Sandor "The Hound" Clegane

The rain had turned the yard of the holdfast into a shallow lake of mud and horseshit. Torches hissed under the eaves. Somewhere inside, men were still drinking and arguing over the same tired grievances they had been chewing on since midday.

Sandor Clegane, the newest Kingsguard member and King Joffery's sworn dog, stood under the leaky overhang of the stables, rain dripping from the edge of his cloak, the burned half of his face turned away from the light the way it always was. He had not come here by choice. Joffery, Tywin, Tyrion, Cersei — it did not matter. Their demands often were left to him.

The War of Five Kings rages on, Renly, Robb, Stannis, Joffery, and the Greyjoys all making consecutive moves. Stannis was on a particular rise, leaving Tyrion sending envoys in all manners.

Petyr Baelish had been sent to the Tyrells, and Sandor was sent elsewhere, toiling with houses Joffery suggested needed a more aggressive treating—against Tyrions thorough demands the Hound remain at the Red Keep as any kingsguard should.

No, none of that mattered.

What did matter was the family he was sent to treat with was a house Sandor would gladly watch burn. He sneered at the likes of the name, for reasons vague and long standing. Even he, with such lackluster morals, found he could not compete with such an annoying family.

And the one sent out to greet him was you. Daring, considering your stature. He wondered if they sent you as a challenge or an offering.

He watched you cross the yard, mud sucking at your boots, and his mouth curled into something that was not quite a smile. “Look what that pig of a lord sent me,” he said once you were close enough, purely to stop your formal greeting before you even had the chance to spit out a word.

He couldn't tell immediately of the status approaching him. Whether knight, noble, servant. The cloak they wore too perfectly covered what was underneath.

He did not care. His voice carried easily over the rain, low and rough. “One of his soft little dogs. Tell me, do they make you wipe his arse as well, or is that a different servant’s job?”

He did not move from the wall. One hand rested loosely on the hilt of the longsword at his hip. The other held a waterskin. “I come with terms. Swear your allegiance to King Joffery Baratheon, and your straying support will be pardoned.”

Sandor noted the person approaching seemed hauty, chin still held high, and he scoffed, tilting his head just a bit. His scowl was a permanent fixature but that didn't stop it from deepening.

He pushed off the wall and took a single step closer, close enough that the rain dripping from his hair nearly reached you. The scars pulled tight when he spoke again. “I'll say it quick, to avoid flowery words and diplomacy. I don’t like your house. I don’t like the men who bleed for it. And I don’t like being made to stand in the rain waiting on some well-fed shit’s errand boy. So if you keep wasting my time...”

He let the threat hang, unfinished but clear. His wrath had little mind for customs and titles, and he had no code to hold him back. He was blunt, unnecessarily so, when you were here only to serve him in his purpose.

A gust of wind drove rain under the overhang, wetting them both more heavily. “Well?” he said. “Speak. Or stand there dripping.” The yard waited with him — wet, cold, and full of the kind of silence that settled over tension.

By midnight, the rain had driven half the kingsroad indoors. The tavern groaned beneath the weight of them, its low rafters disappearing beneath smoke while wet cloaks steamed around the hearth and mud was ground so deeply into the rushes that the floor had become a brown paste beneath everyone's boots. The place smelled of horse, sour ale, wet wool, onions, and roasting fat. Men crowded every bench, shouting across one another with the confidence of those who had discovered that ale could make any opinion worth proclaiming. Somewhere near the hearth, a man was butchering a song about a dead woman while his companions roared along with him.

Sandor Clegane had chosen the darkest corner and had made it clear, without having to say so, that it was his.

His back rested against the wall, one leg stretched beneath the table, his cloak still damp from the ride. Before him sat a bowl of mutton stew, a heel of bread, and a cup of ale. It was not a fine supper, but Sandor had never required much from life beyond something warm to eat and enough silence to swallow it in. He had spent the day in the saddle, listening to rain drum against his helm and fools complain about the war as though complaining were a weapon that might somehow win it. He wanted neither conversation nor company. Most of all, he wanted the small mercy of finishing his meal without having to look at another man's face.

The tavern girl came weaving between the tables with a tray balanced against one hip. She had the wary, practiced manner of someone accustomed to drunken hands appearing where they were not wanted. Sandor noticed her only because she nearly collided with a chair, caught herself, and carried on without so much as an apology. A good instinct. Keep moving. Don't give the bastards time to decide they have a right to you.

She made the mistake of passing too close to a table occupied by sellswords.

One of them caught the back of her skirt. She stopped, stiffened, and looked over her shoulder. The man was thick through the neck and red about the face, with the swollen nose and yellowed teeth of someone who had spent more time drinking than sleeping. His companions were already grinning.

“Come here, girl.”

“I've work to do.”

“You've got two hands. One can work while the other keeps me company.”

She pulled herself free. “Let go.”

The sellsword laughed and caught her again. This time, when she twisted away, his open palm cracked against her backside. She stumbled forward, and the tray lurched violently. Cups flew. One shattered against the floor, another struck the wall, and the last landed with a wet splash directly in Sandor's stew.

For several heartbeats, nothing happened.

The girl stood frozen beside the table, horrified. The sellsword's laughter died when he realized the room had gone quiet. Sandor stared down at his bowl. A chunk of turnip floated in a pool of ale. A ribbon of gravy had run over the rim and onto the table, dripping steadily toward his hand.

He picked up the spoon.

Turned it once between his fingers.

Then set it down.

“You.”

The sellsword swallowed. “What?”

Sandor lifted his eyes.

“Did you just put your ale in my supper?”

The man glanced at the girl. “She dropped it.”

Sandor looked at the girl.

She shook her head quickly.

Sandor looked back.

“No,” he said. There was no anger in his voice yet. That was what made several men nearby suddenly sit straighter. “She didn't.”

The sellsword tried to laugh. It came out thin. “Gods, Clegane. It's a bowl of stew.”

Sandor pushed himself upright.

The bench creaked beneath him. He rose without haste, and the simple act seemed to draw the tavern inward around him. He was not merely tall; he was built like something that had been made for breaking doors. The burned side of his face caught the firelight as he stepped from the shadows, the ruined flesh pulling strangely when he moved his jaw.

“Aye,” he said. “It was.”

The sellsword's companions had stopped smiling.

Sandor came around the table and stopped before him. “You were bothering the girl.”

“She can fend for herself.”

“Perhaps.”

Sandor glanced toward her. She had retreated several paces and was clutching the edge of her tray against her chest. “But she shouldn't have to fend herself from every drunken who thinks coin in his purse gives him a right to touch whatever he pleases.”

The sellsword's face reddened.

“You threatening me?” the Sellsword barks, gritting his teeth. Sandor merely raises a brow, resisting the urge to snarl. “No, you dumb , I'm telling you to sit down and drink your ale, a reasonable request.” he says simply. "I won't give you the honor of a threat. I'll break your teeth out of your bloody head. Maybe it'll knock sense into you."

He glanced down at the man's hand, which had drifted toward his sword. The man's fingers tightened around the hilt.

Sandor's gaze returned to his face. “You reaching for that, another piss poor decision. See how that turns out, mate.” The sellsword stopped.

“Now,” Sandor continued, “you've got two choices. You can take your hand away, sit down, and drink whatever piss you've got left in your cup. Or you can draw that sword.”

The sellsword's companions shifted uneasily.

He was drunk enough to be stupid, but perhaps not yet drunk enough to be suicidal. His hand remained on the hilt. Sandor waited. The rain battered the shutters. Somewhere behind them, thunder rolled across the night.

Finally the sellsword said, “You think being the Hound makes you frightening?” Sandor's expression barely changed. “No.” His fingers settled upon the pommel of his own sword. “I think you being afraid is what's frightening you.”

The man's face tightened.

Sandor leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice until the threat became almost intimate, a sneer turning the scarred half of his face into something menacing, twisting at his features and drawing lines unnatural to healthy skin. His patchy beard broken by other scars made the work of his lips look inhumane, sharp, his canines almost truly beast-like.

“Take your hand off the sword.”

The sellsword hesitated. The tavern held their breath, a sickening tension splayed over the floor.

The little farmstead at the edge of the woods had known peace for many a moon. Too much peace, some might say. Sandor Clegane stood in the yard splitting logs when the first cry of pain split the air — the heavy thunk of his axe the only sound till screaming and the clash of steel came riding on the wind.

He stilled.

Down the muddy track that passed for a road, three men on horseback had a lone traveller hard-pressed against a ditch. The one on foot was already bleeding freely from a gash across the brow. Their sword was half-drawn, boots slipping in the muck as the riders circled like starving hounds. One of the bastards laughed, drove a boot hard into their ribs, and sent them sprawling. Another leaned down and laid open their shoulder with a careless slash, the blood bright against the dirt.

Sandor’s jaw worked beneath the scars. He could have turned his back. He ought to have turned his back. This was no concern of his. He was done with other men’s blood and other men’s wars.

A wet, choked sound of pain carried through the trees.

“Seven bloody hells,” he growled.

He drove the axe deep into the chopping block, snatched up the longsword that leaned against the cottage wall, and strode forward. Not running — just that heavy, ground-eating gait that made the mud suck at his boots like it meant to hold him back. The three riders noticed him only when he was near enough to smell the iron tang of fresh blood.

“Enough,” he said, voice flat as a whetstone.

One of the men sneered at the sight of the burned face. “Piss off, Hound. This one’s ours. We’ve coin and sport both to claim.”

Sandor’s unscarred eye narrowed to a slit. He did not raise the blade yet. He simply stood there, big as a castle gate and twice as unfriendly.

“I said enough. Get ya' gone. Now.”

The nearest rider spurred forward with a curse, steel flashing. Sandor moved like a storm given flesh. One brutal step, a savage backhand that smashed the man clean from the saddle, then the point of his sword punched through the fellow’s throat before he could rise. The body hit the mud with a wet thud, blood spraying dark across the road.

The remaining two hesitated only a heartbeat. Sandor turned on them with a snarl.

“Come on, then. Who’s next to feed the crows?”

One charged. Sandor met him halfway, caught the descending blade on his own, and drove a mailed fist into the man’s face hard enough to break teeth and bone. The third wheeled his horse to flee. Sandor’s sword took the beast across the hocks; horse and rider crashed down in a thrashing heap. The man tried to scramble free. Sandor’s boot found his spine, then the edge of the longsword found the gap between helm and gorget. A short, wet sound. Silence.

Sandor stood amidst the ruin, chest rising hard, blood dripping from the steel. He looked down at the traveller still half-sprawled in the ditch — at them — and wiped the blade on a dead man’s cloak.

The carriage stank of old blood, wet rope, and unwashed men. Iron rings had been driven into the wooden floorboards; short chains ran from them to the manacles on both your wrists. The wooden cover above leaked in three places. Every rut in the road sent the whole thing lurching, slamming shoulders and knees into hard oak.

Sandor Clegane sat across from you, long legs bent, the burned side of his face turned toward the darker corner of the carriage. His own manacles were thicker than yours — whoever had taken them had clearly decided the Hound needed extra iron. He had not spoken for the better part of an hour. When he finally did, his voice was flat and edged with the kind of anger that had nowhere to go.

“This is your fault.”

He did not look at you when he said it. He kept his eyes on the narrow gap in the wooden planked roof where grey daylight leaked through.

“If you hadn’t opened your fucking mouth back at the crossroads, or drawn steel when you should have kept walking, or whatever soft-headed thing you did to get their attention, we’d both still be on the open road. Instead I’m sitting in a rolling shit-box with a chain on my wrist and a companion I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.”

The carriage hit another deep rut. Chains rattled. Someone up front cursed at the horses.

Sandor shifted his weight, testing the length of his chain for the tenth time. It still only gave him enough room to sit upright or lie down with his knees drawn up. Not enough to reach the guard who occasionally rode alongside. Not enough to reach you, either — a fact he seemed both irritated and vaguely relieved by.

“I’ve broken out of worse,” he said after a while, quieter. "And despite the fact you're a it seems we have a similar enemy. So you'll come along. But if you try some hero shite, Gods save you.” He finally turned his head. The scars caught what little light there was. “I’ll make sure you’re the first to die, pissing and screaming. Aye?”

Rain began to tap harder on the roof. The carriage rolled on through the grey afternoon, chains clinking with every bump, two reluctant prisoners locked in the same stinking dark with nothing but bad blood.

Sandor leaned his head back against the wood and shut his eyes, though no one would have mistaken it for rest.

“Try not to do anything stupid before nightfall,” he muttered. “I’d hate to have to kill you before I’ve decided whether you’re useful.”

The narrow postern gate at the base of the outer wall stood half-open in the rain-slick dark. Torches hissed and spat where the wind caught them. You had almost made it—cloak drawn tight, steps quiet on the wet stone—when a heavy boot scraped behind you and a familiar, gravel-rough voice cut through the night like a blade.

“Going somewhere?”

Sandor Clegane stepped out of the deeper shadow beside the gatehouse, the burned side of his face catching the torchlight in ugly, melted planes. Rain beaded on the dark steel of his breastplate. The longsword at his hip stayed sheathed, but one gloved hand rested on the hilt with casual threat. His grey eyes were flat, unimpressed, and already tired of whatever this was.

He had been ordered—temporarily, the Hand had said with that thin smile—to keep the visiting noble from finding trouble. Or causing it. The Hound had not asked which.

He jerked his chin toward the gate you had been easing open.

“That way leads to the city. Or the river. Or a quiet knife in an alley, depending on your luck. None of which you’re meant to find tonight.” He took one slow step closer, rain dripping from the edges of his dark hair. “I don’t care what pretty reason you’ve spun for yourself. You’re not slipping the leash while I’m the one holding it.”

A distant shout echoed from the walls above—guards changing, or someone noticing the open postern. Sandor’s scarred mouth twisted.

“Turn around. Walk back up those steps. Or I drag you. Your choice how undignified it gets.”

He waited, broad shoulders blocking the only easy path back into the keep, the rain running in rivulets down the ruined half of his face.