“Our death,” answered Ser Criston Cole, for these foes were fresh, better fed, better horsed, better armed, and they held the high ground, whilst his own men were stumbling, sick, and dispirited.

Calling for a peace banner, King Aegon’s Hand rode out to treat with them. Three came down from the ridge to meet him. Chief amongst them was Ser Garibald Grey in his dented plate and mail. Pate of Longleaf was with him, the Lionslayer who had cut down Jason Lannister, together with Roddy the Ruin, bearing the scars he had taken at the Fishfeed. “If I strike my banners, do you promise us our lives?” Ser Criston asked the three of them.

“I made my promise to the dead,” Ser Garibald replied. “I told them I would build a sept for them out of traitors’ bones. I don’t have near enough bones yet, so…”

Ser Criston answered, “If there is to be battle here, many of your own will die as well.” The northman Roderick Dustin laughed at these words, saying, “That’s why we come. Winter’s here. Time for us to go. No better way to die than sword in hand.”

Ser Criston drew his longsword from its scabbard. “As you will it. We can begin here, the four of us. One of me against the three of you. Will that be enough to make a fight of it?”

But Longleaf the Lionslayer said, “I’ll want three more,” and up on the ridge Red Robb Rivers and two of his archers raised their longbows. Three arrows flew across the field, striking Cole in belly, neck, and breast. “I’ll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker,” declared Longleaf. “There’s tens o’ thousands dead on your account.” He was speaking to a corpse.

The battle that followed was as one-sided as any in the Dance. Lord Roderick raised a warhorn to his lips and sounded the charge, and the queen’s men came screaming down the ridge, led by the Winter Wolves on their shaggy northern horses and the knights on their armored destriers. With Ser Criston dead upon the ground, the men who had followed him from Harrenhal lost heart. They broke and fled, casting aside their shields as they ran. Their foes came after, cutting them down by the hundreds. Afterward Ser Garibald was heard to say, “Today was butchery, not battle.” Mushroom, upon hearing a report of his words, dubbed the fight the Butcher’s Ball, and so it has been known ever since.

It was about this same time that one of the more curious incidents of the Dance of the Dragons occurred. Legend has it that during the Age of Heroes, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield slew the dragon Urrax by crouching behind a shield so polished that the beast saw only his own reflection. By this ruse, the hero crept close enough to drive a spear through the dragon’s eye, earning the name by which we know him still. That Ser Byron Swann, second son of the Lord of Stonehelm, had heard this tale we cannot doubt. Armed with a spear and a shield of silvered steel and accompanied only by his squire, he set out to slay a dragon just as Serwyn did.

But here confusion arises, for Munkun says it was Vhagar that Swann meant to kill, to put an end to Prince Aemond’s raids…but it must be remembered that Munkun draws largely on Grand Maester Orwyle for his version of events, and Orwyle was in the dungeons when these things occurred. Mushroom, at the queen’s side in the Red Keep, says rather that it was Rhaenyra’s Syrax that Ser Byron approached. Septon Eustace does not note the incident at all in his own chronicle, but years later, in a letter, suggests this dragonslayer hoped to kill Sunfyre…but this is certainly mistaken, since Sunfyre’s whereabouts were unknown at this time. All three accounts agree that the ploy that won undying fame for Serwyn of the Mirror Shield brought only death for Ser Byron Swann. The dragon—whichever one it was—stirred at the knight’s approach and unleashed his fire, melting the mirrored shield and roasting the man crouched behind it. Ser Byron died screaming.

On Maiden’s Day in the year 130 AC, the Citadel of Oldtown sent forth three hundred white ravens to herald the coming of winter, but Mushroom and Septon Eustace agree that this was high summer for Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. Despite the disaffection of the Kingslanders, the city and crown were hers. Across the narrow sea, the Triarchy had begun to tear itself to pieces. The waves belonged to House Velaryon. Though snows had closed the passes through the Mountains of the Moon, the Maiden of the Vale had proven true to her word, sending men by sea to join the queen’s hosts. Other fleets brought warriors from White Harbor, led by Lord Manderly’s own sons, Medrick and Torrhen. On every hand Queen Rhaenyra’s power swelled whilst King Aegon’s dwindled.

Yet no war can be counted as won whilst foes remain unconquered. The Kingmaker, Ser Criston Cole, had been brought down, but somewhere in the realm Aegon II, the king he had made, remained alive and free. Aegon’s daughter, Jaehaera, was likewise at large. Larys Strong the Clubfoot, the most enigmatic and cunning member of the green council, had vanished. Storm’s End was still held by Lord Borros Baratheon, no friend of the queen. The Lannisters had to be counted amongst Rhaenyra’s enemies as well, though with Lord Jason dead, the greater part of the chivalry of the west slain or scattered at the Fishfeed, and the Red Kraken harrying Fair Isle and the west shore, Casterly Rock was in considerable disarray.

Prince Aemond had become the terror of the Trident, descending from the sky to rain fire and death upon the riverlands, then vanishing, only to strike again the next day fifty leagues away. Vhagar’s flames reduced Old Willow and White Willow to ash, and Hogg Hall to blackened stone. At Merrydown Dell, thirty men and three hundred sheep died by dragonflame. The Kinslayer then returned unexpectedly to Harrenhal, where he burned every wooden structure in the castle. Six knights and twoscore men-at-arms perished trying to slay his dragon, whilst Lady Sabitha Frey only saved herself from the flames by hiding in a privy. She fled back to the Twins soon after…but her prize captive, the witch woman Alys Rivers, escaped with Prince Aemond. As word of these attacks spread, other lords looked skyward in fear, wondering who might be next. Lord Mooton of Maidenpool, Lady Darklyn of Duskendale, and Lord Blackwood of Raventree sent urgent messages to the queen, begging her to send them dragons to defend their holdings.

Yet the greatest threat to Rhaenyra’s reign was not Aemond One-Eye, but his younger brother, Prince Daeron the Daring, and the great southron army led by Lord Ormund Hightower.

Hightower’s host had crossed the Mander and was advancing slowly on King’s Landing, smashing the queen’s loyalists wherever and whenever they encountered them, and forcing every lord who bent the knee to add their strength to his own. Flying Tessarion ahead of the main column, Prince Daeron had proved invaluable as a scout, warning Lord Ormund of enemy movements. Oft as not, the queen’s men would melt away at the first glimpse of the Blue Queen’s wings. Grand Maester Munkun tells us that the southron host numbered more than twenty thousand as it crept upriver, almost a tenth of them mounted knights.

Cognizant of all these threats, Queen Rhaenyra’s Hand, old Lord Corlys Velaryon, suggested to Her Grace that the time had come to talk. He urged the queen to offer pardons to Lords Baratheon, Hightower, and Lannister if they would bend their knees, swear fealty, and offer hostages to the Iron Throne. The Sea Snake proposed to let the Faith take charge of Dowager Queen Alicent and Queen Helaena, so that they might spend the remainder of their lives in prayer and contemplation. Helaena’s daughter, Jaehaera, could be made his own ward, and in due time be married to Prince Aegon the Younger, binding the two halves of House Targaryen together once again. “And what of my half-brothers?” Rhaenyra demanded, when the Sea Snake put this plan before her. “What of this false king Aegon, and the kinslayer Aemond? Would you have me pardon them as well, they who stole my throne and slew my sons?”

“Spare them, and send them to the Wall,” Lord Corlys answered. “Let them take the black and live out their lives as men of the Night’s Watch, bound by sacred vows.”

“What are vows to oathbreakers?” Queen Rhaenyra demanded. “Their vows did not trouble them when they took my throne.”