While the main army of the Lords Declarant fought the main body of the Royal Army of the Reach at the Crossroads and Wolf Glade, another drama was playing out at Wendwater Bridge, where Lord Randyll Tarly, the most renowned commander of the Reach, faced off against a joint army of Stormlanders and Dornishmen led by Stannis Baratheon and Oberyn Martell. These two men, prima facie diametric opposites personality-wise, forged an unlikely partnership that would yield unexpected dividends . . .

This is how you fight when you are Oberyn Martell

Men do not call you the Red Viper without reason. To begin with, there is the widely-held belief that you poison your weapons (Which is actually true, for once; the head of the spear your squire holds ready for you has been coated in a fast-acting snake venom). For another thing, the way you fight is remarkably similar to the way a viper strikes. Not for you the careening charge and the prolonged death-grapple of the knights of the Reach. You keep your distance and rely on the length of your reach to commit swift, darting attacks. Quickly in, quickly out, and either kill with the first strike or let the poison do its work. If you have to attack the same target again, repeat the formula until you don't need to anymore. It's a strategy that has given a fearsome reputation.

Which is why you're the one feinting at the bridge while young Stannis is taking his knights in search of a certain ford that a forester in the service of Lord Buckler remembers. With your personal banner here, the sun and spear of Dorne differenced with the label of three points denoting you as the younger brother of the line, Tarly's attention will be fully fixed on any attempt to cross the bridge, blinding him to his flanks. Such, at least, is the plan you and young Stannis worked out.

You snort to yourself. Young? At eighteen namedays Stannis is a man grown and only seven years younger than you are. Also quite handsome, in a hard-faced, brooding fashion. If only these northerners were not so narrow-minded . . . you shrug to yourself. Such a waste, but that's life for you.

You turn your attention back to the bridge, where the latest in a string of sorties you have sent out is trotting back. Uller men, these, hard-riding horse archers from the banks of the River Brimstone. You've spent the morning sending them and their counterparts from the other desert houses to probe Tarly's defenses on the far bank of the Wendwater. Partly to prolong the distraction, partly in a genuine effort to seek out any weakness in Tarly's lines. When Stannis attacks Tarly's flank, you will go lunging across the bridge to complete the rout, but you do not plan to do so indiscriminately. Every spearman in your army is a precious resource to be husbanded like water in the desert; you and your brother stripped the Dornish interior to build this army and if you break it, there will not be another for a generation.

Normally you find Doran to be a bit of a worrywart, but in this you agree with him. Dorne's position in the Seven Kingdoms is fragile enough without crippling her army.

You are about to order another sortie out when there is a sudden trumpet blast and the woods across the river seem to explode into boiling motion. You lean forward, peering . . . yes, that is the black stag on yellow of the Baratheons on the lance of that knight there.

You toss aside your waterskin and shout commands as you don your helmet and hold out your hand for your spear. Stannis has upheld his part of the plan, now you must complete it. Ten thousand Dornishmen step off towards the river at the trot and you spur your horse to the front, followed by the conroi of knights that you have taken as your personal guard. You are first across the bridge, hooves booming hollowly over the planks, and the first into the Reachmen, with the battle-joy fully upon you as you bore a hole through their line with the chivalry of Dorne behind you.

The Battle of Wendwater Bridge resulted in the destruction of the majority of Lord Tarly's force and the dispersal of what remained, allowing the combined armies of Dorne and the Stormlands to link up with the main army of the Lords Declarant two days later. It was also the first performance of what would become one of military history's great double acts, as Stannis Baratheon and Oberyn Martell cemented the partnership that would set Westeros on the path to military predominance in the Narrow Sea . . .

- A Beautiful Friendship: Oberyn Martell and Stannis Baratheon from the Rebellion to the Wars of the Three Daughters by Archmaester Boyega, published 1329 AC