The Battle for Bloodstone

[Westeros]

The war to free the Stepstones of the oppressive control of the Free City of Pentos continued after the parley proved a failure. Oakenfist withdrew his fleet to Gray Gallows in a movement that surely surprised the Pentoshi… but it was merely a stratagem, a way to quietly divide the fleet into three parts that would assault different parts of the isle of Bloodstone. With the help of natives to the Stepstones, Oakenfist determined three locations that would be the likeliest place where men could be landed… and though some of them might be well-defended, it was hoped at least one would prove less resistant. As some of the war galleys acted to screen the landing fleets, to mislead the Pentoshi fleet and the sellswords they hired to defend their interests, landings took place. The largest landing proved the most contested, as sellsword companies hired by Pentos provided stern resistance. However, the siege engines on the larger war galleys proved useful in creating chaos and havoc among the sellswords, driving their lines back out of their reach… and thus giving the Dornish spears room to establish a toe hold before skirmishing led way to an open battle. The sellswords ultimately withdrew to more secure ground after inflicting and receiving loses alike. The second landing was a different affair entire, as the fishing village chosen as the landing site provided a surprise when the villagers took up arms against the Pentoshi garrison and helped a landing force led by the Stormbreaker, Sarmion Baratheon, in driving away garrison that Pentos had left there.

The third landing was uncontested entirely, not least because of the daring decision to make it a night landing. Risking the shoals and reefs with the help of a Stepstones pilot who knew the waters well, three hundred Dornishmen were landed under the cover of darkness and were able to seize a hilltop watchtower before the garrison was aware of their presence. From here they were able to move quickly to drive away smaller bands of Pentoshi soldiers, preparing an area to serve as a core of the attack on the rest of Bloodstone. Yet when, two days after, a portion of the force moved to join one of the larger hosts, it found itself caught quite suddenly in a pincer movement: a host of sellswords on one end of a ravine throguh which they travelled… and hundreds of Unsullied, otherwise unseen on Bloodstone, at the other. What followed was a debacle as half a hundred men were cut down, the rest captured. And this was not the last time the Unsullied would make their presence felt.

In the following days since the landing, the skirmishing has been intensive, largely going the way of the allied forces… but on three notable occasions, more setbacks were met, and each and every one of those fracases featured the intervention of the Unsullied slave-soldiers brought from distant Astapor to fight on the behalf of the magisters of Pentos. The question of how to deal with such indefatigable foes, disciplined and seemingly without fear, looms large in the mind of the commanders of the allied forces.

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