The Sworn Sword

"That Dagon Greyjoy wants for hanging", Bennis said. "Aye, but who's to hang him? You see old Pinchbottom Pate?"

"They told us he was dead. The ironmen killed him when he tried to stop them taking off his daughter".

"Seven bloody hells". Bennis turned his head and spat. "I seen that daughter once. Not worth dying for, you ask me. That fool Pate owed me half a silver". The brown knight looked just as he had when they left; worse, he smelled the same as well. He wore the same garb every day: brown breeches, a shapeless roughspun tunic, horsehide boots. When armored he donned a loose brown surcoat over a shirt of rusted mail. His swordbelt was a cord of boiled leather, and his seamed face might have been made of the same thing. His head looks like one of those shriveled melons that we passed. Even his teeth were brown, under the red stains left by the sourleaf he liked to chew. Amidst all that brownness, his eyes stood out; they were a pale green, squinty small, close set, and shiny-bright with malice. "Only two casks", he observed. "Ser Useless wanted four".

"We were lucky to find two", said Dunk. "The drought reached the Arbor, too. We heard the grapes are turning into raisins on the vines, and the ironmen have been pirating-"

"Ser?" Egg broke in. "The water's gone".

Dunk had been so intent on Bennis that he hadn't noticed. Beneath the warped wooden planks of the bridge only sand and stones remained. That's queer. The stream was running low when we left, but it was running.

Bennis laughed. He had two sorts of laughs. Sometimes he cackled like a chicken, and sometimes he brayed louder than Egg's mule. This was his chicken laugh. "Dried up while you was gone, I guess. A drought'll do that".

Dunk was dismayed. Well, I won't be soaking now. He swung down to the ground. What's going to happen to the crops? Half the wells in the Reach had gone dry, and all the rivers were running low, even the Blackwater Rush and the mighty Mander.

"Nasty stuff, water", Bennis said. "Drank some once, and it made me sick as a dog. Wine's better".

"Not for oats. Not for barleycorn. Not for carrots, onions, cabbages. Even grapes need water". Dunk shook his head. "How could it go dry so quick? We've only been six days".

"Wasn't much water in there to start with, Dunk. Time was, I could piss me bigger streams than this one".

"Not Dunk ", said Dunk. "I told you that". He wondered why he bothered. Bennis was a mean-mouthed man, and it pleased him to make mock. "I'm called Ser Duncan the Tall".

"By who? Your bald pup?" He looked at Egg and laughed his chicken laugh. "You're taller than when you did for Pennytree, but you still look a proper Dunk to me".

Dunk rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at the rocks. "What should we do?"

"Fetch home the wines, and tell Ser Useless his stream's gone dry. The Standfast well still draws, he won't go thirsty".

"Don't call him Useless". Dunk was fond of the old knight. "You sleep beneath his roof, give him some respect".

"You respect him for the both o' us, Dunk", said Bennis. "I'll call him what I will".

The silvery gray planks creaked heavily as Dunk walked out onto the bridge, to frown down at the sand and stones below. A few small brown pools glistened amongst the rocks, he saw, none larger than his hand. "Dead fish, there and there, see?" The smell of them reminded him of the dead men at the crossroads.

"I see them, ser", said Egg.

Dunk hopped down to the streambed, squatted on his heels, and turned over a stone. Dry and warm on top, moist and muddy underneath. "The water can't have been gone long". Standing, he flicked the stone sidearm at the bank, where it crashed through a crumbling overhang in a puff of dry brown earth. "The soil's cracked along the banks, but soft and muddy in the middle. Those fish were alive yesterday".

"Dunk the lunk, Pennytree used to call you. I recall". Ser Bennis spat a wad of sourleaf onto the rocks. It glistened red and slimy in the sunlight. "Lunks shouldn't try and think, their heads is too bloody thick for such".