Nerd In the North 6-27A (Patreon)

Hot salt flooded her throat with a wet crunch, the taste of it pooling on her tongue. Hooves beat against the moss, wetness of the morning splashed with red a final time before those legs went still against red-stained grass.Fangs dug deep again into ripped belly-fur, the horn-meat’s rib snapping as her maw went for the liver. Good. She swallowed it hot. Good fat.

This was her meat.

Hers.

Fast meat, but she was faster.Steam rose from the torn belly into the cold air as she dug in deeper.

It was then that the ground shook against her front pads.

Ears snapped back, lying flat as muscle locked up under heavy fur. Hot blood dripped from her whiskers, red meat still caught in her teeth as the wind shifted through pines, carrying sound right to her.

A low wet growl shook through her as she heard it; not a hunt-call or a danger-bark.

Howls.

Panicked.

Pack.

More howls ripped through the distant pines, sharp as splintered bone in her ears.

Nymeria dropped the warm meat. Paws dug deep into the freezing mud as she tore over it, hind legs snapping into motion. Her bulk barreled through the thicket, all four limbs pushing past trees and bushes as branches whipped her snout. The forest blurred into streaks; gray and brown all the same in her eyes as she didn’t dare close them.

Human noises bled into the wind through the trees just ahead as a scream forced her hackles to rise.

Arya!“Arya! Get back! Behin—"

Bull-boy. Bull-boy with the iron-smell. Always loud.

"Hold the line!” Unknown meat made noise, steel-men loud over the sound of fast-meat. “Daeric, the flank!"

The wall of briars did nothing to hold her back as she burst through it with a snarl, a spray of dead wood splintering over her shoulders. Her pack was there, fur raised, fangs bared, circling the horse-men as they snarled low to the dirt. Fast-meat reared back, steel-men atop them fighting to stay on. 

Then the bad air hit her lungs. Smoke-stink. Wrong-smell. Like fire gone too long.

Then she saw him.

Not a steel-man.

Not like the rest.

He was too big to be like the rest.

All in black, he stunk of old blood and bad sleep — a slab of black iron in his hands as big as she was.

"Another one!" A scream forced another snarl from her bared fangs. "Shit! It’s massive!"

The giant didn't flinch at the timber breaking or at the sight of her even. Those heavy boots dug deep into the dirt and the steel-man threw himself directly into her path.Nymeria didn’t stop either, a howl ripping from her chest and tearing out her throat as something that made the air shake.

The change hit her mid-stride as her pads hit the dirt again. Wolf-spine cracked, shifting with a pop of joints as fur melted backward into browned and steaming skin.

 Her front legs stretched, heavy muscle wrapping around lengthening bones as paws split into thick fingers. Two legs hammered the earth where four had been, momentum never breaking as her maw reformed to a jaw, teeth staying sharp all the same.

With a too-human roar, she threw her human weight forward to meet the iron.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“You’re gonna get us killed.”Riverlands mud smelled like a dead dog.

A dead dog left to rot in a ditch.

Arya’s fingernails were black with old grease from a pine, fingers raw from scraping at the bark of a fallen trunk to get something dry enough for the fire. With a grunt, she brought a dead branch down over her knee, dry wood cracking loud enough to make her wince.“Sorry, Ary.”

Gendry stood twenty paces off, being stupid and loud as usual — a heavy ash limb dragged behind him through the briars. He always moved like a bull in a turnip patch, huffing and puffing and snoring and everything else. Even now, his thick boots were squelching so hard in the muck that it was a surprise to Arya that no Lannister scout had found them yet. 

“Don’t be sorry.” She didn’t bother looking up, biting down on a loose flap of skin near her thumb; the taste of salt and wet dirt. Need to get this done soon. If the rain started again before they got the small twigs smoking, they’d be shivering till dawn. “Be quiet.”

The ground twitched under her worn leather boots, Arya’s eyes going up and the birch bark slipping out of her grip. The wood fell beside a puddle, the damp nearly ruining all her work, but that didn’t matter — not when she could hear something coming. 

And she wasn’t alone in that.

The grays — six wolves Nymeria had left with them at the edge of the thicket since she went off to hunt — stopped their snuffling as ears flipped back flat against their skulls; tails drooping into wet ferns.

Hooves. 

Heavy ones.

Not the light, half-starved sound of garrons ridden by broken men fleeing, but the heavy thud of iron shoes on well-fed destriers. They were coming from the south, tearing straight through the swampland without slowing down. 

Arya dropped to her knees, feet sinking into the mire as her hand went for the grip of her Needle; wire wrapping around the hilt small and thin against her palm. The wolves didn’t run either, all of them crawling forward to her side; lips peeled back over yellow teeth and snarling as the sound neared.

“Gendry.” 

The name left her a hiss, but the sound was already drowned out as the brush tore open in the same breath. Horses — a half dozen, if not more — burst through the branches of gray in a rush of flying mud and sweat. The riders weren’t Lannisters — no red on them that Arya could make out on rusted mail and mud-stained cloaks — but one of them was a silver streak.

A boy about Jon’s age, sitting high in a saddle atop a cream-colored horse with a face as pretty as any she had ever seen in plate that looked far too clean for the Riverlands.

Beside him rode a massive shadow, a man so wide he looked like a whole wall to himself clad in black iron, a square piece of metal strapped to his back that was too wide to be anything near a sword.

A giant — Arya stepped back, grip loosening around Needle as she stared at the man nearly the size of the Mountain. No.

The northern side of the clearing chose that moment to come apart. 

Entire trunks shattered with a sound of thunder as a gray-furred head smashed through the thicket, splintering trees against a body easily the size of any warhorse. 

Nymeria came through the air, mouth open with jaws wide enough to swallow a man’s head; a nightmare of gray fur and fury. But before her hind pads even cleared the moss, that same fur began to tear. 

A direwolf when she appeared, Arya’s breath stuck in her throat as she watched Nymeria’s ribs expand out, body a branch twisting till the wood split open. Gray hair melted back into skin nearly that of a Dornishman, stretched tight over shoulders as wide as any anvil she had seen Gendry use. Hind lengs lengthened, joints popping and cracking louder than breaking wood until Nymeria hit the dirt on two bare feet. 

A woman.

Standing tall at eight-and-ten hands, muscle corded along her thighs and arms — both completely bare beneath the fur wrap she wore tight against her body. Arya’s own face stared back at her, long and vicious but as solemn as any stark; stretched tightly over a predator's heavy jaw.

The giant in black didn't freeze as direwolf became direwoman, no battle cry or scream of fear leaving him. No, he simply leapt from his black horse, slab or iron torn from his back as he charged right towards Nymeria.

He swung that sword that wasn't a sword, the blade heavy enough to split a warhorse down the middle and aimed at the waist to cut the giant woman in half.

Nymeria faced the giant with as much fear as he wore, driving forward with bare clawed toes digging into the black mud. With another howl, she brought her forearm down like a club; fist striking the flat of the metal and the hand that swung it.The impact rocked the ground, sheer force rattling Arya’s teeth and making her jump from across the clearing. The giant’s grip failed him, iron tearing free from his gauntlets and spinning through the air until the tip sheared through the bark of a birch and buried itself deep in muck.The ugly giant scowled up. “Bitch!”Nymeria growled back.