This single sentence aroused the curiosity of everyone present there, and Oberyn also did not want to keep them in suspense, so he turned around and, with a simple wave of his hand, signalled the waiting captain of the ship, "Bring them down!"
The Advisor and Jon had dropped them at a nearby port during the night a few days ago and then left for Kingslanding from there, with no one even aware of their entry into Dorne.
From there, Oberyn had simply hailed the services of the nearest ship under their family's employ and ordered the loyal captain to take them to Sunspear immediately, and here they were.
The captain of the ship nodded after receiving the signal and turned around to look towards the two boxes covered in white cloth that none of them had been allowed to look under yet.
The crew didn't have the faintest idea of what was inside these boxes, but since they were the ones who had carried them into the ship and down into the prison, some of the crew members involved swore that they had felt the boxes move on their own.
And from there, a rumour had spread that the boxes were being used to carry unique animals for the entertainment of the Prince of Dorne. And considering the kind of kinks that the Westerosi nobles had in the stories spread amongst smallfolks, it wouldn't be too out of character for someone to do something like this to satisfy their vanity.
"Remove the cloth!" The captain ordered one of the labourers standing nearby.
The labourer hesitated for a few seconds before he gulped and nodded his head, hoping against hope that whatever animal was under there, it wouldn't crave the taste of human flesh.
But the moment he pulled off the cloth, all the crew member standing nearby, craning their neck were left dumbfounded, as they looked towards the two dirty human heads poking out of the top of the boxes, tilted to the sides as if they were already dead.
"T-These are humans," one of the crew members whispered into the silence on the deck in a horrified voice, as he stared at the two humans sporting broken teeth, starved faces and ugly bruises, telling them that they had suffered a lot on their journey here.
"A-Are these corpses?" someone asked curiously, and one of the braver individuals stepped forward and poked a finger on the smaller head, and almost immediately, it elicited a groan from the head's dry, cracked lips, scaring the crap out of everyone there.
"S-Stop playing with them," The captain, who had been standing in silence so far, woke up from his daze and subconsiously scolded his crew, "Hurry up now. We need to get these two down to the docks. Don't keep the Prince waiting." he orderd, having finally decided to think no further on who these two individuals were and what they had done to deserve this.
The crew looked a bit unerved by this task, but they knew better than to disobey their captain's order, so after a few shoves and arguments, four sailors 'volunteered' themselves for the job.
The selected four looked helplessly at each other, but in the end they had no choice but to do it, and besides they were sailors and while they hadn't seen something like this before in their lives, they had definitely heard about worse things from their fellow seafarers who travelled to Essos about how the slaves there were treated, so it only took a few seconds for them to adjust their mindset.
They simultaneously stepped forward towards the boxes, two to each, and then slowly began the process of opening them.
It was a slow, stinky job as the locks on it were intricate and the box was filthier than a shithole, with the captives' clothes feeling dirtier than dirt under their hands, but eventually, while holding their breath for dear life, they managed to get the two out of their boxes.
While the big one was twice the size of the smallest man on their ship, he was at the moment just skin and bones, so with a little effort, the sturdy sailors managed to raise him up and out of the box.
"Take them down," The captain ordered, and the men immediately began to drag the two prisoners with each man pulling an arm, leaving long black filthy streaks on the ship deck that would definitely give the choreboys nightmares when they cleaned them.
"I think they are waking up," one of the men carrying the prisoner whispered as the smaller man in his hands groaned weakly, and his eyes began to flutter and squint while struggling to tolerate the bright rays of the sun that they hadn't experienced in many days.
"Who cares," replied the sailor struggling to pull the big brute, "We just need to get them down, and the rest can be left to the guards of the nobles. Besides, I don't think they are in any condition to resist even if they woke up," he scoffed derisively.
At that moment, they had just left the ship deck and taken their first steps out onto the plank, which finally gave the waiting crowd of nobles and smallfolks below a glimpse into what the so-called gifts were that their Prince Oberyn had brought for them all to see.
Almost immediately, a gasp of horror ran through the gathering as they stared unblinkingly at the miserable condition of the two men who barely appeared human anymore.
Some looked disgusted at the sight, some looked excited, while others were completely indifferent, only curious about who these two were.
Fathers and Mothers in the crowd hurriedly covered their children's eyes, wondering what kind of sick jest this was that their liege's younger brother was playing on them to make them see this revolting spectacle.
Oberyn and his two daughters stayed stoic amidst all this, completely unmoved by the curious whisper ringing out of the crowd and even when Arianne, Tyene and others asked them who the two were, they only told them to wait.
The faces of the two men were so swollen, and their hair was so dirty at the moment, that even those with Martell blood in their veins who had probably heard the names of these two spoken more than a thousand times in their lives were unable to recognise them.
The four sailors dragging the two were quite slow at their jobs, as they had to keep a close eye on the plank under their feet, so as not to stumble and dunk the prince's precious prisoners in the shallow waters underneath.
Not to mention, the most recent dose of knockout drug they had been given was slowly losing its effect on the two captives as their eyes began to look around through their blurry vision at the crowd of Dornishmen surrounding them, and finally began panicking and flailing their weak arms, making the jobs of sailors even harder.
"Please... let...go..." The smaller one cried with terror in his eyes.
"Let...go...of...me," The bigger one roared weakly with hate and anger.
But the sailors didn't really care much and hurriedly dragged them through the crowd all the way to the spot where Prince Oberyn was standing on the raised platform with the rest of his family.
The platform actually wasn't too high, and was usually used by the Portmaster to announce any change in the taxes, but it allowed most of the crowd waiting there to see them, which was what mattered.
"Tie them up on that," Oberyn ordered calmly, but his tightly gripped fist, lying on top of his folded hands, told the story of how much fury he felt at the sight of these animals.
'Patience... just a little more patience... they will get their dues soon enough...'
The four sailors hurriedly nodded their heads and began to comply with the Noble's order, not daring to look up even once.
They had never in their dreams imagined that they would one day get the chance to interact with a prince like this, let alone hear him talk to them. This would be a wild story that they could boast about in taverns for over a decade.
Rushing towards the two contraptions, the sailors pulled them to their respective wooden crosses that conveniently came in the two sizes of big and small, and then, after raising the two weakly struggling men, they bound ropes on each of their arms before doing the same to their legs so that they wouldn't be able to move even if they got back their full strength somehow.
By now, both the Lannister men had realised the situation they were in, and all the regret, despair and resentment that they had been feeling during their journey whenever they occasionally woke up came back to them all at once.
But their bodies had grown so weak and numb by now that they didn't even have the energy to scream and curse, as their wills finally began to lose the struggle and they finally accepted their fate.
A moment later, after the labourers had checked the ropes more than three times, they were finally satisfied enough and left the Prince alone with the prisoners.
Oberyn took a long look at the two men before he decisively turned away and walked to the front of the platform, "Do you know who these two are?" he asked the crowd in a loud bellow.
The Dornish people down there looked very confused at that question and turned their eyes towards the two men being held by ropes, trying to see if they could recognise them.
Leaving the small, ugly man alone, who didn't have too many unique features about him, and looked no different than a roadside rogue found at the corner of every street, the big man had a very fearsome height, so there should realistically only be a few people like him in Westeros, making it easier for them to make guesses about his identity.
"Do you think that's Gerold Dayne?"
"The Darkstar? Why would it be him?"
"Well... I heard that he's not a very pleasant fellow, and besides, he is not said to be on good terms with the Martells ever since he was rejected for the hand of the Princess Arianne."
"Of course, that isn't him. Don't be absurd. Not only is he a different colour, but the Darkstar is said to be only about 6 and a half feet tall, and this brute is at least 7 and a half, and may even be 8 feet tall. I don't know of anyone in Dorne who is this tall."
"Then they can only be foreigners, right?"
"Then how the hell am I supposed to know them?" one man cried as he raised his hand in defeat, "I have never even left Dorne before."
"My Prince!! You have barely left those two in a recognisable condition!!" A young, bold boy finally couldn't take the suspense anymore and shouted out loud while pointing towards their swollen faces and thin, starved bodies, "So how are we supposed to identify them?" The men and women in the crowd immediately snickered, finding it quite novel for a prince to be questioned like this.
Prince Oberyn neither took offence nor did he smile back; he simply nodded his head as if he had expected it and turned around, "Let me introduce you to them then," he replied loudly as he walked a few steps to stand before the smaller man.
"This here is... Ser Amory Lorch," he stated in simple words as if he was speaking about the weather, but the reaction these two words elicited from the crowds was immense.
Almost instantly, a solemn silence fell over the port, as the liveliness and the smiles disappeared from the faces of every single person present there, and their widened eyes in shock, and they turned back towards the small, ugly man with completely new eyes.
But Oberyn did not give them the time to digest this information as he next walked towards the giant man, whom most of the wise men in the crowd were already starting to recognise, "And this is... Ser Gregor Clegane," Oberyn's voice trembled a little here, so much hate and loathing there was in his simple words.
The two names were like gongs in the ears of the Dornish people there, and after a few seconds of silence, there was an almost instantaneous explosion of noise, as the crowd almost started a riot.
They screamed, they cursed, and threw every single piece of thing that they could get their hands on, whether it be a rock, or even a fucking tomato.
Every single Dornish Man and Woman present there had their eyes turned red with rage, as their emotions went out of control, with some even trying to rush up the platform, and they would have succeeded with it if not for the presence of the guards who stopped them.
This sudden, volatile response very much unnerved the few dozen foreigners present in the port as they thought that these people were simply mad for overreacting like this over two men, even if they were the enemies of their Lords.
But what they could not comprehend was that this was Dorne, the same place that held out for nine whole years against the might of Dragons, refusing to submit.
These people and their ancestors were hunted down from Village to Village, their homes, their wells and their crops were burned to ashes, but still they refused to kneel, so stubborn was their pride.
The words, 'Unbowed, Unburnt, Unbroken,' were not just phrases in this place; they were a symbol of their spirit. After all, this was the seat of power of the House Martell, which had ruled Dorne since Queen Nymeria docked in this place with her 10,000 ships.
And these foreigners could never understand the humiliation and rage that these people had felt when they learned the tragedy that had befallen their beloved princess in the Capital before her death.
So now, for them to see the perpetrator appear right in front of their very eyes, it was safe to say that these people wanted nothing more than to storm the platform and tear these bastards piece by piece with their very own hands, and show them what wrath of Dorne felt like.
"Don't Stop us!!" "Let me through!! I'll kill these Monsters!"
"I will cut off his head with my own hands!!"
"Hang Them! HANG THESE MONSTERS!!"
But thankfully, before the things could get completely out of hand and the guards could be overwhelmed, Oberyn suddenly raised his right hand and bellowed, "ENOUGH!!"
The voice wasn't too loud in front of the commotion that the crowd was creating, but it had a unique penetrating quality that only a few commanders in Westeros possessed and somehow managed to reach the ears of each madened Dornishman present there, slowly bringing them out of their haze of anger.
Their eyes turned towards their liege, the man who had somehow managed to snatch these filthy creatures from their homes and brought them here to face justice.
"I know that you are angry," Oberyn began in a deep, grave voice, "I know that you want to punish these two with death, and I understand that," His calm words had a strange effect of calming the crowd, "But the anger you feel at the moment could never be compared to Mine!!" he roared with a burning eyes that instantly cowed the populace.
"These men humiliated my sister, bashed my little nephews' heads against the wall, and murdered my niece by stabbing her tiny body more than a dozen times," his voice turned hoarse from roaring and the people below began to feel uncomfortable as they looked away from the open emotions that their Prince was showing in front of them, "So, no, there is no here, who wants their deaths more than me!"
No one disagreed with him at that, as everyone present had heard stories of how fiercely the two Princes had loved their sister, "But death... would be too easy for them."
"It would be a mercy!" he growled with pure rage in his voice, "I have suffered. Dorne has suffered through this humiliation for more than a decade, and I will not grant them release from their miserable lives before they have paid back for their sins in full."
"RARRHH!!!"
Almost immediatley the crowd began screaming and yelling in agreement, as they realised that with Viper's reputation, there was no better than him to make sure that these two suffered a fate worse than death.
A few seconds passed as Oberyn let the crowd vent their emotions before he continued, "From here to Sunspear, these two shall be paraded naked through our streets," he announced, "And every morning from here on, they will be displayed outside my castle, giving evey man, woman, and child of Dorne a chance for them to inflict the pain and humiliation they think that these demons deserve."
Oberyn had a cruel smile on his face as he said that, and this was mirrored on the faces of many a man and even woman present there, "Every day for the next ten days, they shall suffer through a year's worth of agony. They will cry, they will plead, they will scream and beg for mercy and death, but we will not grant them their wish," he said with a dark look on his face, "Because after Dorne has had fill of its vengeance... they shall be left to me," he said as he turned towards the two Lannister with a look of pure malice on his face, "And then I shall have my due,"
Hearing the excruciating details coming out of Oberyn's mouth had scared Lorch so much that the man had fainted in anger, and even the Mountain, who until then still held a hint of resentment and defiance in his eyes, had now soiled his pants and was looking at the Prince of Dorne with nothing but terror in his eyes.
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