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m_findlowTitle: Die well with purpose
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Sandor Clegane, Beric Dondarrion
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (Language & Violence)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 210 - Chaos at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: : 1,000 words
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Characters: Sandor Clegane, Beric Dondarrion
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (Language & Violence)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 210 - Chaos at
fandomweeklySummary: : 1,000 words
Summary: Even the battle hardened Sandor Clegane cannot truly prepare for what lies ahead.
Sandor Clegane tensed his hand around the hilt of his sword and squeezed it again. He hated this waiting business. He just wanted to get on with the battle and start killing. He wasn’t alone being anxious for something to happen. The only difference was that most of the other people were half out of their minds with concealed terror. Clegane didn't share their feelings. Fear was what got you killed. He only had to look around and know which of them was going to die. Too many to count.
Smoke rose from the fire pits dotted around the castle walls, illuminating the battlefield with an orange glow. By rights it should have been early morning, with the grey skies reflected in the dirty, snowy slush that had been trampled by a thousand feet in their preparation for battle. Yet the sky was as black as the bottom of a smith’s furnace, cloaking the whole of the north in a blanket of unnatural darkness. Those Stark bastards had been right all along. Winter was coming and it had come now, blanketing them in cold, unfeeling blackness.
Every tiny movement caught his attention in the poorly lit conditions. Shadows cast by the sharpened tips of the wooden hedgehogs dotted around the battlements made him extra wary of what lurked in their shadows, but they remained solid and resolute. For all the good they might do to protect the castle from the oncoming offensive. What did the Dead care for motionless weapons of war? It was the living they wanted.
He stared hard out into the night, barely a hundred yards in front of them before it plunged into a blackness so deep and dark that anything could be out there. All that stood between Winterfell and the unknown was a few thousand men and boys, two dragons and a self proclaimed Queen. Clegane didn’t like their chances.
As he focused closer in on the perimeter, where a large trench lay surrounding the castle, filled with every last piece of kindling and pitch they could muster, movement caught his eye from his right hand flank. A light moving towards him – nay, a flame – and a man wielding his sword lit like a beacon in the night.
‘Put that fucking thing out,’ Clegane complained, wishing Beric Dondarrion would stop waving that fucking flaming sword around. Clegane had already lost half his face to flames, he didn’t need the other half to be a mangled horror as well.
Dondarrion ignored Clegane, merely letting the sword point downwards, causing a patch of snowmelt near his feet. ‘Soon it begins,’ he said, joining Clegane in staring out beyond the edge of their defences. Clegane grunted at the obvious statement. ‘Tis a good night to die well, Clegane.’ Beric had an ironic smile curling at the edge of his mouth.
His hand clenched around the hilt once more. ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time.’
Dondarrion was about to reply when a rebel yell erupted in the distance. A thunderous rumble of horses' hooves made the ground beneath their feet shake as the first wave of Dothraki horse lords surged beyond the trenches and off into battle. Their hollering and guttural battle cries could be heard all the way as they rode into the black, carrying their flaming torches in one hand, deadly arakhs in the other. Then the flames went out and a silence fell. Ten thousand strong warriors simply disappeared into the void.
‘And so it begins,’ came Dondarrion’s hushed words, before a tidal wave of enemy forces burst forward.
The first one came at Clegane quickly, almost without warning. He spotted it long enough to take in the fact that it had almost no ribcage to speak of, held together by ragged clothes and the skeletal remains of its spine alone. One heavy swing of his blade severed the creature in two, shattering the spine. After that, they came thick and fast, and Clegane no longer had time to notice whether it was missing half its face, an arm, or most of its flesh. The undead came in all varieties, and all were scarcely halted by his blade and intent to kill.
He cleaved the next one at the shoulder, removing its sword-wielding arm before something grabbed at his leg. The first one he’d cut in half was clutched around his foot, teeth about to tear into his leg. He swung his sword at it again, before needing to raise it to fend off two more that came at him in the split second his focus was diverted. A pain ripped into his calf and still the White Walker clung to him. He swung again, taking off a bony hand for all the difference it made. ‘Just fucking die, you cunt!’ he yelled, spotting a dozen more rallying towards him as he cut more bones from its body to no avail. If he fell, he was as good as dead.
A flash of bright orange came at him and he dodged, too slow to avoid it completely. He waited for the searing pain of fire against his flesh, just like when his brother had pushed him into their brazier as children for playing with his brother’s toys. Instead, the most ungodly wail went up as the flames plunged down into the skull of the thing clawing his leg. Dondarrion’s sword had put an end to the beast as only flame could.
‘Dying well shall only come once the battle is near to won.’ Why did Dondarrion have to look so pleased with himself?
Clegane regained his balance. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he said, tightening his grip on the sword and surging forward to cut down four more in anger.
The trenches exploded into a ring of fire before the Undead began piling themselves on top of it, sacrificing themselves to build a smouldering bridge of bodies for the rest to clamber over, slowing their army for less than a minute.
Clegane grimaced. Fuck dying well.
Sandor Clegane tensed his hand around the hilt of his sword and squeezed it again. He hated this waiting business. He just wanted to get on with the battle and start killing. He wasn’t alone being anxious for something to happen. The only difference was that most of the other people were half out of their minds with concealed terror. Clegane didn't share their feelings. Fear was what got you killed. He only had to look around and know which of them was going to die. Too many to count.
Smoke rose from the fire pits dotted around the castle walls, illuminating the battlefield with an orange glow. By rights it should have been early morning, with the grey skies reflected in the dirty, snowy slush that had been trampled by a thousand feet in their preparation for battle. Yet the sky was as black as the bottom of a smith’s furnace, cloaking the whole of the north in a blanket of unnatural darkness. Those Stark bastards had been right all along. Winter was coming and it had come now, blanketing them in cold, unfeeling blackness.
Every tiny movement caught his attention in the poorly lit conditions. Shadows cast by the sharpened tips of the wooden hedgehogs dotted around the battlements made him extra wary of what lurked in their shadows, but they remained solid and resolute. For all the good they might do to protect the castle from the oncoming offensive. What did the Dead care for motionless weapons of war? It was the living they wanted.
He stared hard out into the night, barely a hundred yards in front of them before it plunged into a blackness so deep and dark that anything could be out there. All that stood between Winterfell and the unknown was a few thousand men and boys, two dragons and a self proclaimed Queen. Clegane didn’t like their chances.
As he focused closer in on the perimeter, where a large trench lay surrounding the castle, filled with every last piece of kindling and pitch they could muster, movement caught his eye from his right hand flank. A light moving towards him – nay, a flame – and a man wielding his sword lit like a beacon in the night.
‘Put that fucking thing out,’ Clegane complained, wishing Beric Dondarrion would stop waving that fucking flaming sword around. Clegane had already lost half his face to flames, he didn’t need the other half to be a mangled horror as well.
Dondarrion ignored Clegane, merely letting the sword point downwards, causing a patch of snowmelt near his feet. ‘Soon it begins,’ he said, joining Clegane in staring out beyond the edge of their defences. Clegane grunted at the obvious statement. ‘Tis a good night to die well, Clegane.’ Beric had an ironic smile curling at the edge of his mouth.
His hand clenched around the hilt once more. ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time.’
Dondarrion was about to reply when a rebel yell erupted in the distance. A thunderous rumble of horses' hooves made the ground beneath their feet shake as the first wave of Dothraki horse lords surged beyond the trenches and off into battle. Their hollering and guttural battle cries could be heard all the way as they rode into the black, carrying their flaming torches in one hand, deadly arakhs in the other. Then the flames went out and a silence fell. Ten thousand strong warriors simply disappeared into the void.
‘And so it begins,’ came Dondarrion’s hushed words, before a tidal wave of enemy forces burst forward.
The first one came at Clegane quickly, almost without warning. He spotted it long enough to take in the fact that it had almost no ribcage to speak of, held together by ragged clothes and the skeletal remains of its spine alone. One heavy swing of his blade severed the creature in two, shattering the spine. After that, they came thick and fast, and Clegane no longer had time to notice whether it was missing half its face, an arm, or most of its flesh. The undead came in all varieties, and all were scarcely halted by his blade and intent to kill.
He cleaved the next one at the shoulder, removing its sword-wielding arm before something grabbed at his leg. The first one he’d cut in half was clutched around his foot, teeth about to tear into his leg. He swung his sword at it again, before needing to raise it to fend off two more that came at him in the split second his focus was diverted. A pain ripped into his calf and still the White Walker clung to him. He swung again, taking off a bony hand for all the difference it made. ‘Just fucking die, you cunt!’ he yelled, spotting a dozen more rallying towards him as he cut more bones from its body to no avail. If he fell, he was as good as dead.
A flash of bright orange came at him and he dodged, too slow to avoid it completely. He waited for the searing pain of fire against his flesh, just like when his brother had pushed him into their brazier as children for playing with his brother’s toys. Instead, the most ungodly wail went up as the flames plunged down into the skull of the thing clawing his leg. Dondarrion’s sword had put an end to the beast as only flame could.
‘Dying well shall only come once the battle is near to won.’ Why did Dondarrion have to look so pleased with himself?
Clegane regained his balance. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he said, tightening his grip on the sword and surging forward to cut down four more in anger.
The trenches exploded into a ring of fire before the Undead began piling themselves on top of it, sacrificing themselves to build a smouldering bridge of bodies for the rest to clamber over, slowing their army for less than a minute.
Clegane grimaced. Fuck dying well.
