“Ned, help me remove my breastplate.”
Arya got goosebumps when Lord Beric said her father’s name, but this Ned was only a boy, a fair-haired squire no more than ten or twelve. He stepped up quickly to undo the clasps that fastened the battered steel about the Marcher lord. The quilting beneath was rotten with age and sweat, and fell away when the metal was pul ed loose. Gendry sucked in his breath. “Mother have mercy.”
Lord Beric’s ribs were outlined starkly beneath his skin. A puckered crater scarred his breast just above his left nipple, and when he turned to call for sword and shield, Arya saw a matching scar upon his back. The lance went through him. The Hound had seen it too. Is he scared? Arya wanted him to be scared before he died, as scared as Mycah must have been.
Ned fetched Lord Beric his swordbelt and a long black surcoat. It was meant to be worn over armor, so it draped his body loosely, but across it crackled the forked purple lightning of his House. He unsheathed his sword and gave the belt back to his squire.
Thoros brought the Hound his swordbelt. “Does a dog have honor?” the priest asked. “Lest you think to cut your way free of here, or seize some child for a hostage... Anguy, Dennet, Kyle, feather him at the first sign of treachery.” Only when the three bowmen had notched their shafts did Thoros hand Clegane the belt.
The Hound ripped the sword free and threw away the scabbard. The Mad Huntsman gave him his oaken shield, al studded with iron and painted yellow, the three black dogs of Clegane emblazoned upon it. The boy Ned helped Lord Beric with his own shield, so hacked and battered that the purple lightning and the scatter of stars upon it had almost been obliterated.
But when the Hound made to step toward his foe, Thoros of Myr stopped him. “First we pray.” He turned toward the fire and lifted his arms. “Lord of Light, look down upon us.” Al around the cave, the brotherhood without banners lifted their own voices in response. “Lord of Light, defend us.”
“Lord of Light, protect us in the darkness.”
“Lord of Light, shine your face upon us.”
“Light your flame among us, R’hllor,” said the red priest. “Show us the truth or falseness of this man. Strike him down if he is guilty, and give strength to his sword if he is true. Lord of Light, give us wisdom.”
“For the night is dark,” the others chanted, Harwin and Anguy loud as al the rest, “and full of terrors.”
“This cave is dark too,” said the Hound, “but I’m the terror here. I hope your god’s a sweet one, Dondarrion. You’re going to meet him shortly.”
Unsmiling, Lord Beric laid the edge of his longsword against the palm of his left hand, and drew it slowly down. Blood ran dark from the gash he made, and washed over the steel.
And then the sword took fire.
Arya heard Gendry whisper a prayer.
“Burn in seven hel s,” the Hound cursed. “You, and Thoros too.” He threw a glance at the red priest. “When I’m done with him you’ll be next, Myr.”
“Every word you say proclaims your guilt, dog,” answered Thoros, while Lem and Greenbeard and Jack-Be-Lucky shouted threats and curses. Lord Beric himself waited silent, calm as still water, his shield on his left arm and his sword burning in his right hand. Kil him, Arya thought, please, you have to kil him. Lit from below, his face was a death mask, his missing eye a red and angry wound. The sword was aflame from point to crossguard, but Dondarrion seemed not to feel the heat. He stood so stil he might have been carved of stone.
But when the Hound charged him, he moved fast enough.
The flaming sword leapt up to meet the cold one, long streamers of fire trailing in its wake like the ribbons the Hound had spoken of. Steel rang on steel. No sooner was his first slash blocked than Clegane made another, but this time Lord Beric’s shield got in the way, and wood chips flew from the force of the blow. Hard and fast the cuts came, from low and high, from right and left and each one Dondarrion blocked. The flames swirled about his sword and left red and yellow ghosts to mark its passage. Each move Lord Beric made fanned them and made them burn the brighter, until it seemed as though the lightning lord stood within a cage of fire. “Is it wildfire?” Arya asked Gendry.
“No. This is different. This is.. ”
“... magic?” she finished as the Hound edged back. Now it was Lord Beric attacking, filling the air with ropes of fire, driving the bigger man back on his heels. Clegane caught one blow high on his shield, and a painted dog lost a head. He countercut, and Dondarrion interposed his own shield and launched a fiery backslash. The outlaw brotherhood shouted on their leader. “He’s yours!” Arya heard, and “At him! At him! At him!” The Hound parried a cut at his head, grimacing as the heat of the flames beat against his face. He grunted and cursed and reeled away.
Lord Beric gave him no respite. Hard on the big man’s heels he fol owed, his arm never still. The swords clashed and sprang apart and clashed again, splinters flew from the lightning shield while swirling flames kissed the dogs once, and twice, and thrice. The Hound moved to his right, but Dondarrion blocked him with a quick sidestep and drove him back the other way... toward the sul en red blaze of the firepit. Clegane gave ground until he felt the heat at his back. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him what was behind him, and almost cost him his head when Lord Beric attacked anew.
Arya could see the whites of Sandor Clegane’s eyes as he bulled his way forward again. Three steps up and two back, a move to the left that Lord Beric blocked, two more forward and one back, clang and clang, and the big oaken shields took blow after blow after blow. The Hound’s lank dark hair was plastered to his brow in a sheen of sweat. Wine sweat, Arya thought, remembering that he’d been taken drunk. She thought she could see the beginnings of fear wake in his eyes. He’s going to lose, she told herself, exulting, as Lord Beric’s flaming sword whirled and slashed. in one wild flurry, the lightning lord took back al the ground the Hound had gained, sending Clegane staggering to the very edge of the firepit once more. He is, he is, he’s going to die. She stood on her toes for a better look.
“Bloody bastard!” the Hound screamed as he felt the fire licking against the back of his thighs.
He charged, swinging the heavy sword harder and harder, trying to smash the smal er man down with brute force, to break blade or shield or arm. But the flames of Dondarrion’s parries snapped at his eyes, and when the Hound jerked away from them, his foot went out from under him and he staggered to one knee. At once Lord Beric closed, his downcut screaming through the air trailing permons of fire. Panting from exertion, Clegane jerked his shield up over his head just in time, and the cave rang with the loud crack of splintering oak.
“His shield is afire,” Gendry said in a hushed voice. Arya saw it in the same instant. The flames had spread across the chipped yel ow paint, and the three black dogs were engulfed.
Sandor Clegane had fought his way back to his feet with a reckless counterattack. Not until Lord Beric retreated a pace did the Hound seem to realize that the fire that roared so near his face was his own shield, burning. With a shout of revulsion, he hacked down savagely on the broken oak, completing its destruction. The shield shattered, one piece of it spinning away, still afire, while the other clung stubbornly to his forearm. His efforts to free himself only fanned the flames. His sleeve caught, and now his whole left arm was ablaze. “Finish him!” Greenbeard urged Lord Beric, and other voices took up the chant of “Guilty!” Arya shouted with the rest.
“Guilty, guilty, kill him, guilty!”
Smooth as summer silk, Lord Beric slid close to make an end of the man before him. The Hound gave a rasping scream, raised his sword in both hands and brought it crashing down with al his strength. Lord Beric blocked the cut easily...
“Noooooo,” Arya shrieked.
. . but the burning sword snapped in two, and the Hound’s cold steel plowed into Lord Beric’s flesh where his shoulder joined his neck and clove him clean down to the breastbone. The blood came rushing out in a hot black gush.
Sandor Clegane jerked backward, still burning. He ripped the remnants of his shield off and flung them away with a curse, then rol ed in the dirt to smother the fire running along his arm.
Lord Beric’s knees folded slowly, as if for prayer. When his mouth opened only blood came out. The Hound’s sword was still in him as he toppled face forward. The dirt drank his blood.
Beneath the hol ow hill there was no sound but the soft crackling of flames and the whimper the Hound made when he tried to rise. Arya could only think of Mycah and all the stupid prayers she’d prayed for the Hound to die. If there were gods, why didn’t Lord Beric win? She knew the Hound was guilty.
“Please,” Sandor Clegane rasped, cradling his arm. “I’m burned. Help me. Someone. Help me.” He was crying. “Please.”
Arya looked at him in astonishment. He’s crying like a little baby, she thought.
“Melly, see to his burns,” said Thoros. “Lem, Jack, help me with Lord Beric. Ned, you’d best come too.” The red priest wrenched the Hound’s sword from the body of his fallen lord and thrust the point of it down in the blood-soaked earth. Lem slid his big hands under Dondarrion’s arms, while Jack-Be-Lucky took his feet. They carried him around the firepit, into the darkness of one of the tunnels. Thoros and the boy Ned fol owed after.
The Mad Huntsman spat. “I say we take him back to Stoney Sept and put him in a crow cage.”
“Yes,” Arya said. “He murdered Mycah. He did.”
“Such an angry squirrel,” murmured Greenbeard.
Harwin sighed. “R’hllor has judged him innocent.”
“Who’s Rulore?” She couldn’t even say it.
“The Lord of Light. Thoros has taught us -”
She didn’t care what Thoros had taught them. She yanked Greenbeard’s dagger from its sheath and spun away before he could catch her. Gendry made a grab for her as wel , but she had always been too fast for Gendry.
Tom Sevenstrings and some woman were helping the Hound to his feet. The sight of his arm shocked her speechless. There was a strip of pink where the leather strap had clung, but above and below the flesh was cracked and red and bleeding from elbow to wrist. When his eyes met hers, his mouth twitched. “You want me dead that bad? Then do it, wolf girl. Shove it in. It’s cleaner than fire.” Clegane tried to stand, but as he moved a piece of burned flesh sloughed right off his arm, and his knees went out from under him. Tom caught him by his good arm and held him up.
His arm, Arya thought, and his face. But he was the Hound. He deserved to burn in a fiery hell.
The knife felt heavy in her hand. She gripped it tighter. “You killed Mycah,” she said once more, daring him to deny it. “Tel them. You did. You did.”
“I did.” His whole face twisted. “I rode him down and cut him in half, and laughed. I watched them beat your sister bloody too, watched them cut your father’s head off.” Lem grabbed her wrist and twisted, wrenching the dagger away. She kicked at him, but he would not give it back. “You go to hel , Hound,” she screamed at Sandor Clegane in helpless empty-handed rage. “You just go to hel !”
“He has,” said a voice scarce stronger than a whisper.
When Arya turned, Lord Beric Dondarrion was standing behind her, his bloody hand clutching Thoros by the shoulder.