Sakura Ridge

After being humiliated by Duke Lukins, Henned walked off the duke's payroll with five thousand Northern Corps soldiers and seized the Sakura Ridge manor as a defensive perch — the move that opened the second northern campaign.

Sakura Ridge (Cherry Ridge in some chapters) is a scenic mountain range at the foot of a hill by the water; on it stands a manor castle (the Blossoming Sakura estate) with the neighbouring town of Evensen serving as its source of food and supply. The castle was built by the third Grand Duke of the Northern Lands, a lover of cherry blossom, as a country retreat.

The ridge lies right at the border of Grand Duke Lukins's holding in the southern Northern Lands, adjoining the ancestral lands of Baron Shahin.

Sakura Ridge was originally part of Henned's (Shahin's) barony, but three earlier Grand Dukes of the Northern Lands, captivated by the beauty of the place, forcibly seized half the family's lands and made the house a vassal of the duke.

Humiliated by Grand Duke Lukins (who confiscated the property of the fallen Knight Chevany and meant to punish the freed Henned), Knight Henned, leaning on the Silver Knights Lorist had released, led off the Northern Corps soldiers, seized the Sakura Ridge castle, and shut himself up in defence, in effect reclaiming his ancestral lands. So the second northern campaign opened.

When Lorist runs the 'Southern Disaster' through Lukins's holdings, he meets Henned at the castle and strikes a tacit deal: Henned plays out a 'heroic battle' (his horse stumbles, the knight is 'wounded', he retreats into the castle), while in truth his men in Norton armour join the plunder. By agreement the families of Henned's soldiers are gathered at the Sakura Ridge castle, and under the name Baron Shahin he joins the Norton bloc (ch 163–164).

Henned's 'heroic resistance' at Sakura Ridge entered the court war chronicle as a glorious battle — the horse really did stumble and injure its rider, which made the show convincing.