TWOIAF/Fire & Blood: The Beginning of the Dornish War
Aegon Targaryen has one more item to mark off his conquering checklist: Dorne.
Aegon tries a soft approach for nearly a year: he sent septons, maesters, and high lords to treat with Princess Meria Martell. She wasn’t interested. In 4 AC, the first Dornish War begun.
Rhaenys descended unto Planky Town and set the floating town ablaze. Meanwhile, Orys Baratheon led a thousand knights up the Boneway while Aegon marched through the Prince’s Pass with an army of 30,000. Lord Harlan Tyrell, Warden of the South, accompanied Aegon’s Army.
No word on Visenya – she must have stayed behind to govern the realm. Personally, I would have switched Rhaenys for Visenya. No offense to Rhaenys – she’s a skilled dragonrider and participated in the Field of Fire and the Last Storm, so she has the Targaryen ruthlessness in her but her strengths seemed to be in the diplomatic/”soft power” areas and Visenya is the more vicious, highly skilled warrior. Was this personal for Rhaenys? Did she feel she failed in her initial visit to Dorne while her siblings/spouses succeeded in their visits to Westeros? Was this return to Dorne a chance to redeem herself?
Aegon’s armies marched into Dorne and found the watchtowers deserted, the fields burned, the livestock destroyed, and the wells poisoned. His forces were running short of food well before they reached the Dornish sands.
The Dornish are vicious – even to themselves. They are destroying their own lands to repel invaders but it’s at a great cost to themselves – Dorne isn’t known for its vast resources.
Thus begins a pattern of invade-retreat-guerrilla warfare-war crimes that would last for the next nine years!
A few highlights (lowlights?) of round one (4 AC to 6 AC) of the near-decade long war:
· Lord Tyrell lost a quarter of his men and almost all his horses to the Dornish sands
· Orys Baratheon’s forces were wiped out except for a dozen lords and himself – they became captives of the “Widow-lover” Wyl of Wyl
· Rhaenys took Lemonwood, Spottswood, and Stinkwater but only found old women and children
· Aegon took Skyreach, Yronwood, and the Tor; he also engaged in a one on one duel with the Champion of Ghost Hill only to discover it was Lord Toland’s fool
· Aegon and Rhaenys descended on Sunspear only to discover no one was home – Aegon declared victory by default.
· Aegon offered rewards for the heads of the missing Dornish lords and ladies; he also named castellans and stewards for the newly won Dornish castles – the most important nomination being the naming of Lord Rosby as the Castellan of Sunspear and Warden of the Sands
· Aegon then gave the “good job, team. Let’s go home” speech and he and his forces returned to King’s Landing
· The missing Dornish returned with a vengeance as soon as the Targaryen forces left Dorne
· The Dornish recaptured their castle within a fortnight and slaughtered the royal garrisons.
· Stewards and castellans were “allowed to die only after a long torment. It was said that the Dornish lords had a wager over who could keep their captives alive the longest while dismembering them.”
· Lord Rosby was dragged to the top of the Spear Tower and then thrown from a window by Princess Meria Martell.
· King Aegon had left Lord Tyrell and his forces to hold Hellholt and he had to deal with constant attacks from House Qorgyle of Sandstone and House Vaith of Vaith.
· Lord Tyrell gathered his forces to march on Sunspear once he learned of Lord Rosby’s defenestration of Sunpear. Somewhere east of Hellholt, Lord Tyrell and his entire army disappeared.
Aegon had his brother/best friend/Hand of the King taken hostage, his Warden of the South killed, a lord of the Crownlands executed, and lost thousands of men in the attack. Meria had multiple towns burned and lost hundreds/thousands of Dornish lives. Do Aegon and Meria attempt to make a compromise? No! The degenerate into “an endless bloody series of atrocities, raids, and retaliations, broken up by long periods of inactivity, a dozen short truces, and numerous murders and assassinations.
More year-by-year lowlights:
· Orys Baratheon and the other captive lords were returned after being ransomed for their weight in gold. The Widow-lover lopped off each man’s sword hand before releasing his hostages. King Aegon retaliated by unleashing Balerion on the mountain fortresses of the Wyls. I wonder if Argella Durandon missed her husband while he was held captive or if it was more of a case “hope he’s dead”?
· Dornish raiders attack towns and villages along the south shore of Cape Wrath, and set fires through half the rainwood.
· Visenya Targaryen burns Lemonwood, Ghost Hill, and the Tor.
· Visenya and Aegon return to Dorne and burn Sandstone, Vaith, and the Hellholt.
· Lord Fowler of Dorne leads and army through the Prince’s Pass and into the Reach, capturing Nightsong and burning a dozen villages. Lord ManfredHightower sent his son Addam with a strong force to retake Nightsong,
· A second Dornish army under Ser Joffrey Dayne attacked Oldtown. The Dornish were unable to take Oldtown but burned fields, farms, and villages for twenty leagues around the city. Joffrey Dayne kills Garmon Hightower, Lord Hightower’s younger son.
· Ser Addam Hightower reached Nightsong only to discover that Lord Fowler had torched the castle and executed the garrison. Lord Caron, his wife, and children were taken back to Dorne as captives.
· Addam returned to Oldtown to relieve the city but the Dornish had retreated to Dorne.
· Lord Manfred Hightower dies and Addam succeeds him as the Lord of Oldtown.
· Aegon approaches Theo Tyrell over a 2nd Dornish invasion but he is hesitant considering the fate of his father in the previous war.
· The three Targaryens unleash their dragons on Dorne: Aegon attacked Skyreach “vowing to make the Fowler seat a second Harrenhal”, Visenya brought fire and blood to Starfall, and Rhaenys returned to Hellholt only for Meraxes to be shot down by a scorpion bolt. Rhaneys and Meraxes die on impact. The three Targaryens unleashed their dragons on Dorne: Aegon attacked Skyreach “vowing to make the Fowler seat a second Harrenhal”, Visenya brought fire and blood to Starfall, and Rhaenys returned to Hellholt only for Meraxes to be shot down by a scorpion bolt.
· Meraxes died shortly after impact but no one knows the exact time of Rhaeny’s death: “Some say she lost her seat and fell to her death, others that she was crushed beneath Meraxes in the castle yard. A few accounts claim the queen survived her dragon’s fall, only to die a slow death by torment in the dungeons of the Ullers.” I hope for Rhaenys’s sake that she died upon/shortly after attack because life under Dornish captors would make life under Ramsay Bolton look pleasant.
Three more years into this stupid war and what has Aegon or Meria gained? Nothing beneficial! More destruction of towns and farms on both sides. The Caron family has been taken captive/killed, and the Hightowers lost a father and a son. On a personal level, Aegon and Visenya lost their sister-wife and had a brother mutilated. Aenys lost his mother at three-years old! All this violence and bloodshed because of two vindictive egos!
Up next, the Dragon’s Wroth, the atrocities continue, and a tenuous cease-fire.
