War in the Mountains

The War in the Mountains is an informal name for the longstanding conflict between the Mountain Clans of the Vale and the Andal-descended lords and ladies of the Vale proper. It has waged for centuries, mostly in the form of low-level raiding, though there have been times where the Mountain Clansmen tested the mettle of their rivals.

Origins
During the Andal Invasion of Westeros, Andals from  Essos conquered the Vale of Arryn from the First Men. Some First Men submitted to and intermarried with Andals in the aftermath of the Battle of Seven Stars, but others refused to kneel. The First Men who fled from the fertile Vale proper into the Mountains of the Moon are the ancestors of the modern clansmen.

Decline
Hard living in the mountains coupled with poor tools and little by way of technology saw the steady decline of the Mountain Clansmen. Faced with the difficulties of life on the periphery, they turned to raiding and waring against the more fertile lands of the Vale. This soon roused the ire of their neighbours, who in turn sought them and out brought fire and sword to their villages and strongholds. The attacks drove the clansmen deeper into the wilds, where life was all the more difficult and all the more desperate; to the point where by 300AC, they had not been a threat for centuries.

Resurgence
Many modern scholars attribute the recent resurgence of the Mountain Clans to Tyrion Lannister, who lived during the War of the Five Kings. His use of Clansmen auxiliary forces and his gifts of steel to many of their warriors enabled those men to return to the mountains in far better form than any of their rivals. Armed with their new knowledge and their new equipment, it was not long before they began to dominate other clans and delve deeper and deeper into Andal territory. Recovering farm tools and other supplies saw their population explode as well, which in later years would form the armies that began to threaten the Vale once again.

The Reign of Roland
Roland Arryn was well known for his attempts to make peace with the clansmen of the Vale, taking pity upon their plight and making grand efforts to integrate them with the modern realm. His attempts met the most success with the Redsmith clan and their leader, Joramun, nearly culminating in a marriage alliance between Lord Roland and Joramun's daughter Valla. Many knights and lords of the Vale were galvanized by this, and eventually joined the Lords Declarant led by Alaric Arryn. This would lead to the Crisis of the Crescent - which would see both Joramun and Roland Arryn slain.

The Reign of Alaric
Alaric Arryn was not so kind or forgiving as his predecessor, and began his troubled reign by executing Joramun Redsmith, his retainers, and all the chieftains and warriors that had accompanied him to the wedding. This provoked immediate outrage amongst the Clans, and war between the two parties of the Vale was begun again in earnest.

As years passed, rumours began to spread throughout the Vale that Valla of the Redsmiths had given birth to a son. Though no one could confirm either the birth or his identity, the mother claimed her child belonged to none other than Roland Arryn, thus giving him a claim to the Vale. Eventually tales of the youth began to quiet, and after the Battle of the Glade in 391AC, they all but disappeared. The crushing defeat of the clansmen saw them silenced, and for a time there was no more word from the mountains.

That changed in 407AC, when Ser Jonothor Wydman was captured and brought to the Eyrie for trial and execution. Before his death, Jonothor professed allegiance to an alleged King in the Mountains - a figure he claimed was soon to rid the Vale of Alaric Arryn. Alaric dismissed the threat, and encouraged his vassals and kin to do the same. On their march out of the Vale towards Harrenhal, men were spotted on the hillsides - but they were few in number, and soon vanished.

It was not until the return from Harrenhal that the clansmen revealed themselves in full. As Osric Arryn led many of the Eyrie’s nobles along the High Road, a large and organized band of clansmen descended upon them from the top of the hill. The ambush was hard fought, and the Vale proved victorious -- but it was not without cost.

The Reign of Osric
In mid-408AC, word arrived in the Eyrie from half a dozen villages describing brazen raids and assaults on settlements all along the border. The assailants were identified as clansmen, but far better armed and organized than most had ever seen - they did not waste time with wanton slaughter or arson, but seemed focused on the theft of tools, weapons, armour, and precious metals.

Similar attacks were soon reported near Ironoaks, Strongsong, Heart’s Home, and Longbow Hall, with all attempts to bring the perpetrators to battle failing. The raids were swift and organized, though to varying degrees of success, and it began to be whispered that they were only preparation for what was to come.

This would be proven true by dawn of the year 409, when all across the Vale attacks by clansmen increased tremendously. Heavy raids were reported all along the Mountains of the Moon, with many battles fought between clansmen and the knights of the Vale. The Skirmish of the Black Abyss, the Battle of Raven’s Ford, and Hardyng’s Harrowing were all famous conflicts that saw heroes and villains arise on both sides. As winter approached, the fighting began to ebb, and for a time it looked like there might be respite. But just after the first of the snows began to fall, a large band of wildlings descended into the lowlands of the Vale proper, sacking the town of Highbrood and taking it for their own. The advance of winter made ousting them all but impossible, the high passes of the Vale impassible by all save the bravest and most foolish.

Armed with the advice of his councillors and those men determined to not allow the Clansmen a foothold, Osric marched on Highbrood and liberated the down after a hard fought battle and siege. The rest of that winter was quiet and largely peaceful, though no less bitter thanks to the memories. With the slow return of summer a year later, the Vale waited with bated breath to see what would occur.

It took longer for the snows to melt in the high places of the Vale than the low, but by 414AC tentative raids were once more coming down from the Mountains. Frustrated, in 415AC Osric gave command to Alester Hersy, giving him five hundred knights and twice as many foot with the instruction to end the depredations of the clansmen. Their advance into the hills was successful at first, until they met horrific defeat in the Battle of Mirror Lake, where hundreds of Valemen were slain in the fighting and dozens disappeared into the mountains as captives or prisoners.

The constant grind of low-level chaos has worn many Valemen to the fine ends of their patience, and instilled strong feelings in a whole new generation who have known little but constant warfare with the clans. Some cooler heads still call for peace however, noting that the Clansmen only ever gave as good as they got. Their ferocity in battle and relentless, dogged spirits could only barely hope to match the superior training, equipment, and lifestyles of the men they warred against. It was not ambition that forced them to fight - it was desperation, and if that could be addressed it would prove a longer lasting peace than any battle could ever hope to give. Of course, such words are hard to preach to those who have lost brothers and uncles and fathers in the fighting, and sisters and mothers and daughters in the raids.

This division goes straight through the heart of the Vale, and through the heart of the Eyrie with it. Osric Arryn himself does not yet know which choice is best; especially with the rumours that whispered through the mountains. In recent years -- ever since the Battle of Mirror Lake -- murmurs of the fabled King in the Mountains have resurfaced. They whisper that the son of Roland Arryn is a man grown now, the very image of his father, and has come to wage war until his line is restored to the weirwood throne.

The war broke for a few years, until the year of 418 AC when a group of clansman came to the Gates of the Moon, requesting an audience with the Lord of the Vale himself, but were sent off with arrows. It was only a few moons later when the Clansman attacked a group of travellers en route to the Eyrie. Rousing the soldiers near to the Eyrie, Osric Arryn and his winged knights set off at a forced march, desperate to find and take down the mythical King in the Mountains. They tracked the army for several days, before coming to blows in the Battle of the Eastern Road, where after years of avoidance, Royce Redfeather and Osric Arryn met in combat. It was a trap however, with Osric Arryn and his winged knights barely managing to escape.

From here, the raids and assaults only increased, the Mountain Clans seemingly incensed by the close skirmish and Osric's refusal to meet. Osric Arryn spent most of his time on the road, chasing after ghosts and killing separate, small raiding parties. The Winged Knights were dispatched to the four corners of the Vale, each leading parties to fight the ongoing Mountain Clansmen. There were seasons of warfare, and seasons of peace, but each peacetime was tense with worry, Osric Arryn constantly aware of the unrest in his realm.

In 419 AC, the mountain clansmen made their most ambitious assault; besieging Newkeep itself, surrounding and killing baggage trains and routing smallfolk in the Assault on Newkeep. For days they kept the keep without food and drink, attempting to storm the castle in five separate attempts, each time only barely repulsed, in part by the castle's guards. After seven days, Gawain Templeton arrived with surrounding levies, but the clansmen had already faded into the mountains.

It was in 420 AC that the tide began to turn, and the Arryn's greatest tragedy. The battle of Shadow Gorge, lead by Selwyn Waxley, a devastating attack on the mountain clansmen leading to their rout. This battle, and the subsequent lull in activities, lead the Arryns to think the Mountain Clansmen had retreated to lick their wounds. Unfortunately, it was not the case.

Later in that year, the winged knight Tristan Templeton was escorting Arinna Arryn to the castle of Snakewood, but did not arrive on time. Backtracking his trail to a small village, Osric Arryn and Abelar Arryn found the village burned to the ground, and found Tristan Templeton's corpse, embedded with multiple stab wounds, clearly killed in battle. Arinna Arryn was nowhere to be seen. It was only days later, once survivors of Tristan Templetons band found their way to keeps, was the story of the Slaughter of Ronnel's Ford revealed.

If Osric had been dedicated before, now he became downright obsessed. He did not return to the Eyrie for months, spending hours of sleepless nights pouring through maps and studying mountain trails. In the small raids, Osric began capturing and interrogating clansmen, often resorting to torture for information on Royce Redfeather. Aegon Targaryeon, riding the dragon was called from the Three Sisters, and together they sought to end the threat of the mountain clansmen once and for all.

Aegon Targeyon only entered into combat once in 421 AC, at the site of a nameless battle near Strongsong, later referred to as Redfeather's Folly. Coming across a large band of Moon Brothers, they were burned en masse by the mighty dragon, flames running across the fields as the mountain clansmen struggled to retreat. It was to no avail.

From then on, the Mountain Clansmen's raids continued, but become even stealthier and more covert. The villages that were struck were razed and burned, no living smallfolk left. Early in the year of 422 AC, Osric Arryn once again received ambassadors from the Mountain Clansmen, but this time, Osric Arryn came to meet the envoys of the King in the Mountains. Going down with a small band of men and his winged knights, notable Alester Hersy and Yohn Stone, a winged knight who had replaced Tristan Templeton. Of what they discussed, no one alive knows, only that Osric retreated to the Gates of the Moon for several days, found in intense thought. When he emerged, he called all the Winged Knights, bringing forth a force from the Vale, and vowed he would return to the Eyrie only with the head of Royce Redfeather.

Striking forth into the Mountains of the Moon, the army was immediately beset by small raids, ambushes and strikes, damaging the morale and supplies of the meager force. For weeks they moved through the mountains, finding abandoned villages and huts of the Mountain Clansmen, but none to be seen. Fearing a trap, Osric bid Aegon and a group of valemen scout on ahead. A scout, panicked and desperate, reported that a large force of mountain clansmen were ahead, and instead of waiting for Aegon, Osric and his army surged forward.

The resulting battle, fought in the shadow of some nameless mountain, was later called the Battle of the Dales. It was vicious, thousands of Mountain Clansmen erupting from the foothills to meet the vale army. It was a brutal and bloody battle, with Osric only barely victorious when he broke through the Redfeather’s ranks and slaying the man with his own sword. Many of his winged knights died that day, slain by mountain clansmen, hastily buried in mountain cairns lest the clansmen came back. It was in that year that the Mountain Clan Rebellion ended, the clansmen disappearing into the shadow of the mountains of the moon with the death of their leader. The band that returned was substantially smaller, war-ravaged and sunken-eyed. Half of Osric Arryn’s winged knights died that day, slain by vicious clansmen. Osric, while victorious, returned exhausted and wear. That day, hundreds of Valemen died, including Alester Hersy, Yohn Stone, and Gawain Templeton.

Aftermath
Though the War in the Mountains ended in 422 AC, its impacts were still felt years later. Osric Arryn returned weary and bitter, a shadow hanging over him that would never truly leave him. The dissapearance of his daughter, the death of his closest friends and countrymen, and the ultimate slaying of his cousin left him irritable and sleepless.

While the War ended, many still whisper that the mountain clans have not been defeated, and are merely biding their time, that Royce Redfeather had sons, daughters, that Arinna Arryn was not killed but stolen, used for some nefarious purpose that no one civilized can speculate. The message that Redfeather sent with his envoys is still hotly debated, unfortunately for the maesters, Alester Hersy and Yohn Stone died shortly after, and Osric Arryn took the secret to his grave. For years hence, the name of the King in the Mountains still resulted in steely glares and hushed tones, as the men and women of the vale remembered those they had lost.

It was the final battle of the war that proved the most controversial; with many saying that Osric Arryn should have been more careful, that the cost was too great. Templeton lost a second son that day, and was only mollified by a wedding to the heir of the vale. Despite these misgivings, none can deny that apart from the occasional small sightings, the mountains of the moon have been silent. For how long they will remain so, none can say.