GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 136 - Dorne's Revenge

In the Water Gardens of Sunspear, lemon trees rustled in the hot afternoon breeze. The fountain murmured without pause.

Drogo had allowed three Dornish prisoners to carry Oberyn's body from Cape Massey back to Dorne. Departure to arrival: seven days.

When the Dornish warriors entered the audience hall, their legs gave out beneath them. Knees hit stone with a thud that shook ash from the brazier.

"Prince Oberyn... has fallen."

"At Cape Massey. Killed by Khal Drogo himself."

Doran waved them out. He asked for no details.

Now Oberyn lay on a stone platform beneath the colonnade, wrapped in gold-threaded brocade, face exposed. Two stones painted with eyes pressed down upon his eyelids.

The dust and dried blood had been wiped from his cheeks. But the wound across his throat could not be hidden — a thin red line where the brocade collar parted, stitched close and careful, and still unable to hide what it was. The smell of death doesn't wash out.

Doran Martell sat in his chair, a thin blanket across his knees. The gout had worsened every year. He had long stopped receiving guests in the council chamber.

Ellaria Sand stood beside the platform, one hand on her daughter's shoulder, the other crushing a sodden handkerchief.

Obara stood beneath the colonnade, whip in hand, its tip dragging on the ground. She ground it under her toe, slowly, again and again.

She was Oberyn's eldest bastard. There was something of the sharp Dornish look in her brow and eyes. She and Nymeria stood side by side — one with arms crossed, one with hands loose at her sides.

Tyene leaned against the pool's edge, a white flower pinched between her fingers. She tore the petals off one by one and let them fall into the water.

"I wish I could have seen what Father looked like. In that moment." The flower was stripped bare. She stared down at her own reflection.

She had just turned seventeen. Oberyn's youngest.

Doran had a servant wheel him to the platform, three paces from the body.

He sat there for a long time, his hands motionless on the blanket.

"All these years, Oberyn plotted in secret to bring down Robert Baratheon's dynasty and destroy the Lannisters. He hated them even more than I did."

His gaze settled on his brother's face, the face that would never open its eyes again. "I never thought... he would die fighting for Joffrey."

Obara stepped forward. Her whip trailed behind her. "Father didn't die for Joffrey. He died resisting a foreign invasion."

"Uncle, I don't understand." Tyene rose from the pool's edge, the hem of her skirt soaked through, her voice carrying that bright clarity only the young have. "He didn't have to accept Tywin's orders. Why did he go and fight the Horse Lord at all?"

Doran was silent.

Ellaria watched him. She had seen that expression before. Years ago, when word came that his sister Elia and her two children had been killed by the Mountain, he had sat out on the balcony wearing exactly that face.

"I once traveled with Oberyn to Braavos." Ellaria's voice was quiet, the voice of someone speaking of something long sealed away. "Before the Sealord as witness, we signed a secret pact with Ser Willem Darry. When Viserys Targaryen returned to claim the Iron Throne, Dorne would raise its banners for him."

Prince Doran said, "I was the one who sent him. I arranged for Viserys Targaryen to wed my daughter Arianne. I worked with Illyrio and others to wait for the right moment. The plan was simple: after Khal Drogo married Daenerys, we would march on Westeros together — the Golden Company, the Dornish army, the Targaryens restored." He paused. "But Khal Drogo turned Viserys into an Unsullied."

"The army that crossed the sea is not a Targaryen army. It is Khal Drogo's army. He flies Rhaegar's banners, but make no mistake about whose hand holds them."

"He gelded Viserys himself. He had Viserys's hands and feet broken on his orders. I don't know whether he did it to make an example, or whether he simply found the man an eyesore. Either way, the message was clear: Targaryen blood means nothing to him."

"The marriage alliance became a joke." Doran's tone didn't shift. "Arianne is the daughter I love most. Marry her to an Unsullied? No."

Tyene's voice fell into the silence like a drop of water into hot oil. "So... you refused him?"

"Yes," Doran said. "Before Khal Drogo crossed the Narrow Sea, he sent me a letter. Swear loyalty to Daenerys Targaryen. Fight at his side. I refused. We were willing to follow the Targaryens. Not a khal from the Dothraki Sea."

"But Daenerys is a Targaryen," Ellaria said. "If you had agreed then, would Oberyn still be alive?"

"She is Khal Drogo's wife." Doran's correction carried no anger. Just the cold weight of fact. "Targaryen blood runs in her veins. But the one giving orders is a Dothraki khal."

He paused. "Dornishmen do not help foreigners invade their own homeland. You know this."

"Then what will you do?" Ellaria asked.

Doran pushed his chair away from the body, turning to face the grey sky beyond the colonnade.

When he spoke, his voice was slow, deliberate, a man working a knot loose from a tangled thread.

"Tywin is pinned at Rosby, locked in a standoff with Jorah Mormont. He can't move his forces. But Jaime Lannister's western army hasn't marched yet. If they push into the Reach and tie down Drogo's troops, and Dorne strikes north from the south, driving straight for Storm's End, the whole picture changes."

Ellaria Sand said, "Mobilize. Kill them before the Horse Lord's dragons grow up."

Doran stared at his brother's body. He was silent for a long moment.

Then he spoke.

"Send 20,000 men to the Reach. Support the Tyrells. At the same time, have Jaime Lannister bring the western forces in from the other side. Catch Jacco's cavalry between them and drive them out."

He looked at Obara.

"Contact the lords south of the Stormlands. Lord Roland Connington of Griffin's Roost. House Morrigen at Crow's Nest. House Swann at Stonehelm. Tell them Drogo holds the north. Strike up from the south. Whatever they reclaim, they keep."

He looked at Ellaria.

"Send word to the Crownlands. Have them press from the north. Three fronts moving at once. Drogo's dragons can't cover all of them."

Ellaria's grip on the handkerchief tightened. "When?"

"Now," Doran said.

He turned his chair. His back to Oberyn.

"Go."

Beneath the colonnade, the women moved as one. Boots on stone. The crack of a whip. Skirts brushing the floor. They swept out of the Water Gardens like a gust of wind.

The fountain kept murmuring. The lemon trees kept rustling.

Sunspear had made its move.

➤ Next: Three-Pronged Offensive — Face to Face