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POV: Arthur Snow
Location: On the Road to Briarwhite
They left the inn behind before sunrise, frost still clinging to the bark and rooftops. Garron walked with long, steady strides that didn't seem to tire. Sarra moved with lighter steps, staying to the edges of the trail out of habit. Arthur led.
Their destination was a small riverside post called Briarwhite, a village built along a bend where the pines thinned. It served as a waystation for caravans that passed too close to the Dreadwood. Bandits worked that region often, preying on traders who thought they were still within safe territory.
Arthur didn't say they were going there to fight.
He just said it was a place where most folk didn't linger long without steel or luck.
They reached a clearing by midday. The trees were thin there, the air dry. A good place to rest—and to watch how people moved when they didn't know they were being measured.
Arthur stopped.
"We camp here."
Garron dropped his pack. Sarra crouched to check her bootlaces, eyes flicking over the treeline.
Arthur took out two wooden staves from his satchel. Carved from stripped pine. Light, flexible. Training tools.
He tossed one toward Sarra. She caught it.
"You planning to teach us like maesters train pups?" she asked.
"No," Arthur said. "I want to see what you've kept hidden."
Garron smirked. "I swing heavier than that."
"Try it anyway."
They moved in turn. First Sarra—fluid, low to the ground, fast with her steps but still too reactive. She circled Arthur with patience, but he saw the tell: she twitched a half-breath before she struck. He caught the blow on his staff and nudged her balance off with a shift of his foot.
She caught herself before falling.
"Better," he said. "But you're reading me. Not the space."
"What does that mean?"
"Don't watch the man. Watch the fight."
She nodded, chewing the inside of her cheek.
Next was Garron.
He held the staff like a hammer. Heavy grip, too rigid. Arthur let him swing once—wide, hard, almost reckless.
Arthur stepped in, tapped the shaft low, then drove the end lightly into Garron's gut. It was controlled. But Garron still grunted and staggered back.
He spat on the ground. "That all you got?"
"No," Arthur said. "But that's all I needed."
Garron grinned. "Alright."
They broke for water. Arthur didn't lecture. He didn't need to. Both Sarra and Garron were smart enough to understand what they lacked without being told.
"You always train like that?" Sarra asked later, wiping sweat from her forehead.
Arthur nodded. "Better to stumble here than when steel's drawn."
"You think we'll see a fight soon?"
He looked ahead at the trees, the road sloping toward Briarwhite.
"Yes."
They reached the outskirts of Briarwhite just before dusk.
A river ran slow beside it, half-frozen. Smoke drifted from the chimney of a longhouse. The watchman on the wooden platform above the gate looked like he hadn't slept in a day.
Bandits had been through recently.
That much was clear from the way the doors were reinforced with planks and the wagon ruts near the fence had dried blood in the snow.
Arthur motioned to a narrow path off the main road.
"We'll camp up there. No need to walk in like travelers."
"Paranoid much?" Garron asked, adjusting the grip on his hammer.
"Prepared," Arthur replied.
That night, they camped beneath a low ridge within sight of the village. Arthur cleaned his blade by moonlight. Sarra stretched, bruised but focused. Garron rolled out a thick blanket and sat with arms crossed, silent.
For the first time, Sarra broke the quiet.
"You ever lose anyone?" she asked Arthur.
"Yes."
"How many?"
Arthur answered without hesitation. "Enough to learn I couldn't carry them all."
She looked at him sideways. "But you're still walking."
"That's the difference between surviving and stopping."
Garron grunted. "Heavy talk."
"You want lighter, go back to the forge."
"Didn't say I minded."
Arthur stood and looked at the distant silhouette of the village.
"We rest. Tomorrow, we go in and see what's left of Briarwhite. If it's nothing, we move on. If it's worse…"
Sarra stood. "Then we don't run."
He nodded.
And for the first time since Winterfell, it felt like they weren't just traveling.
They were moving toward something.
Together.