Along the southwestern coast of Dorne, where the river Torentine meets the sea, a small village had sprung up. Really, it was just a few hovels where subsistence farmers eked out a living on a small strip of arable land along the river. That was until iron and gold were discovered in the mountains nearby. That's when it became the town of Sand Hall, and it gained the attention of the house of Dayne from Starfall. Lord Mors Morningstar of the Morningstar house was installed as leader of the roughly 10,000 residents. The place was a going concern when the first Zonian troops landed there in Westeros.
The Zonian battle group: three stuffed troop ships and three assault ships had been sent far south, far enough to evade detection. They had come across two trade ships, which they plundered and sank, but no military ship caught them before they landed. They made landfall in the dark of night, and nearly 3500 troops besieged the small town out of nowhere. Lord Mors was awakened when the ships landed, and he sent two men north on sand horses to alert the Dayne house. He gathered his men and treasure, and they all left for the mines. All told, he had about 50 troops. The new mines had a stockade wall around them, and there were several thousand hard-headed miners on site. He intended to use it as a base of operations to hold out until help could arrive.
The Zonian invasion met no resistance; the people of the town went about their business like nothing had happened. They looked at the Zon like they were from the moon when forced to deal with them. The Sand Hall folk spoke no Zon, and the Zonians spoke no Westeros. The Zon commandeered the lord's place and a warehouse to hold their troops. A couple of Zonians' throats were slit when they tried to take food from the locals, and a confrontation escalated. The Dornish town folk were not much at direct confrontation, but they were perfectly happy to backstab this new enemy at every chance.
The Zonian captain in charge of the force sent 20 men to check out the miners' camp, but they never came back. So he took his two mages and 200 men to see what was up. When they got to the camp, the gates were shut, and many archers were on the walls. Before they could get within spell range, arrows fell about them, killing a few. As he was calling his men back out of archer range, a barrage of arrows came in from both sides. Both his mages fell from hidden archers that had secreted themselves in the sand. As the captain turned his men to face the attackers on the sides, the gates opened, and 2000 poorly armed miners charged at them. All 200 Zonian troops and their captain were killed.
Captain Springer turned the Sovereign towards the oncoming troop ships as they came out of the gloom. The Black Hand had been broadsided, and he wasn't about to let that happen to them. They passed between two troop ships, and their guns opened up on both at point-blank range. Archers on deck were slaying Zonian troops on the two wounded ships, and those in the water already. Suddenly, an assault ship grappled with the Sovereign, and it was down to hand-to-hand fighting. The Zonian assault ship had swerved to come alongside the Sovereign, and another troop ship came out of the smoke and crashed into its stern. One poor Zonian missed his jump across to the Sovereign and was hanging on the outside of the railing when the gun in front of him blew him into pieces as the shot hit the assault ship at its water line. "Cut the boarding lines!" Arya shouted. And the last few boarders were dispatched as the Sovereign moved out, blasting the other troop ship as it went by. Clearing the backs of the troop ships as they turned and unloaded fire arrow barrages into the sterns of the enemy ships they passed. In the smoke and destruction, the Brandon's Rest fleet slipped away, leaving shattered hulks of wrecks and men drowning in the water.
Syrio on the Portsmith and the two other Braavos captains had been on the shore side of the weave when the runaway began. They moved out at such speed that they were not engaged by any enemy ships. But as they went north, they discovered several enemy troop ships were nearing shore. They rained destruction on them with fire arrows and gunfire, sinking many. Those ships were close enough to the shore to allow some of the enemy troops to make it to shore alive.
Of the twenty Brandon's Rest ships, only one was sunk, the Eärrámë. It was rammed into pieces by an oncoming troop ship and went down guns blazing, taking the enemy ship down with it. Many of the crew were lucky enough to swim to shore and lived to fight again later.
Up and down the Sunset Sea, 400 enemy ships went down in this rush to land, but at least 5000 Zonian troops made it to the North's shore. Twenty Westeros ships had been sunk or badly damaged. And there were still Zonian ships that hadn't entered the rush. The land battles were just beginning, and it was going to be nip and tuck as to the outcome. Tyrion ticked off more fingers saying, "1000 ships down and 500 to go, and now it gets tough."