β β β β β β and neither does the third strike loosen teeth nor does the third strike break an o'erwrought cheekbone. thankfully, the beaten and bruised hedge knight, truly no hedge knight at all but beaten and bruised in truth, tonguing his bloodied teeth thinks, though deserved it was, that third strike, and left dunk boneless to be wrenched and wrested 'bout. (no teeth loosened but bruised to the bone, dunk's cheekbone ought to be by now by lyonel's fist with knuckles surely bruised to the bone, too, and as bloodied as dunk's teeth.) fierce for a cunt who failed the man he served, wrenched and wrested 'bout then thrust aside he is. half wit cunt and an armed fucking man and get up ring loud, terribly loud, in dunk's ears, but all dunk thinks of are the bastard lord's eyes, gold as the sun they are. (gold as the baratheons.) get up, his ser in his head says again, get up.
β β β β β β he doesn't.
β β β β β β in the kennels with the dogs for a sennight and more does the hedge knight lie, the dog knight now more like, and better company are the curs than the bastard's boys, aye. slept in the filth of flea bottom's wynds and alleys with dogs before and cats, too, and cows and sheep and horses. with rats in cellars sometimes, too, and smuggling tunnels. 'tis nothing to dunk then, sleeping 'mongst the dogs, though ne'er before's he been a tethered beast left to the rain. 'least he reeks less, he thinks, leering with a thirst the wineskin in the bastard lord's hand. fair morn, the lord says, fine rain, then of the stormlands and the scouring rains there does the lord speak. the lord's home by birthright, the stormlands, were he not a bastard.
β β β β β β "not for long, no," dunk says, with a voice neither rough nor calloused with disuse for to the dogs had dunk spoken for a sennight, "my ser and i, we were once in the service of house dondarrion, in the battle against the vulture king in the red mountains. i was only a boy then butβ" the bastard cares not to hear tales of dead men. he swallows, ducks his head. his cheekbone, the sickly yellow of a healing bruise, aches. "βwe traveled through the stormlands, aye."