"Uncle Oberyn!" Arianne gasped in shock.
"Let him go, Cersei, you madwoman!" Obara Sand roared in fury.
Quentyn's expression darkened as he raised his hand, signaling his forces to halt their advance.
A fierce verbal battle erupted across the battlefield.
Arianne and Quentyn demanded that Cersei release the hostages immediately. Cersei, however, raged, cursing Dorne for their treachery, accusing them of selling her daughter Myrcella to the Easterner.
Arianne retorted angrily, declaring it a false accusation—Dorne had never done such a thing.
"Lies! You lying Targaryen lackeys!" Cersei screamed, her voice filled with hysteria. "You'll soon be burying those two!"
The presence of Oberyn and Ellaria made Quentyn and Arianne hesitate. Despite the urgency of Young Aegon's messenger, Arianne and Quentyn steadfastly refused to order the assault on the city.
...
Beneath Rosby Castle, within Young Aegon's tent.
Young Aegon slammed his fist onto the table, seething with anger.
"My queen dares to refuse me?" he sneered, his voice cold. "How laughable."
Harry Strickland, the commander of the Golden Company, grimly reminded him, "Your Grace, do not place too much trust in the Dornish. They care more for their own prince than your Iron Throne."
At that moment, the standoff reached a critical point.
At Rosby Castle, Kevan Lannister did not stand idly by while Duskendale was under siege. He quickly seized the opportunity presented by the Dornish hesitation over Oberyn and, leading Rosby's thirty thousand garrison troops, launched a sudden breakout under the cover of night. His goal was to break through the besieging forces and rush to Duskendale's aid.
Young Aegon and Jon Connington hurriedly redeployed troops to intercept, only to be ambushed by Jaime Lannister's elite forces, who had been lying in wait in the hills northeast of Rosby.
Using the terrain to their advantage, the Lannister forces launched a fierce assault, inflicting heavy losses on Young Aegon's vanguard.
Despite the setback, Young Aegon's allied forces still held overwhelming numerical superiority.
After the initial chaos, Jon Connington regained control and ordered a counterattack.
Though Jaime's forces fought valiantly, they were vastly outnumbered. They continued to retreat, attempting to delay the inevitable.
Young Aegon sent a portion of Harry Strickland's Golden Company to chase after Jaime, keeping him occupied, while he personally led the main force in a fierce pursuit of Kevan.
Kevan, ignoring all else, charged recklessly toward Duskendale.
The Norvos slave soldiers besieging the town fought with fierce, almost suicidal determination, but their lack of coordinated command allowed Kevan's elite Westerlands cavalry to successfully break through their lines.
After a brutal battle, Kevan finally led over twenty thousand soldiers into Duskendale. However, he was wounded in the chaos, struck by an arrow in the shoulder.
When Young Aegon arrived at the gates of Duskendale with his main force, he found a fortified castle and the hesitant Dornish-Norvos alliance army below.
Furious, he stormed into Quentyn Martell's tent.
"Why haven't we stormed the city?!"
Young Aegon's voice was sharp with anger, almost drawing Blackfyre from its scabbard: "You've squandered the perfect moment and let Kevan slip inside the walls!"
Quentyn Martell stood firm, placing himself between Arianne and Young Aegon with a cold glare: "My uncle is inside the city. A direct assault would kill him!"
"He was captured fighting for your kingship!" Arianne added, her tone dripping with displeasure as she shot Young Aegon a look.
"You!"
Young Aegon's face went white with fury, his sword aimed directly at Quentyn. "If you're too cowardly to storm the castle, then crawl back to Norvos! My cause needs no cowards!"
The argument grew even more heated.
In the end, the hot-headed Young Aegon overruled the Dornish opposition and ordered the assault to begin.
Yet, as the allied forces began constructing siege engines and preparing for battle, Cersei's madness surpassed all expectations once again.
Seeing the army outside the walls begin to stir, Cersei knew her last threat had lost its power.
Blinded by hatred and madness, she seized the opportunity.
While Kevan lay bedridden, she issued a brutal order. On the gate towers of Duskendale, in full view of Young Aegon and the entire army, she had Prince Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand bound to stakes, drenched in oil, and burned alive.
The towering flames were the final blow to the Dornish people's resolve.
Quentyn and Arianne watched, powerless, as their beloved uncle and Ellaria were consumed by fire. Their hearts shattered, grief and rage overwhelming them in an instant.
"Uncle Oberyn!!" Arianne cried out, her voice raw with anguish.
"Cersei!!! Lannister!!!" Quentyn roared, drawing his longsword and charging toward the walls, only to be held back by his men.
The siege began amid this fury and despair.
Unlike the sluggish Dothraki and the steady Norvos slave soldiers, the Dornishmen, driven mad with grief, charged the walls with eyes bloodshot from rage.
Arrows rained down like a torrential storm. Siege ladders were repeatedly raised, only to be knocked down again.
Boiling oil, boulders, and flaming torches fell from the ramparts, claiming countless lives.
Under Ser Adam Marbrand's brilliant command, the garrison of Duskendale put up fierce resistance.
Lannister soldiers, understanding the battle's life-or-death stakes, fought with extraordinary ferocity.
The battle raged for an entire day, with bodies piling beneath the walls and rivers of blood flowing, yet the city stood unyielding.
Young Aegon's forces, especially the Dothraki horsemen, were ill-prepared for siege warfare, suffering severe losses.
Reluctantly, Young Aegon followed Jon Connington's advice, halting the direct assault and shifting to a long-term siege, hoping to starve the defenders into surrender.
...
Meanwhile, far to the north, in a hidden valley near White Harbor.
Ser Marlon Manderly sat exhausted on the ground, surveying the sparse, mostly wounded soldiers around him—fewer than five thousand in total.
These were the remnants of his army after the crushing defeat beneath Winterfell's walls.
White Harbor lay in ruins, its fate uncertain. Lord Wyman was missing, presumably captured by the Boltons.
But the loss that cut deepest was the cold, lifeless body lying nearby—Jon Snow.
This symbol of the North's hope, Rhaegar's son, had been murdered by the Boltons' treachery, his body pierced with arrows, his eyes forever wide in death.
Ser Marlon replayed the events over and over in his mind. If only he had acted more decisively, if only he could have stopped Jon...
But it was too late.
With Jon's death, the North's cause seemed to die with him.
Just as despair threatened to consume him, the sentries at the valley's entrance sounded the alarm.
Ser Marlon leapt to his feet, drawing his sword and shouting, "Stand ready! Prepare for battle!"
The remaining soldiers scrambled to grab their weapons, hastily forming a crude defensive line, eyes nervously watching the entrance.
A group was approaching.
There were only a few dozen of them, and they didn't appear to be Bolton pursuers.
The leader rode a gaunt horse, wearing a gray robe.
When the hood fell back, it revealed a woman's face, scarred with deep gashes, her eyes emotionless.
Beside her was a tall, bald man dressed in loose crimson robes. His face wore a faint, almost mocking smile, and he carried a flaming longsword.
Ser Marlon's heart skipped a beat. Who were these people?
He stared at the woman's terrifying face, feeling a sense of recognition, but could not place it.
"Stop! Identify yourselves!" Ser Marlon shouted, gripping his sword tightly.
...
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