Chapter Text
He ties Sweetfoot, Chestnut, and Thunder near the old stone wall.
It's as good a place as any, an elm tree to rest his head against, under the sun and out of the rain. It doesn't promise perfect shelter. Not like those lords with their silk pavilions and hefty barrels of ale or cider, the wine he sometimes thinks about from his memories with his ser. But it's serviceable. Better in some ways. The sky ought to be clear tonight; he'll have the stars overhead to ferry him into his dreams.
Aye, it'll serve.
He sees to the stench first. He's used to the glances. Bearing them is easily done and hardly the worst he's had to endure.
But he's meant to be a knight now.
And he means to compete in the lists.
No lordling will vouch for him to the Master of Games if they can't think through the reek of him.
The river's yet cold with the last of winter. Bracing. He shivers as he wades as far as he can but, even where it's deepest, the water only comes to about upper thigh.
He takes the plunge.
He soaks his shirt and trousers when he's done. Rubs them down with the final dregs of his soap. Smells them, groans, and scrubs again. Keeps scrubbing till his fingers are pink and he admits to himself there's nothing else to be done. He leaves them to dry on the wall, rummaging through Sweetfoot's satchel for a pair to replace them.
His stomach growls. He wonders about waiting. Knows to the marrow how long he can go before he starts feeling weak.
But the tourney.
The salt beef can keep when he has a river to provide for him.
The river provides little and less no matter how long he searches for the familiar flash of scale.
'S not right a river like this having no fish in it.
Dunk can't find so much as a minnow. He tosses his makeshift spear to the grass in frustration. Just as he decides to settle for salt beef, he catches a glimmer of light from his periphery.
Not water.
Unnatural.
Dunk dives sideways before the thought can fully settle, years of instinct leading him. His fingers wrap around something wet and wriggling.
Alive.
Dunk pulls it from the depths. He heaves himself backwards onto the riverbank in the unlikely event he loses his grip. His upper body flattens the grass, ankles still in the water, his chest rising and falling rapidly with equal excitement and relief.
He notices the silver first. Hard to miss, that color. Pale as moonlight and soft, almost creamy, shining brilliantly in the mid-day. More brilliant for how the body squirms, throwing the sunlight with its slippery scales. It's not very large, his lunch. Barely longer than his palm and not half as broad.
"Now why'd you have to go and do that? Couldn't you be a bit fatter," Dunk grumbles to himself.
He gets to his feet.
Lunch wriggles uselessly in his grip.
It's the eyes that make him pause. Not any different from the usual, he'll remember later. Not different at all.
Except.
Except lunch stops wriggling when it gets a good look at him. It just...stares.
Big-eyed and blacker than any shadow, it stares at him.
Dunk knows hunger. Knows it better than most. Most like better than anyone at Ashford, even the serving boys and maids and other gathered smallfolk. He's killed before to fill his belly and to fill his ser's. Wouldn't have survived this long if he gave up every successful catch because of something as paltry as what? Guilt? He's lost count of how many rats and cats and feeble dogs he forced down his gullet in Fleabottom before Rafe found him. He cried over them, aye. But he ate them still. He had his mother to wait for after all.
Mayhaps it's because he's never seen a silver fish before. No fish as pretty as this one either, coloring aside. It looks more like it belongs in some fancy lordling's fountain than in the Cockleswent.
Dunk's hungry.
...It's nothing a little salt beef won't fix.
He sighs.
"If I see you again on the morrow, I won't be letting you go," he swears.
And if it sounds as petulant as it feels, he's the only one around to hear it.
Dunk pads back to the river. He leans forward, about to open his hands slowly when a tiny pinch at his fingertip has him releasing his prize sooner. Lunch-who-isn't-lunch-but-maybe-ought-to-be flops into the water.
Dunk clicks his tongue. He wipes at the drop of blood swelling from the bite on his thumb. Murmurs, "I should've eaten you."
He straightens his spine. Begins walking to his satchel when the water ripples behind him and he turns toward the sound.
"Didn't I warn you," he starts to say.
The rest of his words don't make it out of his mouth.
Big, black eyes stare at him. Attached to a human face. A human neck and human shoulders.
Inhuman hips. Scaled silver.
Barefoot and swordless, Dunk runs.
He comes back.
'Course he comes back.
He grabs Ser Arlan's longsword first. Catches his breath on the other side of the wall, away from the river, Sweetfoot, Thunder, and Chestnut knickering just beside the elm.
Mayhaps I saw it wrong, he tells himself.
Yes.
Yes, that's it.
He must be hungrier than he thought to be seeing visions. Mistaking someone bathing in the river for—for—
Dunk peeks over the wall. His grip tightens around Ser Arlan's longsword as he fights the renewed instinct to run.
There, on the pebbled shore, a head of long brown hair, dark locks sodden through and sticking to pale skin almost glowing in the sun. Black irises with white sclera, flitting here and there. To the trees. The water. The horses. A human face just like he thought. Fine featured, the lashes fluttering as they blink. High cheeks and, if Dunk squints, a light smattering of freckles. Dunk almost forces his attention away, heat ravaging his own cheeks and ears. Respectful as one ought to be upon spying a lady in a state of undress. His eyes track downwards before he can stop himself. A human face on a human neck on human shoulders...
Pale silver scales dotting across a flat, human chest. A set of three slits along the ribs, partly hidden by the arms where they tremble to lift themselves off the rocks.
A tail.
Soft as moonlight and flicking idly behind them. Half submerged, half on the shore.
A black gaze finds where he stares wide-eyed over the old stones.
Dunk yelps and ducks down.
He's heard the stories. 'Course he has. They used to tell them all the time, the sailors making port at King's Landing. Jawing about mermaids in the Merling King's court. Tall tales of deadly beauties singing men to their watery graves. If you're lucky, if the gods see fit to spare you, you'll be granted a kiss and sent on your way. Playful folk, the sailors say, when they're not looking to kill you.
Dunk's never believed them.
It's a fun tale is all—with nothing to show for it, not like the dragon house and their dragon bones. The ruins of ancient fortresses reduced to fire-baked rubble. Marred with deep gouges too jagged to be anything but the marks of some great beast with swords for claws.
Not meant to be real, Dunk thinks. Not merlings. Just pretty stories.
And so far upstream at that?
None of the sailors ever said they swam rivers. Only the seas. Only where the tide swells to the height of Oldtown's High Tower and crashes like thunder.
Dunk shuts his jaw with a clack. Breathes through his nose till he finds the courage and steps free of the weathered stones to face a myth. Ser Arlan's sword is a comfortable weight in his hand. Sharp as he's always kept it for his ser. It'll kill if he needs it to. He only hopes this merling—if it is a merling—isn't as good a singer as the stories say.
It retreats into the water as he approaches. Not as graceful as he would've expected. Scrambling almost. Arms slipping clumsily from under it, flailing for a moment before it manages to push itself backward, silver tail lashing desperately until the whole body sinks into the stream. The merling doesn't go far.
It goes far enough.
Hides itself under the surface up to the nose. Long brown hair floats around it, flowing with the lazy current. Black eyes watch Dunk distrustfully.
He doesn't enter the water.
After what feels like the better part of an hour trying to get the merling to respond to him, beginning nervously and ending with exasperation, Dunk admits defeat. He still has Ser Manfred to see and the merling won't speak. Won't respond to anything he says other than blinking and occasionally tilting its head. It won't swim away either.
Dunk sheathes Ser Arlan's sword. He leaves the shore. Glances warily between the horses and where the merling stays mostly submerged in the deepest part of the stream. He moves Thunder and Chestnut on the other side of the wall before mounting Sweetfoot.
He clears his throat.
"If I come back and you've eaten my horses, I'll uh—I'll hunt you down." He nods, pushing confidence into his voice and the slope of his shoulders. "With hounds. Frightful ones. Ones that like fish."
The merling blinks. It sinks further, until the river's surface swallows the skin just beneath big black eyes.
It'll have to do. Sun's going down and he doesn't want Ser Manfred falling back to sleep on him.
Dunk nudges Sweetfoot forward.
He keeps his gaze on the merling until Sweetfoot rounds the bend.
Ser Lyonel is an odd fellow, but he wouldn't be the first—Dunk struggles to remember the word—eccentric highborn he's met. Fossoway and Baratheon generosity secured him a full belly which is a rare enough feat that he counts the day at least a partial victory, disappointment with Ser Manfred aside. Still, there's enough lords attending this tournament that he remembers serving with Ser Arlan. Surely one of them will vouch for him on the morrow.
His gut sours with the memory of what he left at camp.
Dunk puts a hand on his sword—to be safe, to be ready—but the familiar pop and crackle of a fire disarms him. He smells the smoke on the breeze and urges Sweetfoot forward faster.
None of the tales ever mentioned merlings cooking their food before eating it.
It's not the merling he finds. Or well, not just the merling.
The boy from the inn, he realizes.
The boy from the inn with a cooked trout, sitting by the shore and lifting a chunk of white meat toward an attention rapt merling.
"Oi, what're you doing," Dunk exclaims, dismounting quickly.
His heart races.
The boy's too close. Too close and not nearly cautious enough.
The boy glances at him.
"Eating a fish," he responds. He lifts the stick in his hand, trout dangling haphazardly where a little over half of the meat remains. "Want some?"
"How did you—" Dunk cuts himself off. "Step away from there. It's not safe."
The boy frowns. He looks at the merling where it sits patiently in the shallows in front of him, silver tail propped to the side, only the fin submerged in the nightblack stream.
"He's all right," the boy says. "If he wanted to harm me, he would have done so by now."
Dunk takes a step. Another and another until he's not more than a quarter stride from where the boy remains stubbornly unmoving.
"He?"
The boy aims a pointed look at the merling's chest.
Dunk flushes and stares at the creature's pale shoulder instead. He doesn't have the heart to tell the boy some ladies aren't as blessed as others in the breast. Even if he had the heart, he can't get his tongue to cooperate. Wouldn't know how to put it delicately and doesn't want to risk the consequences of causing offense.
Dunk shakes his head. A silent but effective reminder not to get distracted. "How did you get here, anyway?"
"I rode in the back of a lamb cart."
The boy picks off another chunk of trout, holding it out expectantly and nodding, pleased with himself most like, when the merling takes it between its—his(?)—teeth and chews slowly.
"Lamb cart." Dunk huffs. "Well you'd best find another one."
The boy frowns again, turning to face Dunk fully. A black gaze flits curiously between the two of them.
"You can't make me go. I'd had enough of that inn."
"Now, listen, I'll have no more insolence from you, boy. I ought to throw you over my horse and take you home." Dunk claims the last step towards him, grabbing his arm to move him away from the merling. "And I told you, get away from there."
The boy doesn't fight him. He waits for Dunk to remove his hand and reclaims his spot.
"You'd need to ride all the way to King's Landing. You'd miss the tourney."
The merling blinks. Flickering flames and the round, steady moon bounce against argent scales as that impossible body leans closer to the boy.
Dunk flinches at the first sign of movement. He starts to lunge belatedly—he warned him did he not—but the merling only tugs at the boy's cloak. Light and careful. Not like he's about to drag him into the depths and feast on what little meat his meagre body has to offer.
The boy follows the tug. "What is it?" He plunges his stick with the dangling fish into the dirt and goes to his knees, hands hovering uselessly around the merling's upper body. "Is something wrong? Was it a bone?"
Dunk snorts disbelievingly.
So the boy thinks he's safe from the creature but the creature isn't safe from what it usually eats? Surely it would know better than either of them how to swallow around a fishbone. Or simply spit it out after the first poke.
The merling shakes its head. It lifts a webbed palm to the boy's cheek. Careful again. Slow like it's giving him time to retreat if he knew better. The boy doesn't know better. He lets the merling maneuver his face into the moonlight.
The merling's lips part slightly. Then, as if Dunk's day hasn't been disorienting enough, it weeps.
"I didn't think they existed," Egg murmurs, still gazing at the river where the merling swims in idle circles.
Dunk shifts beneath his cloak. "The dragons did. Why shouldn't they?"
Egg doesn't answer. Thinking probably. Staring, certainly.
"I've never seen a merling, ser. A falling star either. Now I've seen both."
"Aye, lad. That makes two of us."
Egg hikes his cloak higher up his shoulders. He shifts onto his back, revealing a guileless grin to match his tender years.
"They say a falling star brings luck to all who see it."
They say a flash of merling scale means you're soon to meet the gods, Dunk thinks.
They've seen more than a flash today, the pair of them. Mayhaps that's why they aren't dead yet. Mayhaps it's only the ones that glimpse them who swiftly meet the Stranger in the depths. Or mayhaps it's because the boy fed it. Or because the river isn't settling well in its gills.
"Go to sleep, lad," Dunk murmurs.
When he's certain the boy won't wake, he wraps his hand around his sword. He thinks of that star and what fortunes it might bring them. He watches the river and doesn't sleep.
Dunk follows the horns.
They lead him to hope. They lead him to a prince.
"And a fish," Egg interjects, eyes wide with enthusiasm as Tanselle and Dunk turn to him. "A silver one! At the base of the tree!"
Tanselle frowns. So does Dunk. He doubts it's for the same reason.
"A...dead fish?" She trails off.
Egg shakes his head quick and hard, his lips thinned serious. "Alive. And um—excited? Auspicious."
"An auspicious silver fish," Tanselle repeats.
At least now Dunk isn't alone in being the subject of her befuddled scrutiny.
"A fish," he hisses under his breath as they make their way back to camp.
His face cools at a leisurely pace, blush receding now that they're out of Tanselle's sight. Gods, he hopes he does well in the joust tomorrow. Can't let him floundering be her last memory of him.
Egg walks with his chin raised proud. He rolls his eyes. "You can't include the star and leave him out of it, ser. It wouldn't be fair."
"Fair's not—" Dunk takes a deep breath. "Never you mind. I just think the lady had enough to paint without adding another thing to it."
"You paid her for a service. It falls to her to provide it," the boy replies primly.
"Falls to me to give you a clout about the ear 'fore you get too big for your britches."
"Look, Ser Duncan, it's Lyonel!"
An egg and a fish, Dunk thinks helplessly, there's a jape here to be certain.
He wipes the moisture from his eyes, walking to Thunder and Chestnut to explain where Sweetfoot's gone, all the while his squire stands knee-deep in the stream.
Boyish laughter splits the evening air. Egg's voice chanting, "Again, again!"
The merling indulges him. It breaches the water's surface, arching sideways. Not too forceful, nothing that causes too loud a splash. It's more graceful than the creature had been on land. Fitting, for something half fish.
"It's not a dog." Dunk adds, grumbling, "Surprised it's letting you treat it like it is."
Egg meets his gaze. He grins widely, voice matter-of-fact. "His name is Twilight."
Dunk snorts. The words register. He straightens, approaching the shore briskly. "He spoke?"
"No, but he still needs a name."
"Well it can't be Twilight."
Egg scoffs, "And why not?"
The stones on this boy, Dunk thinks. Ser Arlan would've struck my ears ringing by now.
"Because he's already got one." He puts his hands on his hips. Searches his mind quick as he can. "He's called Silverfish."
"That's stupid."
"You're stupid."
"Hm, no. Stupid would be the person who devised that name."
Dunk balks. Just because those words have haunted him all his life doesn't mean he's going to let a boy not even half his size try it. "What have I said about that insolent mouth?"
"That I should close it," Egg answers. He rolls his eyes. "Apologies, ser, forgive me. I've never been a squire before."
"I can see why. And here I was going to invite you to a drink."
The river sloshes as his squire turns on his heel to look at him. Even without a fire to light their surroundings, Dunk recognizes the eager gleam in his eye. He'd made that face enough times himself when Ser Arlan extended a similar invitation instead of just quietly expecting him to follow.
Soft warbling interrupts any response either of them might've made.
The merling smiles at it watches them. Long canines flashing, the sight gentled by freckled cheeks dimpling in the moonlight with its amusement. It's given up swimming for floating on its front, drifting with the current, only flicking its tail when the river threatens to carry it too far to be seen.
"Was that—"
"—laughing," Egg finishes, as surprised as he is. "You can laugh?"
The merling nods.
It strikes Dunk suddenly that the creature understands them. That this isn't the first time it's responded nonverbally, usually shaking its brunette head or nodding as it does now to passing questions.
They try to ask it what else it can do but the merling's smile only deepens before it ducks beneath the surface. Webbed fingers rise afterwards, a scaled wrist with it, bones and joints shifting to wave. A dismissal if Dunk's ever seen one, albeit on the kinder end of those he's experienced.
Egg huffs. His brow scrunches as if he considers diving underwater to force an answer from the creature, but he doesn't act on the impulse. He clambers onto the rocks, then the grass.
"Come on then." Dunk tilts his head toward Ashford's commons. "I'm sure he'll still be here when we get back."
On the morrow, he wakes early and unsettled.
The grass is empty beside him. Thunder and Ser Arlan's sword missing along with his squire.
Unnatural clicking echoes from the river. The merling—Silverfish, he reminds himself—shakes his head, fine features relaxed, oozing composure where he stretches indolent across the sunwarmed bank.
Dunk puts a hand over his racing heart. He leans back against the elm and forces himself to take deep breaths. He waits.
Egg returns. Sword in hand, Thunder following after him.
Dunk nearly drowns out Egg's song with his vomiting. He doesn't need to hear all the words to make sense of it. Everyone knows the hammer and the anvil. Ser Arlan sang it often, always so proud of having met the princes himself. Or shared a battlefield with them at least.
It's one of the few stories he was willing to share about the Redgrass.
Silverfish isn't watching them as he tends to do. Most like he's downstream hunting for breakfast.
In the silence between his thoughts, Egg goes to start the song again.
Dunk tells him to fetch his armor.
Silverfish sits where the rocks melt into grass by the time they return with their own meal. There's something different about him, Dunk can tell, but he can't place what. Egg usually knows but the boy's busy starting the fire, his empty stomach distracting him. Dunk leaves his questions for later.
The pit in his gut hasn't settled even after he meets up with Egg again. How could Lord Ashford—how could they expect him to—
Do they think because he doesn't have a lord of his own that he doesn't have honor?
But I do, Dunk swears, I do and I won't cheat.
Not in this.
He's here now. He's going to compete in the tilts come the sunrise. He won't sully Ser Arlan's sword with another lie.
Beside his hip, Egg strokes a faint line of red along the heel of his left palm. The boy isn't watching where he walks and Dunk has to tug his shoulder to prevent him tripping over a butcher's stall.
"Nearly cut yourself again with that dagger I gave you?"
He doesn't get a response.
Dunk frowns. He shakes Egg's shoulder lightly.
"Oi, Egg. D'you hear me?"
Egg looks up. He blinks hard and fast. "What?"
Dunk repeats himself.
"No, it's nothing like that."
Egg smiles at him. The expression is meant to be reassuring, he's certain. Egg doesn't want him taking his blade away. The reassurance falls short of convincing.
Dunk lets it pass all the same.
The boy's a quick learner. Insolent, aye, but earnest. He's owed some grace.
The horns blow for a fourth time.
Dunk quickens his strides towards the tourney field, mindful of Egg's ability to keep up with him through the crowd. His grin grows as they approach the posts.
"Wonder which of the princes is jousting now."
He learns.
He doesn't like what he sees.
Prince Baelor is a different sort of prince than his gruff brother and monstrous, arrogant nephew. Different still than even Egg.
And different from the drunk in front of him, eyeing the firelight in silence like it weren't him that asked for a private word. Dunk hadn't been inclined to give it, but a prince is still a prince and, slovenly as this one is, he's the least irksome of Egg's brothers that Dunk's had the displeasure of meeting.
"I dreamed of you."
His jaw flexes before he speaks. "You said that. At the inn."
"Did I?"
He nods.
Prince Daeron sighs. "Well my dreams are not like yours."
No, he imagines not. Probably he dreams of things Dunk's never seen, could never hope to see, strange luxuries great and small, not for hedge knights who pinch coppers and hope for sturdy trees tall and branched enough to shelter them from the sky's worst just for a mite of sleep.
"Mine come true," the prince finishes.
Dunk angles his head back toward the firelight.
So do mine, he thinks. So can anyone's, if only they have the strength to grasp them.
The strength and, speaking honest, a little luck from the gods. He's awful short of the latter at the moment. Neither he nor his ser have ever been much for praying. Ser Arlan not at all, and him—well, not proper like. Not on his knees in a sept.
Mayhaps he should start.
"An impressive talent for an unimpressive man. Another one of life's little ironies." Daeron winces. "But I have seen you, ser. And a fire. And a dead dragon."
Dunk shifts on his feet, the other man adjusting to match. Flames dance in the prince's tired eyes. Not bright enough to eclipse the deep shadows beneath. He's a liar, Egg's brother. That much has been proven. He doesn't sound like he's lying now.
Then again, neither had Egg.
"A great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow. It had fallen on top of you. But you were alive and the dragon was dead."
Dunk blinks as he processes the words.
"Did I kill it?"
Prince Daeron frowns. He opens his mouth as if to answer, then shuts it. Shakes his head.
"That I could not say."
If this is an attempt to console him—mayhaps as recompense for the same lie that's doomed him—it's as unwieldy as he is when he talks to highborns. But then, Prince Daeron likely doesn't make a habit of consorting with lowborns either. Not beyond the rim of his cups.
"We were dragon masters once," the prince begins, voice thin as he studies the flames. "Hard to believe. Now they're all gone, but we remain."
He pauses.
"I don't care to die today."
A few moments later, Daeron abandons Dunk by the fire.
He departs in the same fashion as he entered Raymun's tent. Swallowed by the night as he had been by his cloak.
Dunk spots the fish done up in silver paint at the base of the summer elm and follows it to the real thing where he floats backwards in the Cockleswent, eyes closed, soaking in the modest moonlight that peaks through the clouds. He doesn't seem bothered by the downpour.
Envy lances through Dunk at the merling's serenity.
He pushes it aside, gripping the steel rim of his new shield as he approaches the riverbank. Dunk halts just shy of the water's edge. He clears his throat.
Silverfish opens his eyes. He smiles without showing his teeth.
Dunk tries to mirror him. His lips wobble. He clears his throat again. "Any chance you have some kind of magic spell of protection for a soul who badly needs it?"
Silverfish carves through the current like a hot knife through butter. He makes himself comfortable in the shallows, tilting his head to the side in confusion. His brown hair looks black in the poor light. His black gaze is gentle.
Dunk sits on the rocks to level their eyelines. It doesn't match completely, tall as he is, but it's better than if he'd stayed standing.
"'S me," he murmurs, "the soul who badly needs it."
Silverfish trills. A question, most like.
Dunk shakes his head. Decides then and there not to bother this creature of myth with mortal foibles. What good could Silverfish do? The merling can't even speak, can't walk. Can't take up Ser Arlan's sword and fight in his place, nor should he. Silverfish isn't the fool who struck a dragon prince.
He's never been to Driftmark.
His stomach didn't take well to seafaring and Ser Arlan's business never called them there. His ser told him a story though. Part of a yarn he himself had heard from a Velaryon knight years before Dunk met him in Fleabottom.
"Can you—" Dunk bites his tongue, flushing hard at his own daring. He coughs. "Could you—that is—I've heard there's no sound prettier in the known world than a merling's singing. If—if you can, would you let me hear it? Just for tonight. For luck."
Hopefully it won't kill him, but if it did, at least it would spare him the morrow's shaming.
Silverfish blinks at him. He glances down, brow scrunching in thought.
Dunk rushes to reassure him.
"You don't have to. I forgot myself. You, uh, most like you're not meant to use it like that are you?" He cringes. "I mean—ah, don't pay me any mind. Being foolish is all. Thick as a castle wall, me."
Pressure on his knuckles. A scaled hand, the fingertips carefully bent to avoid poking him with nails so pointed as to be better described as claws.
Dunk stiffens.
Oh.
"You're warm," he mutters.
Not coldblooded at all. The wet flesh pressing lightly against his is hot with life. Like a hearth. Burning low but burning still.
Silverfish points at him. Then he presses a finger to his own mouth.
Shushing me, Dunk realizes.
He nods quickly. Presses his lips together tight.
Silverfish warbles. The merling version of laughter as he and Egg have come to know it. Silverfish shifts in the shallows, silver tail coming to rest beside him instead of behind. He doesn't meet Dunk's eyes as he clicks, then trills, then—
Oh.
The stories were right.
The song comes to an end as abruptly as it began. Silverfish lifts a hand to his chin, nails brushing the edge of his lips, eyes wide where they meet Dunk's.
"What's wrong," he asks, heart speeding up.
Mayhaps it will kill me to hear it, his mind conjures.
Silverfish removes the hand on his chin. He shakes it and his head. Curls the fingers into a fist and coughs where thumb meets index—or tries to. It leaves him sounding closer to a chirp.
Dunk drops his weight against the rocks, realizing belatedly that he'd risen to his knees in alarm, his new shield folded under his arm. He lays it back over his lap, relaxing slowly, so slow as to be painful, where he sits.
Silverfish returns to his song.
He keeps his voice low, not wanting to be overheard by anyone save his intended audience, the notes themselves lowered to match. Crooning and elongated. Not any language Dunk recognizes. More akin to...
Whalesong.
That's it.
The whales near White Harbor. Not in New Castle, or any place that had ships coming in and out, but by the quiet cliffs where he and Ser Arlan were fortunate to find a town within a sennight's ride.
Dunk tries to match his heartbeat to the prolonged notes.
Though he won't remember when, he falls asleep eventually, there, on the riverbank, forgetting for a time the troubles which await him with the morn.
He feels like death. He's almost certain he did die somewhere in the middle. He saw Ser Arlan. That more than anything—the cold, the bone-deep exhaustion—must mean he was on the verge of meeting the Stranger.
He says as much to Raymun and Pate.
Egg comes ambling under the arches, features pinched together in an odd mix of fear, worry, and elation. Relief. He thumbs a small, clay vessel in his right hand, barely as big as his own palm. Dunk doesn't recognize it. He forgets to care when he feels fingers prodding at the lancewound in his side.
"Wine not oil," he hears. "Oil will kill him."
Prince Baelor's voice.
Prince Baelor.
Dunk heaves to his feet. Hits the dirt hard with his knee barely a breath later, peering best as he can through his bruised, blinkered vision at the face of his prince.
His.
He'd give his life for this man. For any cause he champions.
"Your man," Dunk slurs.
His oath, no matter that he garbles the words.
"Please. Your man."
Prince Baelor's hand presses against his face. Dunk's gut clenches at the numbness. Damn Aerion for striking Tanselle. Damn him for this trial and his stubbornness to end it. Dunk knows Prince Baelor is touching him.
He can't feel it.
"I need good men, Ser Duncan. The realm."
His prince staggers.
The air goes out of him as his prince's touch falls away, strength seeping from his body with his blood.
Pate and Raymun keep him from collapsing completely. They heft him back into his seat.
Prince Baelor asks for Raymun.
Egg glances between them before replacing Raymun at Dunk's right. His thumb worries the cork of his clay vessel. Over and over again, it passes over that stopper. Restless.
"Ser," Egg starts to speak.
Whatever he means to say goes forgotten as Pate joins Raymun in helping Prince Baelor.
That should be me, Dunk thinks through the agony.
He groans, gaze briefly falling away.
Egg stiffens.
He thinks he hears Prince Maekar's voice. Rough and incensed around his brother's name. Then...
Then.
He won't remember the sound till later. Like water trickling between the rocks yet infinitely more precious.
His body moves before his mind catches up with his eyes. He only knows his prince is falling.
Dunk follows him.
Egg beats his shocked father to Prince Baelor's other side.
He's crying, Dunk realizes.
He's dying, he knows, attention catching on his wheezing prince.
The world blurs.
More sounds, barely distinguishable through the old agony and new grief. Raymun cursing. Prince Maekar shouting for the maester. Egg fumbling. A cork popping free.
Water again.
No, not water, he'll soon learn.
Infinitely more precious.
Egg pours the dark contents of his clay vessel into his uncle's mouth while Dunk begs the man to live. They're both shaking. As is the prince.
The black dragon, Dunk remembers, fallen on top of me.
Dying in his arms. Dying for a boy from Fleabottom whose own mother knew better than to stay with him. For a boy who couldn't save his best friend nor his ser after her. Who lied and killed his prince as consequence.
He ruins everything he touches.
Prince Baelor's chest falls still.
Prince Maekar shoves Dunk aside. He cradles his brother. Eyes large, face pale. Lips parting around his own desperate entreaties.
"Please," Egg whispers. "Please."
It should be me, Dunk thinks.
You made a mistake. You should've taken me.
He crawls to his prince's other shoulder. Settles there, beside Egg, not bothering to suppress the whimpers which flood from him. He hangs his head. His body hurts. Would that it were cold.
Better him than his prince.
What is a hedge knight to the Hand of the King? To the golden realm that hand would've wrought?
Someone gasps.
"Fucking gods," Prince Maekar hisses.
Dunk lifts his head.
Prince Baelor blinks up at his brother.