The Mountain and The Hound

This excerpt is from the first book of the fiction Novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” told from POV of Sansa.

The Hound is taking Sansa to the Red Keep (on Joefferys Instruction) after the first day of Kings Tourney organized in the celeberation of the appointment of King`s Hand had ended.

The left side of his face was a ruin. His ear had been burned away; there was nothing left but a hole. His eye was still good, but all around it was a twisted mass of scar, slick black flesh hard as leather, pocked with craters and fissures by deep cracks that gleamed red and wet when he moved. Down by his jaw, you could see a hint of bone where the flesh had been seared away.

Sansa began to cry. He let go her then, and snuffed out the torch in dirt. “No pretty words for that, girl? No little compliment the septa taught you?” When there was no answer, he continued. “Most of them, they thing it was some battle. A seige, a burning tower, an enemy with a torch. One fool asked if it was dragonsbreath.” His laugh was softer this time, but just as bitter. “I’ll tell you what it was, girl,” he said, a voice from the night, a shadow leaning so close now that she could smell the sour stench of wine on his breath. “ I was younger than you, six, maybe seven. A woodcarver setup shop in the village under my father`s kee, and to buy favour he sent us gifts. The old man made marvelous toys. I dont remember what I got, but it was Gregors gift I wanted. A wooden knight, all painted up, every joined seperate and fixed up with strings, so you could make them fight.

Gregor (The Mountain) is five years older than me, the toy was nothing to him, he was already a squire. a near six foot tall and muscled like an ox. So I took his knight, but there was no joy to it, I tell you. I was scared all the while, and true enough, he found me. There was a braizer in the room. Gregor never said a word, he just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed. You saw how strong he is. Even then, it took three grown men to drag him off me. The septons preach about seven hells. What do they know? Only a man who`s been burned knows what hell is truly like.

“My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and our masters gave me Ointments. Ointmenets! Gregor got his ointmenets too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen (must have been King then and whose family was later killed by the same man) tapped him on the and said, ‘Arise, Ser Gregor.”

The rasping voice trailed off. He squated silently before her, a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes. Sansa could hear his ragged breathing. She was sad for him, she realized. Somehow the fear had gone away.