Chapter 7
A Spear that Stabs the Sun: The Red Viper
"It's a wonderful day don't you think?" Oberyn Martell held his palm up, admiring the sky. "I struggle to believe this is the same sun that we know. The Marches might bake in summer, but winter comes in cold and spring makes you wish to stand outside. There is something about the air here… It raises men who fight fiercely and women who love the same. Ah, to hear the screams of a Stormlander. There really is no substitute."
Percy tried to figure out if Oberyn was lost in memories of women he'd slept with, or men he'd stabbed. Both maybe?
He and Arianne were off of their horses. She dismounted first, right after her uncle did. Percy followed her. Oberyn's men had ridden forward to create a ring around the two of them. These were men who knew how to fight. He could tell because they never went for their weapons, not a twitch, even when they saw that Percy was armed.
"You won't know these things, Arianne, beyond taking me at my word," Oberyn said. "You could say I understand it better than anyone— this desire of yours to get out and see the world. Alas, the world hoards its glories the way a bravo guards his favorite whore." He took his spear off his back, spun it, and pounded the butt into the ground. Oberyn leaned his weight on the weapon, his right eye gleaming with his left hidden behind hair. "You seem to have lost something. Where are the men who rode with you?"
"Dead," Arianne pronounced.
"And therein the danger shows itself. Twice, you've ridden from Sunspear. Twice, I have caught you. The first time you lost only pride. This time, the earth drank blood. If there is a next time, the price will grow even steeper."
"What would you have me do, Uncle?" Arianne's anger did something inside Percy's chest, speeding his heart up. Was it bad to say she had a sexy glare? "My own father has turned his back on me! Should I wed a corpse on its last breath, like Ben Beesbury? Or perhaps one who leers at my body the way he'd eye a ham from his smokeroom, as Walder Frey did? You should have seen his gaze, Uncle. It was as if he thought the limp worm between his legs yet lives."
One of Oberyn's men chortled. It was hard to tell which, because whoever it was stifled himself quickly, and at least five of them were covering their mouths.
"They were not even fit to be called men!" Arianne said. "They were husks who would not have been worth me in their primes. I am a Martell, and even if my father has forgotten, I have not. If I must go all the way to Riverrun to forge a match fit for our house, then that is what I will do!"
"And who will escort you to the Riverlands?" Oberyn asked. "Certainly not I, the busy prince of Sunspear. Will it be the men you have lost? Or perhaps you'll go in the company of this finely dressed knight!"
Percy's clothes were obviously made for smallfolk. His tunic and pants were heavy and cheap. His pilfered sword was strapped to his waist with rope. Even setting Oberyn aside, his men were outfitted in leather and dyed cloths, with belts and breastplates straight from a tanner.
"Perhaps I will go with him! Doing so would be as I planned. Percy is perfectly equipped to protect me."
Oberyn's men laughed, this time without any attempt to stifle themselves. Oberyn's smile changed. The slope of his lips grew steeper. He leaned back, resting his weight on the balls of his feet.
His spear disappeared. It turned to a blur, the gleaming tip coming straight at Percy's face. Arianne screamed, but even that was too late. By the time she made the noise Oberyn had stopped.
His spear hovered a centimeter in front of Percy's nose. Percy hadn't moved.
"Uncle!" Arianne roared.
The soldiers were laughing uproariously. "Scared stiff!" one said. Oberyn said nothing. His smile was gone.
"Do you mean to test him? To scare him? Either way, I won't have it!" Arianne said. "He saved my life—"
Oberyn drew back, wound up, and offered another stab, bringing his foot forward. The whole motion was done as lightning quick as the first stab.
Clang!
Percy's sword was out of its sheath. He hit the blade of the spear as it came at him, knocking the weapon away. Oberyn spun the shaft in his hands, stabbing again. Percy knocked this away just as easily. The third stab came with a feint, then targeted his shoulder. Percy turned his body sideways and the spear flashed past. Oberyn spun his spear, halfway to guarding the opening that had been created before he recognized Percy hadn't taken it.
They both stopped. His soldiers weren't laughing anymore.
"Niece, where did you find this?" Oberyn gestured at Percy with the back of his hand.
The clashing steel had scared Arianne back a step. Now, she had recovered enough to look shocked and angry. "He has a name, Uncle—"
"I'm certain that he does," Oberyn said. "I should know it. Yet I have never seen him, never heard whispers of such a swordsman, and I am certain he is not one of ours. Where did you get him, Arianne?" A grin split Oberyn's face. "Most importantly, are there any more left?"
O-O-O
Oberyn was disappointed to learn there weren't ten Percys waiting to be recruited in Wylmouth. Arianne was disappointed that they were on their way home, riding west instead of north. It made for a very cheerful atmosphere.
Weeping Town was the destination. Percy thought that was pretty appropriate, because it clearly made Arianne want to weep. Despite the pain from losing her men she had been picking up a taste for freedom. More than once she spoke of their trip through the Boneway as the beginning. Meanwhile, her uncle had sailed from Dorne straight to the Stormlands, waiting for her to reach him. It was a good plan. It worked perfectly. Which was why Arianne was as sour as a bottle of Dornish Red.
"Only in matters like this can they be so decisive!" she complained.
"You know nothing of my decisiveness." She had spoken too loudly and been overheard by Oberyn, riding at the front of the formation. "There is a matter for me to decide every day. Sometimes two are waiting for me before lunch. Woe as you are to hear it, your father is even busier than I."
"Yet I never hear what these matters are," Arianne said.
Oberyn turned, looked back at her, and raised an eyebrow. Arianne fell silent before he had turned his back, glaring at the pebbles beneath her horse's hooves.
Percy missed traveling alone with Arianne. This group was too big and full of men he didn't know. They were fighters. When they looked at him, they remembered the way his sword had moved and tried putting themselves in his shoes. Could they have defended against their prince? If it was their sword facing Percy's, who would be quicker? They wanted to find out.
Percy sighed, leaning back in his saddle. It was going to be a long trip.
The first night, they camped in a forest. The trees were taller, thinner, and had less leaves than the ones around Percy and Arianne's first campsite. He missed the Wyl and its rushing water. The most they had was a creek where the horses had been brought to drink after a long day of riding. It was a ten minute walk from the site of their camp.
There was nothing for him to do. Oberyn's group was drilled on their jobs. Even the horses were taken care of. Arianne was in the middle of the camp, almost held prisoner beside the fire. Oberyn brought a tent for her when he set out from Sunspear. He never doubted he would catch her.
She was in a bad mood. They couldn't speak as freely as they'd want to with Martell soldiers in a ring around her. Instead of sitting next to her in gloomy silence, Percy decided to go to the creek.
No one stopped him. After Percy stopped his spear, Oberyn had announced that the boy could do as he wished.
Scaring the Hades out of a squirrel on the way, Percy finally found the creek. He pulled his boots off, wiggling his toes to unglue them after hours pressed together. Soon his feet were submerged, his hands resting at his sides and his sword laid across his lap.
He heard the crunching of footsteps much later than he should have. Whoever it was moved almost as lightly as a Hunter of Artemis. Almost, because if it was a real Hunter he wouldn't have heard them at all.
Percy stared into the creek. "Did you need something, Prince Martell."
The footsteps stopped. A shape formed in the creek, a reflection of a man carrying a spear in one hand and a large bottle in the other.
"Do you drink?" Oberyn asked. He didn't comment on the fact that Percy identified him without looking, but he did smirk a little.
"It depends on the company."
Oberyn tossed the bottle at him. Percy's hand snapped up, catching it. He looked incredulously at the prince.
"In my presence, men drink," Oberyn said.
The wine was open with maybe a fifth missing. Giving a mental shrug, Percy knocked the bottle back and took a deep drink. Oberyn smiled.
The prince dropped down next to him. The distance between them was friendly, though not intimate. Oberyn held his hand out, his spear leaned against his shoulder, and accepted the wine as Percy passed it back. He drank like he had a dry throat.
"When I struck you, why didn't you move?" Oberyn asked.
"You weren't going to hit me."
Oberyn squinted. He wore a scoundrel's smile. "I'm no stranger to those taken in by my looks. This, though, is a first. To think my face convinced you I was harmless! Usually, I'm told I look dangerous."
"You are dangerous," Percy said flatly. "I wasn't thinking about your face. It was your feet."
"Truly? Well, they say there are as many tastes in the world as grains amongst the dunes."
Percy rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure if the Westerosi understood that gesture, but he still felt the need. "I meant where they were planted! The end of your stab was going to stop short of my face. So you were never going to hit me. The first time, at least…"
"I was a centimeter short," Oberyn said.
"Yeah."
"A minute, almost impossible distance to judge."
Percy shrugged. "Says the one who stopped there on purpose."
Oberyn laughed loudly. He started to bring the wine to his lips, stopped, and passed it back to Percy instead.
Percy would have been fine if Oberyn drank it all. Still, he took the sip that was being offered.
Oberyn was still laughing.
"A good play with words," he said, "but you ought to know, you are still the mad one."
"Why?" Percy wasn't disagreeing. He'd been called a lot worse. But he at least wanted to hear the reason.
"If I was wrong, I would have stabbed the nose of a boy dressed in wool and rope. You would not have died, most likely, but perhaps you would have been scarred. Not a good scar, either. An ugly one like to break the spell of your good looks. That mistake would hardly have affected me. I could have bought off your anger, or at worst, killed you with my men." Oberyn shrugged. "So I calculated, yes, but I risked nothing. You placed your nose on the line, your good looks, and perhaps even your life."
Talking about his face getting stabbed made Percy take another drink, sour taste or not.
"No," he said.
"...No?"
"I wasn't risking anything. I saw your feet." Percy passed the wine back, still staring into the creek. "I wouldn't get that wrong."
Oberyn laughed again. This time he tried to hold it in, and most of it came out his nose. He still managed to drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he finished.
"So, did you fuck my niece?"
It was Percy's turn to send air out his nose. He coughed loudly, choked slightly, before he got himself calmed down.
"...Should I have?"
"For once, in this specific case, I don't believe I'm someone who can answer that," Oberyn said. "Though if you're curious, my answer to every similar question I've faced has always been yes. I'm not selective in where I take my pleasure."
The way Oberyn looked at him made Percy shiver.
"I'm pretty selective," Percy said. "Or at least, I know what I like."
"A pity." Oberyn sighed. "In any case, you are not the first person Arianne has bedded. She takes after me in that regard. She has a penchant for all different tastes, you see."
Percy thought of her stories about Tyene, the daughter of the man sitting across from him. "I heard."
"Will you follow her now?" Oberyn asked. "You've sworn no oaths. If you wished to visit the Riverlands, you are free to. You could stroll through the fields of the Reach or visit King's Landing's nauseating streets. You could even travel to the Wall and join the Night's Watch— not that I would recommend such a thing. Men who don't use their cocks can only be considered half-alive, if you ask me. I only mean to illustrate your freedom. You are not our man, yet you've done House Martell a great service. If you ask for gold I'll grant it." He hoisted his wine. "For saving my niece, as well as to reward a good chat."
There was a huge world out there. Dyanna's lessons had planted the idea in his head. Unless he traveled, Percy couldn't fully grasp it. You couldn't exactly look up pictures of Braavos, the Wall, or even Oldtown.
Still…
"I'll follow Arianne."
"Why? Love? I met a bastard who fell for her once. He went to my brother for her hand in marriage and was thrown out on his nice rear. He told me the story while squiring for me, and I always found it quite piteous. Why let love ruin perfectly good passion?"
"It's not love." Percy didn't use that word for someone he'd known two weeks. Maybe one day. "In Wylmouth, I had it on good authority that an opportunity would come for me. Something that would take me where I needed to go. I'm following Arianne because it's fate."
Oberyn scoffed.
"You don't believe in fate?"
"I believe in very few things," Oberyn said. "I believe in my spear. I believe in poison. I believe the sun will rise each day and that lovers will moan my name beneath me. I believe in quenching thirst and sating hunger. I believe in the inaction of the gods on whatever high throne where they lurk, because if they were not layabouts then the world would not be as it is, and wicked men such as me could never walk with our heads held high. Fate, I'm afraid, I've no room left for. I have too many lovers and enemies to make scream."
There was a silence undercut by the burbling of the creek and the belched song of some nocturnal bird hidden amongst branches, beginning its day.
"You could've just said no."
Oberyn nearly spilled his wine, doubling forward with laughter.
He stood up, setting down the wine bottle. He brought his spear with him. It was getting late but not yet dark. There was enough light to see by.
"You'll have to forgive my mouth. It's been prone to run since birth. My mother told me I was the worst crier she ever came across."
"I'd be a hypocrite if I held that against somebody," Percy mumbled.
Oberyn's spear tip was catching the light. He leaned to the side, lifting his spear from the ground, and rested it flat across his shoulders, holding it in place with his wrists. "I would like to talk a different way now."
Percy was still looking at the creek. "You want to spar."
"Steel speaks in ways words can't even with alcohol's help. What say you?"
Percy's fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword. He put his boots back on one at a time. He rose, turning toward Oberyn. That was his answer. Oberyn grinned ferally. He slid his spear down into his hands, bending his knees.
The bird raised its sharp voice. The Red Viper struck for Percy's throat.
Like on the road, Percy hit his spearpoint away without trouble. His eyes narrowed as he did. Oberyn was already attacking a second time. The second became a third. Percy understood where his nickname came from. When Arianne told it to him, it sounded like the fancy thing a noble would come up with to sound scary.
Percy really doubted that Oberyn made his nickname up now. It was the first thing anyone who watched him would think. His spear struck like a viper, fast and thin with fangs that meant death.
Deflecting a stab, Percy took a fast step forward. Oberyn went back. He skipped two steps away, holding his spear closer to the butt. The power decreased while the speed rose further, as well as the reach. Oberyn's spear came at Percy so fast that it felt like there were three of them.
This wasn't like fighting a mortal. Percy could feel there was no magic in Oberyn. He wasn't a demigod, a legacy, or even a magician. This was just Oberyn's body. Westeros was a different world in subtle ways. Demihumans lived on the edges, the southern continent was full of beasts straight out of Tartarus, and dragons once dominated the skies. Why was it so surprising the people might move quicker, strike harder, or grow bigger than the mortals he was used to?
Oberyn was almost as fast as Clarisse, only without hitting like a freight car. Oberyn struck fast and tried not to be touched. Clarisse bulldozed anyone dumb enough to come into her range, more than capable of taking your head off with a swing you barely saw coming.
As he knocked stabs away, Percy looked for openings. The ones he saw were small and felt like traps. He considered forcing Oberyn toward a tree and trapping him. It could work. If he had a shield with him, Percy would have already been in Oberyn's face, knocking him flat.
He wasn't in the mood for a long dance. Something about Oberyn's spearhead tickled Percy's brain in an ugly way. He was pretty sure it was poisoned. Not fatal, probably, or Oberyn was carrying the antidote — because he was pretty sure Arianne's uncle didn't want him dead — but still nothing he wanted to be hit with. Poisoning him seemed like just the kind of weird test a man like Oberyn would get a kick out of.
It had been a long day of riding. Percy's patience had been tried by the gauging looks from Oberyn's men. He wanted this to end, and with that in mind he allowed Oberyn to push him back.
Soon Percy's heels were hanging off the bank of the creek. There was a sheer drop of soft soil roughly two feet tall in this section. Oberyn stabbed toward Percy's chest, meeting the edge of Percy's sword. He fainted toward Percy's knee and Percy didn't bite. He feinted at Percy's neck, but Percy saw through it. His spear shot toward Percy's stomach, fang looking for purchase.
Percy's sword was there to meet it, but Oberyn's spear had disappeared. The point was stabbing down now, targeting Percy's knee. With his sword busy, Percy stepped out of the way, his foot stepping onto air. He fell in the creek.
Oberyn jumped at least eight feet, landing on the bank where Percy had fallen. He said nothing, just stabbed. The point of his weapon pierced the water.
It stopped dead. Oberyn pulled back with all his might. His weapon didn't budge. The splash from his landing calmed down, Percy became visible, standing with water up to his thighs.
He'd caught Oberyn's spear right below the head. His hand held out against the strength of both Oberyn's arms.
Percy raised his sword and swung down. A spear of the finest make split as easily as a tube of paper, hacked through in one cut. Oberyn stumbled back, holding a half-length of useless wood.
He looked at it, then dropped it and held his hands up.
"A stinging defeat," he said. "Far from my first but not a taste I'll ever acquire." He watched as Percy climbed from the creek, eyeing the water dripping across his frame. "You're quite certain you're the selective type?"
"I'm sure."
Oberyn released a long suffering sigh. "Pity." He turned, holding a hand up above his shoulder. "I will be at camp if you need me. Fortunately, my men are a motley bunch, and they suit me well. If your mind should change suddenly, know I've never held capriciousness against a soul, nor do I dislike crowds."
Percy watched him leave, until his eyes caught on something left by the bank.
"Oberyn! You forgot your wine!"
The Dornish prince looked back. Percy could see both eyes, for once, with his hanging hair swept to the side. "Keep it. The more you drink, the more likely you are to visit my tent."
He left it at that, walking back to the camp. Percy looked toward the discarded wine. After a moment, he threw aside the severed top half of Oberyn's spear, taking the alcohol instead. Percy drained it.
Martells were tiring.