The Sworn Sword

After the savage heat of the day, it was a welcome relief. He soaked till his feet and fingers were all wrinkled up and the water had gone gray and cold, and only then reluctantly climbed out.

Though he and Egg had been given thick straw pallets down in the cellar, Dunk preferred to sleep up on the roof. The air was fresher there, and sometimes there was a breeze. It was not as though he need have much fear of rain. The next time it rained on them up there would be the first."

"Egg was asleep by the time Dunk reached the roof. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head and stared up at the sky. The stars were everywhere, thousands and thousands of them. It reminded him of a night at Ashford Meadow, before the tourney started. He had seen a falling star that night. Falling stars were supposed to bring you luck, so he'd told Tanselle to paint it on his shield, but Ashford had been anything but lucky for him. Before the tourney ended, he had almost lost a hand and a foot, and three good men had lost their lives. I gained a squire, though. Egg was with me when I rode away from Ashford. That was the only good thing to come of all that happened.

He hoped that no stars fell tonight.

There were red mountains in the distance and white sands beneath his feet. Dunk was digging, plunging a spade into the dry hot earth, and flinging the fine sand back over his shoulder. He was making a hole. A grave, he thought, a grave for hope. A trio of Dornish knights stood watching, making mock of him in quiet voices. Farther off the merchants waited with their mules and wayns and sand sledges. They wanted to be off, but he could not leave until he'd buried Chestnut. He would not leave his old friend to the snakes and scorpions and sand dogs.

The stot had died on the long thirsty crossing between the Prince's Pass and Vaith, with Egg upon his back. His front legs just seemed to fold up under him, and he knelt right down, rolled onto his side, and died. His carcass sprawled beside the hole. Already it was stiff. Soon it would begin to smell.

Dunk was weeping as he dug, to the amusement of the Dornish knights. ""Water is precious in the waste"", one said, ""you ought not to waste it, ser"". The other chuckled and said, ""Why do you weep? It was only a horse, and a poor one"".

Chestnut, Dunk thought, digging, his name was Chestnut, and he bore me on his back for years, and never bucked or bit. The old stot had looked a sorry thing beside the sleek sand steeds that the Dornishmen were riding, with their elegant heads, long necks, and flowing manes, but he had given all he had to give.

""Weeping for a swaybacked stot?"" Ser Arlan said, in his old man's voice. ""Why, lad, you never wept for me, who put you on his back"". He gave a little laugh, to show he meant no harm by the reproach. ""That's Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall"".

""He shed no tears for me, either"", said Baelor Breakspear from the grave, ""Though I was his prince, the hope of Westeros. The gods never meant for me to die so young"".

""My father was only nine-and-thirty"", said Prince Valarr. ""He had it in him to be a great king, the greatest since Aegon the Dragon"". He looked at Dunk with cool blue eyes. ""Why would the gods take him, and leave you ?"" The Young Prince had his father's light brown hair, but a streak of silver-gold ran through it.

You are dead, Dunk wanted to scream, you are all three dead, why won't you leave me be? Ser Arlan had died of a chill, Prince Baelor of the blow his brother dealt him during Dunk's trial of seven, his son Valarr during the Great Spring Sickness. I am not to blame for that. We were in Dorne, we never even knew.

""You are mad"", the old man told him. ""We will dig no hole for you, when you kill yourself with this folly. In the deep sands a man must hoard his water"".

""Begone with you, Ser Duncan"", Valarr said. ""Begone"".

Egg helped him with the digging. The boy had no spade, only his hands, and the sand flowed back into the grave as fast as they could fling it out. It was like trying to dig a hole in the sea. I have to keep digging, Dunk told himself, though his back and shoulders ached from the effort. I have to bury him down deep where the sand dogs cannot find him. I have to…

""… die?"" said Big Rob the simpleton from the bottom of the grave. Lying there, so still and cold, with a ragged red wound gaping in his belly, he did not look very big at all.

Dunk stopped and stared at him. ""You're not dead. You're down sleeping in the cellar"". He looked to Ser Arlan for help. ""Tell him, ser"", he pleaded, ""tell him to get out of the grave""."

"Only it was not Ser Arlan of Pennytree standing over him at all, it was Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield. The brown knight only cackled. ""Dunk the lunk"", he said, ""gutting's slow, but certain. Never knew a man to live with his entrails hanging out"". Red froth bubbled on his lips. He turned and spat, and the white sands drank it down.