The Red Viper was a man of shadows and sudden strikes; he vanished from the Fire-weed Estate as quietly as he had arrived. His departure was a necessity—a Prince of Dorne could not be seen openly consorting with a "slave-thief" in the Disputed Lands without drawing the eyes of the Iron Throne. Their alliance remained a matter of whispered words and shared bloodlust, a pact of trade and mutual benefit that existed only in the silence between them.
During his stay, Oberyn had sparred with Gendry nearly every dawn. Gendry felt his own prowess sharpening under the whetstone of the Prince's expertise. Every thrust of that blunted spear was a lesson in distance and timing.
He's using me as a surrogate for the Mountain, Gendry realized.
Oberyn always insisted Gendry wear his full black scale mail and carry the heavy warhammer. The Prince was practicing for a specific kind of monster—a man of massive strength and heavy armor. He was learning how to dance around a titan, finding the gaps in the steel where a spear-tip could find a heart. Gendry was his "Heavy," a low-tier version of the shadow that had haunted the Martells for sixteen years.
"He is a complex man," Gendry mused, watching the dust settle on the training ground.
"Brilliant, certainly," Maester Qyburn replied, his hands tucked into his sleeves. "But brilliance is a poor substitute for resources. Dorne is a land of sand and scorpions, the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms. They sit alone, surrounded by the Reach and the Westerlands—enemies who have more gold, more grain, and more men."
"They have been broken since the Trident," Gendry noted. "Doran and Oberyn are the two faces of a single coin. One burns with a fire he has to smother; the other freezes in a patience that is slowly turning to ice."
"You do not know the full weight of their grudge, Commander," Qyburn said, his voice dropping an octave. "During the Usurper's War, the Mad King held Princess Elia and her children as hostages in the Red Keep. He used them to force Prince Lewyn and ten thousand Dornishmen to die for a Prince Rhaegar who had already betrayed them for a Northern girl. They bled for a dragon that had already abandoned them."
Gendry thought of the "Silver Prince" and the "wrong love" that had set a continent on fire. The Martells had been dragged into a graveyard by a dynasty they were trying to save.
"Injustice is the root of all war," Gendry said. "And the Martells have a mountain of it."
He saw the lines in Oberyn's face now—not from age, but from the exhausting effort of maintaining a mask of arrogance while his soul hungered for blood. It was a specific kind of weariness, the sort that came from waiting sixteen years for a wind that never blew.
"Doran's plans are too long, and Oberyn's are too short," Gendry analyzed. "That is why they look to us. We are the variable. We are the ones who aren't afraid to break the foundations."
He turned back to the map of the Disputed Lands, his eyes fixed on the jagged chain of islands to the west.
"We need to stop being a target and start being a threat," Gendry said. "If the Myrmen think we are just going to sit here and wait for their next mercenary host, they are mistaken."
"What is the plan, Commander?"
"Deception," Gendry said, his finger tracing the coastline toward Myr. "Leak word through the taverns and the smugglers. Tell the world that the Wolf Pack is negotiating with Bloodbeard and the Company of the Cat. Tell them we are preparing to sack Myr itself."
Qyburn's eyes glinted. "A fine feint. Bloodbeard is a savage; the Magisters will panic and pull their defenses back to the city walls. They will focus their fleet on the harbor."
"Exactly," Gendry said. "While they are looking at their own gates, we will be moving in the opposite direction. We aren't sacking Myr. We're taking the Stepstones."
"The Stepstones?" Qyburn echoed, surprised.
"I want a kingdom, Maester, not a farm," Gendry said, his voice ringing with a new, harder authority. "We have the Free Army and the survivors of the Wolf Pack. We have our own ships now, manned by the slaves who knew the Myrish waters. We don't need to rely solely on Salladhor Saan anymore."
The relationship with the Lyseni pirate had grown nuanced. Saan was a partner, but he was also a shark who would eat them the moment they grew weak. By seizing a few strategic islands in the Stepstones, Gendry would secure his own naval base and a choke-point on the world's trade.
"The Myrmen are afraid of the Hammer King," Gendry said, looking at the black iron ring on his finger. "It's time we showed them exactly how far that hammer can reach."