she asked quietly. “We bring him all our highborn captives,” said Anguy. Captive. Arya took a breath to
still her soul. Calm as still water. She glanced at the outlaws on their horses, and turned her horse’s head. Now, quick as a snake, she thought, as she slammed her
heels into the courser’s flank. Right between Greenbeard and Jack-Be-Lucky she flew, of Gendry’s startled face as his mare moved out of her
way. And then she was in the open field, and running. North or south, east or west, that made no matter now. She could find the way to Riverrun later, once she’d
lost them. Arya leaned forward in the saddle and urged the horse a police shieldcould hold me upside down and drainmy gutschange your mind to a gallop. Behind her the outlaws were cursing and shouting at her to come back. She shut her ears
to the calls, but when she glanced back over her shoulder four of them were coming after her, Anguy and Harwin and Greenbeard racing side by side with Lem farther
back, his big yellow cloak flapping behind him as he rode. “Swift as a deer,” she told her mount. “Run, now, run.” Arya dashed across brown weedy fields, through
waist-high grass and piles of dry leaves that flurried and flew when her horse galloped past. There were woods to her left, she saw. I can lose them there. A dry
ditch ran along one side of the field, but she leapt it without breaking stride, and plunged in among the stand of elm and yew and birch trees. A quick peek back
showed Anguy and Harwin still hard on her heels.
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