Battle by Duskendale

Combatants| * House Verdant
* House Sunfyre
* House Sindarys
* House Youngflower
* House Hebron
* House Henning

Commanders| * Ser Tion Raine
* Ser Aegor Rivers
* Lord Aerion Sindarys
* Ser Tristifer Pyke
* Andrew Hebron
* William Henning

Forces| The Greens* 500 Verdant forces
* 1000 Sunfyre forces
* 1000 Sindarys troops
* 50 Youngflower forces
* 200 Hebron troops
* 100 Henning forces

## Prelude

> *Daemon: Ethan has proven himself a hot-blooded lord, draw him into a decisive loss and the war will end before we catch the eye of the more soft hearted.*
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> *Tion: I know where he'll land, ill be there to greet him soon enough.*
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The second clash between House Verdant and House Lash began shortly after the Feast at Wolfhaven. Ethan was wary of this war knowing how badly the last one ended, costing him two loved ones and much power and influence, plus he had his new liege lords reputation to worry about as he was a lord of the Stepstones now after being kicked out of his home by Taren Lash and swearing fealty to Haywin Darkspear, who had claimed neutrality on the matter. His vassals mostly followed suit, the Wardens, the Ryndhills, the Maloris, the Lightingfyre's and every other landed house under the Stepstones were staying out, only two houses participated, the Youngflowers who backed there fellow Stepstone lords, albeit mostly indirectly, Daniel sent his bastard brother Tristifer Pyke to assist Ethan while the Whents would work against him, though mostly because there family in the Starkwoods would back the Verdants again. Like last time the Redwaters were eager to assist the Lashes but Jory Redwater was more cautious of the damages, the war added to the Realms debt and put too many civilians at risk each time so he was instead a vocal opponent of such an attack but he levied most of his criticism of the war on the Verdants hoping to pressure them into trying to end things soon and providing the Hennings the coin to assist them. Daemon was aware of the risk but pushed onward anyway since he knew the pressure was also on Ethan and taking examples of Ethan's actions in the last war and in Dorne where he nearly got the princess killed he felt that the man was a great soldier but a poor tactician. Thus he assumed that he could beat the man easy and sent Tion to try and crush Ethan at Duskendale where his spies reported he would be landing.

Because of his castle's new position and to not burden his fellow lords Ethan didnt want to wait and hold out at Wolfhaven, instead leaving out to land and start a campaign towards Castamere to force a surrender, meanwhile his allies that had ships would sail around and try to take Castamere from behind to close in on the castle. But first he had to successfully make it on land and Tion was determined to put that down.

## Battle

> *Andrew: We cant let the enemy overwhelm us here, Lord Lash only has one chance to do this and if it fails the war is over before it starts*
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> *Tristifer: Were not going to fold at the first sign of trouble. Tell your men to ready yourself.*
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As Ethan landed by Duskendale where he was met by House Hebron they began setting up camp hoping to start moving by the next day since the sun was setting soon. Tion however didnt want them moving at all and quickly set about marching and attacking the castle before they had a chance to get going, backed by the Sunfyres and one of there vassals he tried to overwhelm the defenses early on. Andrew Hebron attempted to hold them off but he was quickly overpowered by the number of defenders before Ser Tristifer's men and there vanguard started to assist him giving him time to be relieved by the Lash reinforcements. Tion quickly adjusted and had his archers under Ser Aegor start to rain down on the enemy but they were quickly stopped from getting further when the Lash archers fired back, the war reached a stalemate before Ethan tried to slowly start advancing his men forward to push the Green line back, he then lead and defeated the green's calvary forces before trying to close in on the enemy's exposed flank.

Aegor saw this and tried to adjust to the situation turning his men around to cover them but this slowly started to prove difficult once Andrew rejoined the fray itself, and matters were made worse when William Henning who had been still marching up arrived with 100 men, though not a huge amount, them catching the Verdants and eluding the Verdant spies allowed them to surprise the enemy and hit them where they had little defense. Tion realized the situation he was in and tried to slowly organize a retreat his men maintaining there position so as not to be slaughtered by the offensive enemy before they got far enough to full on retreat.

## Aftermath

> *William: More will die if you push forward, though I will assist anyway I can, you should know what happens next.*
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> *Ethan: The truth hasn't eluded me but the Lodge cant be left alone if I have any means of winning this war against Daemon, to avoid my men being crushed by a sneak attack from our rear, our objective cant change.*
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Daemon would awake to poor news the day after, though neither side suffered heavy casualties the loss was clearly theres, this hurt on many levels, extending the war was the most obvious but it also gave Ethan momentum. Ethan Lash for all his supposed skills lacked any significant military victories under his own leadership, and now Tion's failure was one Ethan could attribute to himself rather then being under the command of his more experienced father or the King's, which helped some more on the fence lords decide to back Ethan and earned him the support of other houses that soon called to his aide, no longer reluctant by his supposed lack of experience as a general. Now with more backing and confidence Ethan's next objective was clear, he intended to take the Lodge.

The area had thrown there support towards the richer house and was a place where many soldiers of various origins came to find work and feast, currently they housed many of the Greens and there allies, thus while the place likely did have neutral fighters Ethan couldnt afford to slow down and give them time to hold up for the sake of innocents or his house would suffer and he started his march for the lands immediately. Tion's host retreated here as well correctly assuming Ethan would go for it next and hoping to keep it well defended but he was later convinced he was better off falling back to Castamere and thus he would begin the slow trek back hoping his allies could weather the Lash offense.