A Hound's Tale
Eighteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
The faint screech of a whetstone on steel filled the chamber as the scarred warrior worked methodically at the task. He could have just handed it off to a servant to do, he had 'earned' that he supposed by putting three bull men into the dirt. His lips pulled into what might have been a sneer had it not been for the pain of the ruined side of his face. At least one had tried to call him fucking 'Ser' over wearing armor and talking Common ever since that Dragon's man he sent off the first night. He supposed it wasn't that hard to remember to call him 'Hound', 'you', or just a curse in whatever tongue they pleased when there were bastards with horns and cow faces about.
About as big as him, not half as mean...
The slow boiling anger in his belly made him curse. As much as Sandor Clegane could be said to hope for anything, he
had hoped that his brother would come here too, looking for a fight, maybe just for something new to kill. No one would have thought to pull them apart here under the Dragon's eye. They'd fucking cheer all the louder to see House Clegane dead.
Would you kill him, could you? nagging doubt as familiar as the pain pulled at him.
"Pardon me..." a woman's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Sandor."
Hearing his name, the Hound looked up reluctantly to meet the eyes of the green-robed witch who had fixed his shoulder after the last fight. Whatever kindly thoughts he may have had about her were banished by her next words: "You should have someone more skilled than me look at your face. The princess is in the houses of healing the day after tomorrow..."
"The princess? The
fucking princess," he snarled. "And what do you think she would do? Scream and faint at the sight of me most like. Do you know what..." he cut himself off abruptly. Talking about what Gregor had done to the last Targaryen princess he'd met and her children was liable to get him killed, and there was only one way Sandor Clegane wanted to die. Thankfully that seemed to be enough to drive her and her bullshit off.
Not long afterwards the horns began to blow. It was time to walk out onto the fields.
***
There was something almost calming about heading into a fight in the Circle of Battle. The reasons men fought here were no different than the ones they had in any tourney he'd ever fought, for glory and for gold, but here he didn't have to listen to talk of chivalry like perfume on a mound of shit and blood.
As Sandor moved up from the south side of the arena on heavy iron-shod boots his opponent came from the north, not a bull-man, not even a man at all. She looked sort of like a woman, like one of the queen's women maybe, for she was fair of face and silver hair flowed from under her feathered hat as she took it in hand and started waving with it to the crowd, but the strangest thing about her was that she had wings, big brown wings like some kind of giant butterfly.
Mariya had liked butterflies... the thought was sharp as a knife to the kidneys, but Sandor was used to that pain as much as the ache in his face, and he knew what to do with it. As the trumpets blew again the Hound charged, sword raised high for a diagonal cut, shield in the other hand.
"Oh, come on. No real introduction, no
banter, right to the fight!" the strange woman said, a thin Braavosi sword appearing in her hand in an instant as with the other she affixed her hat. She side-stepped the blow and then ducked under the backhanded swing, her own weapon rasping against armor as she sought the weak point at his elbow. Sandor didn't pay her any mind, the only things he cared about hearing in a fight were screams of pain, bodies falling, or someone calling that they wanted to give up. Everything else was a distraction.
This next two blows were much more carefully aimed, one slamming into her ribs and the other into her upper arm before she narrowly dodged a third.
How the fuck was she still standing?
The question of how the damn girl had been able to take two hits that would have laid out strong men was soon forgotten before the fact that she just bloody vanished into thin air. The Hound started cursing loudly, looking through the stands for the bloody king to call this mummery off.
Was this his game...?
The thought was cut off abruptly as he felt the stinging pain of steel cutting at his knee from behind. He swung around in one mighty heave and bashed the witch with his shield before hitting her in the head with the flat of his blade, only just turning the sword in time. Stupid thing to be doing, Sandor was still able to think through the haze of anger and the sound of blood pumping in his ears.
If he killed her...
The witch was still smiling: "You cast a longer shadow than you think, Sandor Clegane. Yours will be a tale worth telling by the end."
"Fuck you and
fuck your stories!" Sandor shouted as the witch flung herself back wings beating forward to cover her escape.
Her eyes flashed with silver light and her words became a strange lulling song: "Heed me well, Sandor Clegane. A Hound will not crush a Mountain. For that you must be a
hammer. If you die he wins, no matter if he joins you, for tales are more enduring than flesh and blood could ever hope to be "
Then as he still stood there enthralled the witch walked up to him and hand slapped him on his armored shoulder. "Wouldn't want to be caught cheating," she said cheerfully as Sandor's sword cut into her shoulder and then the pommel smashed her beneath the jaw.
As she tried to fly away to prick and prod him some more from the air Sandor slicked her back open with one last swing.
"Alright, you've got me," she gasped out. "Rematch in a month?"
As the healers rushed over to fix her Sandor had to grant silently and very grudgingly the witch had
guts. "Only if you keep your mouth shut the next time," he grunted.
"Deal," said the witch, though that seemed to pain her more than her wounds
OOC: For anyone wondering how Moonsong is spouting prophecy, she wanted to divine her own chances at victory and got low odds of getting past Sandor, so of course she paid for a whole host of divinations on him since anyone who could defeat her was by definition interesting.