The Dornish Marches

NOTE: Some of you told me you cant read the chaps cause of some webnovel update shit. I also publish in Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net Same story title and same user name.

***

"We should go back now," Damon Sand urges as the wind begins to pick up on the plain. "There's no one around here." Ser Damon looks at the vast plain in front of him, apart from some bushes and rocks there is nothing in sight.

"Are you scared of ghosts?" asked Ser Willas Wyl, distant cousin of the current Lady Wyl, barely urging a smile.

"There's no one in sight to Ser," Damon answered. He hadn't taken the bait. Ser Damon Sand was a veteran who fought in two Blackfyre rebellions, in the first rebellion he was just a 9-year-old squire. In the second he was a proven knight of 26. In his forty years of life he has had to deal with many lordlings who thought they were smarter and stronger than him. He knows when a lordling is goading him and knows how to respond without losing courtesy. "Ser Quentyn saw the camp deserted, no soul in sight"

"And have they really left?" Wyl asked sharply. "What proof do we have?"

"The word of ser Quentyn." Damon replied, "If he says the camp is empty I don't need any more proof."

"I saw it with my own eyes ser. I would never lie about such matters," Quentyn interjected, knowing he was going to be dragged into the quarrel sooner or later. He would have liked it to be later than earlier.

'These two argue like cats and dogs, I wish they'd leave me out of their fights.' Ser Quentyn looks up at the sky and sighs wearily. The moon is full tonight and he can even see the Dragon of the North clear in the sky. `It's too beautiful a night to wander the marches in search of phantom invaders.`

Towards a day that the rumor arrived that Lord Swann is gathering his troops on the border.

Lady Wyl gathered her knights and scouts and gave them the tedious task of scouring the plains for evidence of the supposed invasion.

The three knights were given the task of exploring an old Stormlander camp to see if it has been reoccupied, apparently a shepherd thought he saw smoke from campfires in that area.

"And how could I trust the word of a coward in this situation?" Willas replied. "If you were able to abandon the knight you served under, how do I know you wouldn't betray House Wyl to join those barbarians?" his voice sounds too loud in the night, some animals walk away surprised by the noise.

Quentyn blushes but wags his tongue. It's no use telling that pampered lordling that his ser ordered him to flee the battlefield. He had an arm and several ribs broken, but of course no one remembers that. They only remember the fourteen year old boy fleeing the last battlefield of the fourth Blackfyre Rebellion.

"We have a long road ahead of us." Damon chimes in before Ser Willas says anything else. "Half a day on horseback and dawn is approaching."

It is safer to perform these scouting tasks at night if the group is small like theirs, by day they are easily spotted and a group of three knights does not instill much fear.

"Like every day at this hour." Ser Wyl scoffed after glancing at the sky. "Are you afraid of the sun?"

Quentyn could feel the tension around Damon's mouth and the barely contained anger in his eyes.

Ser Damon was made a knight more than twenty years ago, when the lordling had not even been born and in his years he got used to being mocked by lords and ladies, either because of his bastard status or because of the scars that cross his face. But there was something strange, Quentyn sensed something else in the veteran knight besides wounded pride.

He could almost feel a tension too close to fear.

Quentyn shared that unease, having patrolled the plains, moors, and grasslands of the Dornish Marches for nearly a decade. When he enlisted in the service of House Wyl, his companions scared him with stories of stormlanders who kidnap them from their camps in the middle of the night to kill them in a thousand ways, each one more painful than the last.

He laughed at those stories.

He is now a veteran and the vast lands of the Marches are not the least bit frightening to him.

Until tonight. Today there is something different in the air. The darkness he is so used to has a tinge that makes his hair stand on end.

All night Quentyn had felt watched, watched by something or someone whose intentions were not good at all. Damon had sensed it too. There was nothing Quentyn wanted more than to ride full speed to the safety of Lady Wyl's castle, but that was not a wish he could share with his leader.

And what a leader he was.

Ser Willas Wyl is cousin to Lady Wyl of Boneway. He is a rather handsome sixteen year old with dark skin and golden eyes. Astride his black steed, he towered over Damon and Quentyn, who rode smaller but faster horses. And that is the ideal horse for a scout, inconspicuous and fast. Ser Wyl's warhorse is more suited for a tourney or a battlefield than his mission.

"Lady Wyl told us to check that camp and we already have," Damon said "There is no one there. The camp has been abandoned for years, we must go back and inform our lady."

The young knight grimaces and tightens his grip on his horse's reins.

"Let's take another look." He turns in direction. "I want to see that camp with my own eyes." He spurs on his horse and he begins to trot.

The two knights sigh tiredly and follow the younger one.

"Lordlings," Damon murmurs and Quentyn nods.

They ride for an hour until they reach the Stormlander camp.

A wall made of wood surrounds the camp with several wooden towers. The gates of the camp are wide open, the three knights enter.

"I told you to ser. There's no one here." Ser Quentyn tries to hide the mockery in his voice. Because of the arrogant boy-knight, dawn will find them still in dangerous territory. `If bandits find us...`

Since the marches are also home to many criminals, bandits abound.

Ser Wyl says nothing and walks around the empty camp, then heads his horse toward the exit still saying nothing.

The other two continue shaking their heads but suddenly the veteran stops and raises a hand urging the other two to stop.

"Something is not right." Damon looks around.

"Really?" Ser Willas said with a disdainful smile.

"Don't you hear it?" Damon asked whispering, "Listen to the wind."

Willas scoffs but Quentyn strains his ears. He listens to the whisper of the wind and after a few moments he listens to it.

"Steps."

"Some nearby animal." Willas dismisses them. Seeing that neither of them are paying attention to him, Willas gets off his horse and draws his sword. He walks to the outer side of the wall swinging his sword like a stick. "You see here there is no-"

"Ser Willas!" Quentyn spurs his horse to the wounded knight.

"Fuck! I've been shot." Ser Willas looks at the arrow in his shoulder. "Don't come here idiot!" He runs towards his horse but another arrow hits his leg and he falls to the ground. "Run! You have to tell my cousin! Stormlanders!" He sees the archers a hundred meters away, he can't make them out in the dark but he recognizes the arrows he has stuck in his body.

Quentyn reaches his side and scrambles off his horse, grabbing the knight and dragging him toward the camp.

"Idiot! These arrows are the same ones Lord Swann used at the Tourney in Ashford last year. Swan feathers." He grunted in pain.

"I won't abandon you ser." Quentyn says stubbornly but is interrupted by the sound of his horse hitting the ground, his body full of arrows.

The two barely reached the gates of the camp when Damon spotted the attackers approaching.

"They are at least fifty!" he exclaims, "They have riders, escaping won't be easy."

"Ser Quentyn, take my horse and go with Ser Damon. You must inform my cousin of the invasion."

The knight leans on his sword as if it were a cane.

"No! We're not leaving you here!" Quentyn refuses but Damon knows they have to fulfill their duty.

"Don't be foolish, these wounds will bleed me dry before the sun rises!"

"Quentyn, our duty is to Lady Wyl and our Princess." Damon cuts Quentyn off before he can say anything. The young knight shakes his head.

"I'm not going to abandon him, Damon," he looks into Damon's eyes. "It won't be the same as the Battle of Wendwater Bridge."

Damon looks into Quentyn's blue eyes, sees his determination, and nods.

"It was an honor to serve by your side, Ser Quenytn." They shake hands. "May the gods be with you." Damon nods at them and rides full speed towards House Wyl's castle, not looking back. He knows what will be the fates of his comrades.

`Quentyn, I expected something like that from him but ser Willas..., I didn't expect that that proud and arrogant brat would face death with such bravery and courage. In the end he proved to be worthy of his title as a knight`

A tear escapes his eye but it doesn't slow him down. He has a duty to fulfill, and failing would be

like spitting on the sacrifice of those brave knights.

***

The two knights await the invaders with their swords drawn.

"You fool." Willas mutters "You could have lived. Now you will die in vain."

"No ser. I will die fighting for my beliefs. My ser Jonos told me that there is no better death for a knight."

Willas looks at him in a new light and for the first time gives him a genuine smile.

He nods his head and looks up at the sky.

"Yes, it will be a good death."

The invading Stormlanders arrive at the camp.