The Sworn Sword

""They could"", Dunk agreed, ""but before you get to King Jaehaerys, you'd best help us teach them how to use a spear. And don't go eating anything that Maester won't"".

The next day a dozen would-be warriors found their way to Standfast to assemble among the chickens. One was too old, two were too young, and one skinny boy turned out to be a skinny girl. Those Dunk sent back to their villages, leaving eight: three Wats, two Wills, a Lem, a Pate, and Big Rob the lackwit. A sorry lot, he could not help but think.

The strapping handsome peasant boys who won the hearts of highborn maidens in the songs were nowhere to be seen. Each man was dirtier than the last. Lem was fifty if he was a day, and Pate had weepy eyes; they were the only two who had ever soldiered before. Both had been gone with Ser Eustace and his sons to fight in the Blackfyre Rebellion. The other six were as green as Dunk had feared. All eight had lice. Two of the Wats were brothers. ""Guess your mother didn't know no other name"", Bennis said, cackling.

As far as arms went, they brought a scythe, three hoes, an old knife, some stout wooden clubs. Lem had a sharpened stick that might serve for a spear, and one of the Wills allowed that he was good at chucking rocks. ""Well and good"", Bennis said, ""we got us a bloody trebuchet"". After that the man was known as Treb.

""Are any of you skilled with a longbow?"" Dunk asked them."

"The men scuffed at the dirt, while hens pecked the ground around them. Pate of the weepy eyes finally answered.

""Begging your pardon, ser, but m'lord don't permit us longbows. Osgrey deers is for the chequy lions, not the likes o' us"".

""We will get swords and helms and chainmail?"" the youngest of the three Wats wanted to know.

""Why, sure you will"", said Bennis, ""just as soon as you kill one o' the Widow's knights and strip his bloody corpse. Make sure you stick your arm up his horse's arse, too, that's where you'll find his silver"". He pinched young Wat beneath his arm until the lad squealed in pain, then marched the whole lot of them off to Wat's Wood to cut some spears.

When they came back, they had eight fire-hardened spears of wildly unequal length, and crude shields of woven branches. Ser Bennis had made himself a spear as well, and he showed them how to thrust with the point and use the shaft to parry… and where to put the point to kill. ""The belly and the throat are best, I find"". He pounded his fist against his chest.