Work Text:
“I don’t think this is wise…”
Gendry looked down from the snow covered rise they stood on and counted the wolves again. Still half a dozen, and who knew how many other members of the pack might have been hiding in the brush.
They were a snarling mass of fur and teeth, yelping and slavering and tearing the hide off the carcass in great mouthfuls, the snow turning pink beneath their paws. The alpha would have been the largest wolf Gendry had ever seen if not for Nymeria, who stood between the two of them and watched the frenzy with rapt attention, her tongue lolling out and drool hanging from her jowls. Only Arya’s fingers raking through the fur at her hackles kept her from charging down the hill and bullying through the smaller canines to taste the stag.
The direwolf had shattered them out of their sleep that morning with a howl that shook snow out of the trees and sent it falling down on their sleeping furs, adding her voice to the distant chorus.
“Gods be good.” He had mumbled an oath, groaning and relaxing his reflexive grip on his knife. Arya only gave a sleepy little chuckle, snuggled closer against him and returned to her slumber, either oblivious to the noise or grown used to it. The Starks had kept six of the great beasts at Winterfell once. He couldn’t imagine the sound that would have produced.
He finally fell back asleep only to be roused an hour or so later with the dawn light in his eyes and Nymeria’s cold nose against the side of his neck, snuffling her humid canine breath down his collar. He cursed again, and this time Arya’s chuckle wasn’t beside him but over by the fire.
“She’s hungry. You’re making her wait by lying abed all morning.”
It took most of the morning to track the pack, Nymeria leading the way excitedly, nose to the ground and weaving in and out of the brush in front of them with her tail wagging. Even without the direwolf the trail was obvious. The snow had been trampled down by a number of feet before them, and the paw prints were nearly the size of Gendry’s palm- and fresh. When they reached the part of the trail where the chase had begun the stride lengths of the tracks widened, and Nymeria had given a little yip and looked back at them, as if to say ‘hurry!’
The sounds of the kill echoed through the trees like a phantom army of ghosts. Yelping, baying, the pained bellows of the stag; a gory picture being painted in his mind that he couldn’t help but imagine. And then at last they had crept out onto the hill above the pack, and the sound of bone crunching and twisting and teeth snapping had made Gendry shiver. It was no worse than the scene he had created in his head- just a bunch of wolves shouldering one another out of position and fighting over the kill, meat and blood and fur.
It was still more wolves than any sane person would choose to take on.
“It’s their kill to eat, not ours. Isn’t it unfair to take it from them?”
“They aren’t starving, and their pack is small without many mouths to feed.” Arya pointed out. “Besides, how many corpses have we passed in these woods?”
“Dozens.” he replied glumly.
“And the wolves and the crows have been feasting together. Fat lords make better meals than that rangy old deer.”
“Are you really trying to make me feel better about chasing them off their kill by telling me they’ve already eaten human flesh?” Gendry shuddered.
“Well… yes. Unless you want to be the next set of bodies they find frozen in the snow we need to find food. There it is.” Arya said, pointing down at the pack. “They won’t fight two people armed with swords and a direwolf for it.” To punctuate her statement she slid Needle free from its scabbard, and hefted the blade lightly in her palm.
“And we’ll only take a little. Now hurry, before they tear it all to pieces.”
And she had released the wolf and started down the hill. He had no choice but to follow- he never did. Gendry supposed being eaten was still preferable to starving to death in the snow.
Nymeria led the charge, and he and Arya had no chance of keeping up with her pace. The first wolf she met challenged her with a half-hearted snarl, but the direwolf shoved it aside like a pup. The second wolf cowered and showed its belly in a flash of white. And then she was in the midst of the pack and a fight broke out, the pack members dancing in close to nip and growl and attempt to defend their meal against the much larger predator. It was a short-lived rebellion. Nymeria caught the alpha male by the scruff and bore him down to the ground, forcing him into a submissive position. His mate and his beta came to his defense but Nymeria held steady and Arya began shouting and waving her arms, which further confused the scene.
The subordinate wolves pinned their ears back, dropped their tails, and slunk off to find cover. With their numbers and their odds decreasing steadily, one by one the other wolves followed until only Nymeria stood over the stag.
Up close Gendry could still see the steam rising off the meat. The stag’s tongue hung out in a lather of spittle from the exertion of his chase, and the animal looked up at him accusingly with glassy black eyes.
“Keep to my back,” Arya told him, like he hadn’t known that already. He humored her. Nymeria took the other side of the kill, gnawing on a mouthful of stag happily and sending the occasional growl to the slinking pack. They had retreated much less than Gendry was comfortable with.
“His foreleg is broken” Arya said, holding up the dangling limb for him to see. “That’s how they got him.”
“Wonderful.” It made him feel a bit sick. He’d never been on a hunt like a lord, to ride down some animal with a great bunch of hounds and fifteen attendants to help slay the beast; he’d never lived on a farm that raised livestock to slaughter. His experience was limited to market stalls and the few times he had been lucky enough to hit an especially slow rabbit or fowl. They certainly didn’t look like this when he skinned and gutted them.
“Move over. I want that good haunch. You take this one; they’ve already started on it.” Arya told her wolf. She gently shoved the giant animal aside and Nymeria obeyed without complaint. Arya tossed the first good cut of meat on the snow at Gendry’s feet a moment later, a blood red roast the size of a ham. Every eye of the pack was trained on him now. Maybe they’d eat him first, then, and Arya could get away.
That roast did look awfully good, though…
~
The fur on Nymeria’s face was stiff and stained pink with dried blood when she licked at his greasy fingers. Gendry pulled back his hand and shoved the canine away with his knee, but she took it as a playful gesture and smacked the ground with her forelegs, then bounced away in an invitation for him to chase her.
“You might have gotten rid of the wolf but you still have to share with me. Budge over.” Arya informed him, sitting down next to him with her eating knife in one hand and a plate in the other. The venison was browned and crisp, and he’d been eating it off the spit while more sensible heads waited for it to cool. He couldn’t seem to wait.
She clucked at him disapprovingly. “Look, you’ve eaten half your portion already.”
He eyed the thick cut of meat she carved off for herself carefully. “I was hungry.”
Arya speared a bit of meat with her knife and popped it into her mouth and chewed it slowly, savoring the taste. “I told you it was worth the risk.”
“I’d have fought them off barehanded if I’d known that old stag would cook up like this.” he admitted, picking at a bit of meat that didn’t quite fit on Arya’s plate.
“Stop that, you’ve already had yours!” she said, hurriedly cramming a large bite into her mouth before he could sneak another.
“But I’m bigger, I need more food than you do.” he protested.
“I’m the leader; leader always gets the best share.”
The two of them argued between snatching mouthfuls of one another’s food until the last of the roast was gone and they were eying Nymeria thoughtfully, wondering if she could take down an aurochs or maybe, somehow, snatch some hot cider and a tray of lemon cakes.