Below the Street of Flour on the way down from the east side of Rhaenys's Hill laid Flea Bottom, a down-trodden area of the Capital, full with poverty and crime. The air in the area is filled with the stench of pigsties, stables, and tanner's sheds, mixed in with the smell of winesinks and whorehouses. A tavern, The Pig's Crown sat in the long, cooling shadow of Rhaenys's Hill behind it, a low-slung hovel that breathed a thick, wet stench of sour ale, unwashed skins, and the foul smoke of peat fires from outside.
Sandor Clegane enters the tavern kicking it wide open as the wood groans on its rusted hinges. Inside, the residents of Flea Bottom's desperate and drunk falter for a heartbeat for no one in there wanted the Hound's eye on them, let alone his temper. Eyes flicker toward him as thieves and fools peer out from their seats, silence born of the sudden sight of his burned face, the raw, red ruin of his left side that never failed to make men look away that defined him more than any name. The silence didn't last long as moments later the noise returns, though a nervous imitation of its former self.
He moves to a corner table, his greaves clanking in a metallic rhythm against the floorboards and occupies the whole for his own. He sits and the bench groans under his bulk, his cloak still stiff with the day's filth and the lingering, sickly perfume of the Red Keep. He grunts at the innkeeper and moments later a flagon of ale appear, the keepers hands trembling so violently that a foam of yellow slops over the rim. Sandor wraps his massive, calloused hand around the flagon and drinks quietly. The liquid was thin and tasted of vinegar and copper, it burned down his throat but it intoxicated him heavily, and that was all that mattered. Though that was never enough to drown his ghosts.
The Lannister court was a gilded den for him, and the little shit of a king was the cruelest lion in it, always demanding more blood, more bowing and more deaths. Joffrey Baratheon, as if, a cruel little monster who treated men like dogs and dogs like filth, just like his own brother.
Sandor's hand, calloused and scarred, tightens around the tankard at the thought. Fire, he thinks shuddering at even the thought of it, his hand going to scarred region around his left side of the face. The smell of roasting meat and the screaming in his head.
It wasn't just the memory of the brazier. It was the memory of the man who had held him there. Gregor Clegane, The Mountain That Rides. A brother who is a beast in human mail, a shadow that had darkened his very life.
"…hanging there, I tell you," a voice drifts over from the small murmur of the tavern, filled with the courage and happiness. "Nailed up at the tallest tower of Sunspear for all to see!."
Sandor's hand goes still, the taste of the ale turning to ash. He felt the cold touch of the iron rings of his mail against his neck. He was on his feet before he realized he'd moved. The bench clattered backward, a sharp crack echoing. He crosses the room in three long, predatory strides and the man could even blink, his fingers wrapped around the man's throat, hoisting the man until his toes scraped the floorboard and slamming him back against the soot-stained wall.
"Say it," Sandor growls, his voice coming out in a low rasp. "Say every word again, and don't lie, or I'll rip your tongue out and make you swallow it."
The man chokes, his face turning red, hands clawing at Sandor's wrist and eyes bulging like eggs. "G-Gregor," he wheezed. "The Mountain... his head hangs in Sunspear... the King took it...."
Sandor's fingers tightened instinctively, then goes slack. He let the man fall. The Dornishman hit the floor in a heap, gasping in the stale air while clutching his neck.
"Who?" Sandor continues, the word coming no louder than a whisper.
"The Dragonking," the man rasps, gazed by the circle of frightened faces now watching. "Aemon Targaryen, they say he found The Mountain and his men in the Riverlands, burning holdfasts , butchering smallfolk for Lord Tywin. The King didn't use a sword., he used his hands. Ripped apart the Mountain skull and spine from his body. For the Queen and for the children Gregor broke in Maegor's Holdfast during the sack."
Sandor turns away hearing all. He didn't see the face of men in the tavern anymore. He didn't see the flickering tallow candles or the grease-stained walls but the justice, revenge, taken away from from him. He drinks again, a long, desperate pull that drains the flagon to its last.
Justice, a fancy word knights and lords used to justify their killings, a word singers used to sell their songs something he had never believed in it. In his world, the strong did what they liked and the weak suffered. That was the only law. He spent his years honing his hate, sharpening it into a blade that he intended to bury in Gregor's heart. It was the only thing that belonged to him. His revenge was to be his justice.
And now a dragon king had stolen it.
Sandor looks toward the fire burning in the kitchen and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn't look away from the flames. They danced wildly, and for a moment, the fear wasn't there. Only a cold, hollow ache left in wake of revenge taken away from him.
A chair scraps by his table but he pays no attention to it. The Dornishman sit opposite him, rubbing his bruised throat. "You knew that beast?"
Sandor continues ignores him, his eyes still fixed on the kitchen fire.
"They say it was a slaughter," the man continues, leaning in. "The King found him after he had decimated a village near the Trident. Ripped his head off, a brave king, the smallfolk there calls him."
Sandor finally turns his gaze from the fire and asks "You were there."
The man happy to hear a response from the man answers hastily, "I wasn't but I have seen that head on the tallest tower of Sunspear and the story of it is now a tale of bravery in Dorne, Ser."
Sandor freezes hearing the title at the end and replies disdainfully "I am no knight."
Before the man could start again Sandor gets up from his chair and tosses a silver stag onto the table, far more than the ale was worth for and pushes his way out of the tavern but before he could exit the door, the dornish voice from behind starts, " He is in Vale Clegane, and he may need strong and reedemable man like you with him."
Sandor stops for a moment then walks out without a change in expression.
Outside stank worse than the tavern. It was the scent of a city dying from the inside out the rot, bodies, and the sharp tang of unwashed masses. He was nearly to the gates when the scream cut through the silence. It was a woman's voice, jagged with terror, followed by the high, thin wail of a child. Sandor grounds his teeth together. He forces himself to keep walking. The city was full of screams, King's Landing was a giant maw that chewed up the innocent and spat out nothing but bones. It wasn't his business, he ignores the scream and takes a step toward the gate, then another.
Then he heard the laughter. A man's cruel laugh followed by woman's cry, "Please, leave me alone, I beg of you." It came from a narrow alley, where nothing but darkness surrounded the area.
Something twisted in his gut. Not pity, he'd killed pity years ago but memories of sister being killed by Gregor. He burning of his skin over the brazier. He spats on the ground and walks staright into the alley. He saw the red cloaks before he saw their faces. Three men in the red cloaks of House Lannister were crowded around a woman and a small boy.
One held the woman against the damp stone, his hand fumbling with her bodice. Another gripped the boy by his tunic, forcing him to watch. The third leaned against a crate, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Crying won't help you, sweetheart," the leader starts, his voice thick with lechery. "The King's Justice is busy elsewhere tonight. We're the only law you've got."
Sandor steps into the alley's entrance.
"You're no law," he said.
The soldiers turn and smirk on the leader's face dies as he recognizes the man walking in, "Well, look what bitch's howl dragged in," the leader- Godwyn, who'd earlier served under Amory Lorch grins. "Come for a turn, dog? There's enough of her to go around."
"I'm annoyed of the screams," Sandor starts. His hand going to the pommel of his sword.
"Careful, dog," the soldier warns, streaching his hand down his waist to unsheathe his own blade. "What are you doing out of the kennel? This doesn't concern you."."
Sandor didn't answer with words. He drew his steel. The sound steel grating cuts through the alley. Godwyn didn't even have time to reach for his hilt. His blade caught him in the soft meat of the neck, shearing through bone and gristle in one brutal, fluid arc. The man's head tumbled into the filth, his body following a heartbeat later, blood spraying against the wall.
The silence that followed was brief and bloody. The man holding the boy shoved the child aside, scrambling for his steel. He was too slow for that as Sandor stepd in, his boots splashing through the muck, and drives his blade across the man's throat. A wet, bubbling sound was all the soldier managed before he collapsed
The other two scrambled. The one holding the boy shoved the child aside, reaching for his hilt, but Sandor was already there. He delivered a brutal kick to the man's knee—a sickening crunch echoed in the alley—and as the soldier buckled, Sandor's sword descended in a vertical arc. It split the man's helm and the skull beneath it, burying itself deep in the shoulder.
The last man backed away, his sword shaking in his hands. "You… you fucking traitor! The Queen will have your skin for this!"
"Let her try," Sandor growls.
The soldier lunged in a desperate and clumsy thrust. Sandor catches the blow on his blade, the clash steel on steel vibrating up his arm. He pressed the attack, relentlessly. A second strike drove the man back and the third broke his guard. Sandor brought his sword down in a heavy, two-handed swing that split the man from shoulder to chest.
He stood over the bodies, his breath coming hard as he wipes the blood on the dead man's cloak. The iron scent of blood was everywhere, masking the rot of the street.
"Fuck," he curses at last.
Behind him, the woman scrambled to the boy, pulling him into the safety of her arms. "You alright, sister?" the boy whispers softly, his voice trembling.
The woman nods at his brother then turns to their saviour. "Thank you, Ser. Thank you."
"I'm no knight," he growls, tired of correcting people assuming his title.
Sandor looks at them. They were weak and frightened, no different from a thousand other souls in this godsforsaken city. He sheathes his sword with a heavy clack.
He didn't say a word of comfort and simply turned and walked toward the gates. His breath felt heavy, but for the first time in years, he felt happy bringing justice of his own. The woman looks at the man leaving and then grabs the hand of her brother as she follows the footsteps carved ahead of her.
Behind them from the darkness of the alley, the Dornishman from the tavern, steps out. He looks down at the ruin Sandor had left behind, his expression unreadable.
He reaches down to Godwyn's face, his fingers tracing the jaws while he brings other hand up to his own face, his fingers finding a seam in the skin that shouldn't have been there. With a slow, peeling sound, the face of the Dornishman is removed. Beneath it, the man's stoic expression is seen.
"The dog finds his new master," the man murmurs while glancing in the direction Sandor has left to. "Not for long now."
He smiles, forming a face that looks strange to even look at "Not long now until I meet the Prince that was Promised."