale, and a "new" sword.The sword was old, to be honest, but it was new to him, and he traded it with a villager for a longaxe he took at the Twins—the one that knocked out a bag on Arya's head— .The ale was gone in a day, but Clegane sharpened his sword every night, cursing whoever gave it to him for every chip and rust.If he lost the desire to fight, why did he care if his sword was sharp? Arya didn't dare to ask it, but thought about it a lot, and he didn't take her out of the Twins out of fear, did he? Back in the riverlands, the rain has gradually subsided, and the flood waters have also begun to recede.The Hound turned south, back toward the Trident. "We're going to Riverrun," he told Arya as he grilled the hare he had killed. "Hope the Blackfish will pay for the wolf girl." "He hasn't seen me, doesn't even know if I'm really me." Arya was tired of the idea of ​​going to Riverrun.It seemed that she had been going to Riverrun for many, many years, but she had never been there.Every time I set out for Riverrun, I always ended up somewhere worse. "He won't pay, he'll just hang you." "Whatever, let him try it." He turned around the grilled food. Listening to him, it's like losing the desire to fight. "I know where we can go," Arya said.She has one brother left.If others don't want me, Jon will want me.He would call me "my little sister" and mess with my hair.However, it was a long road, and she felt that she could not walk alone.She couldn't even reach Riverrun. "Let's go to the Great Wall." Sandor's laugh was half a growl. "The little she-wolf wants to join the Night's Watch, doesn't she?" "My brother is at the Great Wall." She said stubbornly. The corner of his mouth twitched. "The Wall's a thousand miles from here. Damn, we've got to run through damned Frey land before we get to the Neck. There's lizards in those swamps, and wolves for breakfast every day. Even if we do get to the North No limbs or limbs, iron squids in half the castles, and those bloody northerners are no good." "Are you afraid of them?" she asked. "Have you lost the desire to fight?" For a moment, she thought he was going to hit her.But the hare has been roasted into a brown color, the skin is crispy, and the fat seeps out and drips into the fire, making a crackling sound.Sandor took it off the stick, tore it open with his large hands, and threw half into Arya's arms. "I'm fine with lust," he said, tearing off a leg, "but I don't give a shit about you or your brother. I have a brother, too."