Battle for the High Road

**The Battle for the High Road** occurred in 54 AC. The Battle served as vengeance for both the Strife in the Snakewood, and the Battle for the Mountains, while Lord Denys Hunter would prove himself a most capable commander, much unakin to the late Lord Darnold Arryn.

## Background

The engagement that would come to be known as the Battle for the High Road was the child of militaristic fervour on the account of both the Lords of the Vale, and the Mountain Clans of the Mountains of the Moon..

In the wake of the Strife in the Snakewood, and the Battle for the Mountains, though the latter most especially, the Lord Denys Hunter, now named Regent of the Vale for the young Lord Gunthor Arryn, a boy of eight, and his nephew, sought to gain both vengeance and justice for the Lords of the Vale and House Arryn for the deaths of Lord Darnold Arryn, and his brother, Ser Rymond Arryn.

Whereas, on the side of the Clans, as result of what the more civilised aspects of the Vale have come to regard as the First Conclave of the Clans, the Milk Snakes, the Painted Dogs, the Sons of the Mist, as well as various other smaller Clans, had agreed to a nigh unprecedented alliance under the leadership of Timett the Tearless, the Milk Snake Chieftain, for but a single purpose; to gain a foothold within the Vale of Arryn proper.

And so, in order to sate his ambitions for vengeance and justice, the Lord Denys Hunter did spend a full moon spreading word throughout the Vale of Arryn that in the early 8th moon he intended to depart from the Eyrie, travel out through the Gates of the Moon, pass through the Bloody Gate, and make journey to King's Landing, where he would entreat with the King. Alas, not only did the Lord Denys Hunter ensure that this knowledge was given to the Lords of the Vale, but so too to the smallfolk, and by extension, the Clansmen of the Vale.

The trap was set.

## Engagement

###### *An Exert from the Writings of Maester Yorwyck's Work, "The War for the Mountains of the Moon".*

Unexpected. Such is how both sides found one another beneath the midnight moon during the 8th Moon of 54 AC.

Where the Clansmen led by Timett the Tearless simply chose to lie in wait for Lord Denys Hunter and his men, having no true notion of how many men he would be travelling with, they fell straight into his ploy without even being aware in the slightest. For when Lord Denys had marched out the Bloody Gate, he had only taken personally with himself some two-hundred men. Lord Denys had ever gone so far as to order the men, some two-hundred knights of the Vale, to leave behind them their shiny armour and signs of chivalry, much to their shock. And so, that night, when the moon rose in the sky, and Lord Denys and his two-hundred set their camp off to the side of the High Road, he did so order them to falsely take to slumber.

But alas, unbeknownst to the Milk Snakes, Painted Dogs, Sons of the Mist, and other Clansmen now hungrily watching the disguised knights of the Vale, Lord Denys had ordered the remainder of the four thousand from the Gates of the Moon depart the Bloody Gate an hour after he and his, and to hold to their rear about a half mile away once the sun departed the sky, and so too had the Lord Denys sent ravens to Iron Oaks, the Redfort, Runestone, and Old Anchor commanding them raise six thousand mounted men between them and bring them to the ambush in a pincer movement, so as to the hit the Clansmen from both directions upon the High Road. And so, Lord Denys and his two-hundred waited.

The first cry came nigh on midnight, with none amongst the two-hundred having been able to find sleep as consequence of the anticitipation of what was to come. And so, with the cries ever increasing, Lord Denys had a single man ride off in either direction to summon the remainder of the men from the Gates of the Moon, as well as the Waynwoods, Redforts, Royces, and Melcolms, for at least the time being, the two-hundred were forced to raise spear and shield and hold formation, against all odds.

The fighting was fierce, with clangs of metal filling the quiet night air with such a disturbance nigh every animal within a mile must have fled for fear of its life. But soon enough, with the two-hundred embattled and their defencive circle growing ever smaller by the minute, the men of the Vale appeared on the High Road, lances lowered and a cry of their own upon their lips;

*"For the Vale and the Seven!"*

Soon enough Lord Denys and two-hundred were freed from their personal siege, as battle raged all around them, as the men of the Vale charged both ways, cutting down Clansmen by the tens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, as the corpses began to pile high, and the Clansmen broke, forced into a route. But of the seven and a half thousand Clansmen brought to battle that night, only a scarce number would make it back to the secrecy and safety of the Mountains of the Moon, with the bodies of the Chieftains of the Painted Dogs and the Sons of the Mist, Crella daughter of Crella, and and Wofyn One-Eye respectively, being found among the masses of the dead.

Alas, the Vale was not without its own loss that night, having suffered loss in the form of its Knight of the Bloody Gate, Ser Petyr Dutton, who was found with his skull split in two, and the Clansmen axe still embedded inside the bloody crack.

Further so, Timett the Tearless was captured living, with only the slice of a spear upon his right arm.

## Aftermath

For his part in the assault upon Lord Qarl Corbray in the Strife in the Snakewood, and his uniting of the Milk Snakes, Painted Dogs, Sons of the Mist, and other smaller Clans, as well as any other crime that could be thought to be pinned to his name, from the murders of Lord Darnold and Ser Rymond, to the raiding of a great many villages, Timett the Tearless was taken alive back to the Eyrie, where he was brought to trial by Lord Denys Hunter in the name of Lord Gunthor Arryn.

And so, Timett the Tearless would meet with a particularly gruesome end. Timett's eyes were gouged first in rather an act of irony, followed by the removal of his tongue, nose, and ears. After such, Timett's hands and feet were chopped off and fed to the birds, and only then, was Timett the Tearless, a mighty Mountain Clansmen Chieftain renowned for his lack of tears and immense strength, thrown out the Moon Door, to his untimely death upon the stones below.

Additionally, in the aftermath of the Battle for the High Road and the execution of Timett the Tearless, Lord Denys Hunter named his second, Ser Edmund Hunter, Knight of the Bloody Gate, while also naming Ser Marq Waynwood, brother to Lord Mychel Waynwood, the new Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, in place of Ser Humfrey Hardyng, whom had perished Lord Darnold and Ser Rymond many moons earlier.