Battle of Mirror Lake

The Battle of the Mirror Lake was the most recent battle of the War in the Mountains, and was a terrible loss for the Valemen. The defeat kept the Andals from pressing further into the mountains, and began a wary peace that would hold for over a year.

Background
After the conclusion of winter the wildlings once more came down from the hills. As had become common their numbers were greater than they had been the year prior, and they proved a dire threat to the unprepared and the unwary who stumbled upon their warbands in the wild.

Osric Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, grew displeased with the constant grind of attrition, and so sent Alester Hersy, the Commander of the Winged Knights, along with some fifteen hundred men into the Mountains. There they were to push the clansmen back, scorching the low hills clear of their settlements and winning a reprieve for the valley.

Alester departed at once, and for a time met some success, ousting possible threats and diverting the raids from unprotected villages and holdfasts. But whilst in pursuit of a small band of clansmen, Alester Hersy and his soldiers stumbled upon a lake hidden in the forest.

Engagement
No sooner had they halted that shouts of surprise and cries of agony rang out through the trees, a ripple of fear washing through their ranks. Arrows seemed to materialize from thin air, striking armour and shields but just as often finding unguarded throats or chinks in mail and leathers. The Valemen bunched together, circling in as they searched the dimly lit trees for their foes.

Then a warhorn cut through the deadly hail, shaking the leaves on every branch.

The ambush was sprung in earnest, Clansmen bursting forth from every tree and rock as if conjured by the spirits of the wood. They came with sword and axe and club and lance, some boasting javelins dipped in tar and oil - these they lit, flinging them into the ranks of the Valemen and setting shields ablaze in the hands of their wielders. The Andal archers answered best as they could, felling raider after raider will well placed shots - and then the host was upon them, crashing into the line of steel like waves meeting a swift-crumbling shore.

The Vale line buckled and collapsed, despite the shouting of Alester Hersy, and at once the organized battle line turned into a brawl. The half-light made the scene like something from a nightmare, and soon true panic gripped the heart of every son of the Vale.

They fought desperately, but vainly, outnumbered more than three to one, and soon all cohesion was lost as men scattered in all directions. The fighting spread out across the forest floor, some even attempting to escape across the lake -- those who did not merely drown were felled by archers from behind.

As the Valemen crumbled, the warhorn sounded again, and from the trees came a cheer that dwarfed all the others. The clansmen roared and bellowed and banged upon their shields, as the Redfeather revealed himself at last.

He jogged towards the ruin of the Andal army, cloaked in scarlet and bearing a sword in his right hand. Around and behind him came his guard, each man taller than most by a full span, and cloaked in heavy iron armour that looked near castle-forged.

With that, the battle was lost. The sight of the legendary king broke the spirit of the Valemen, and even Alester fought to beat a hasty retreat. Accompanied by a handful of knights they fought their way through the Clansmen and into the trees -- running for their lives through the swiftly deepening dark, ignoring the sound of arrows striking trunks on either side of them. As for the foot, and those knights who could not escape -- they were abandoned, there upon the field. The slaughter of Mirror Lake was horrific, and long - and no man save those with the Hersy managed to survive.

Aftermath
The Battle of Mirror Lake was a horrific loss for the Vale, and shocked many who heard of it. Not only did it seem to confirm the existence of the mysterious Redfeather, but the utter defeat of one of the Vale's finest swords struck all with a certain sense of foreboding.

That the mountains remained quiet after the loss was a blessed relief; the raids died down, and stayed low for more than a year. But though no Clansmen came to loot and burn in the lowlands of the Mountains, those who walked the hidden paths of the high hills often reported on macabre scenes at particular crossroads and pathways. For months after the battle, the Redsmiths would mount the heads of the slain upon spears and leave them to rot where they might be found -- but when two months had passed, and more heads were yet being found, many realized that they must have taken several hundred prisoners.

By 417AC the finding of corpses had died down, with only Alester Hersy's handful being accounted as verified survivors. Many whispered about the Commander's conduct, wondering why it was that he should live whilst his men had been slain. The rumours have turned him bitter, and soured whatever legacy the aged swordsman might have hoped to leave in his final days.