Battle of the Kingsroad

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Battle of the Kingsroad
Conflict Dance of the Dragons
Date 131 AC
Result black victory
Combatants
The greens The blacks
Commanders
Lord Borros Baratheon+ Lord Kermit Tully
Lord Benjicot Blackwood
Lady Alysanne Blackwood
Lord Darry+
Lord Mallister+
Strength
40,000 less then 4,000 rivermen
Casualties
Lord Borros Baratheon+ Lord Darry+
Lord Mallister+

The Battle of the Kingsroad or called the Muddy Mess was the penultimate battle of the Dance of the Dragons. It took place between the greens and the blacks on the Kingsroad not far from King's Landing.[1]

Prelude

With news of reinforcements coming south from the North and the Vale, the remaining Riverlords under the Tullys and Blackwoods decided to make a last desperate gamble on march south down the Kingsroad towards King's Landing. They made their advance around the fourth moon of the year 131 AC.

The Riverlord army was led by young Lord Kermit Tully, the twelve year old Benjicot Blackwood, and Ben's aunt "Black Aly" Blackwood. Together these young but battle-tested lords were known as "the Lads". The Riverlord army of the Lads numbered less than 4,000 by this point, so when Borros Baratheon learned of their approach he scoffed, since he had a fresh army of Stormlanders in the city who outnumbered the Lads around ten to one. Borros therefore did not wait for a siege by such a small force but charged up the Kingsroad to ride over these few remaining supporters of a dead queen.

Borros had and called himself cunning for keeping the armies of the Stormlands out of the heavy fighting in the war, "preserving" them and keeping them fresh. He laughed when the Lannister armies were slaughtered at the Fishfeed, for his own army was unbloodied. He laughed when the armies of the Rivermen were burned by Vhagar and cut to pieces at First Battle of Tumbleton - the Hightowers were the ones who did all of the fighting and dying, and now Borros had the large and fully intact armies of the Stormlands to grind down the few Rivermen who remained.

Battle

What Borros thought was cunning calculation now turned out to be folly. The Stormlanders were indeed fresh and unbloodied, but this was another way of saying that his "green" army was truly green. None of his forces had taken part in the prior battles of the war, so they had gained no vital combat experience. The Rivermen army of the Lads was only a tenth their number, true enough - but they were all extremely battle-hardened veterans. They had fought through almost every major land battle of the Dance: the Fishfeed, the Butcher's Ball, First and Second Battle of Tumbleton. Borros had dismissed the young lords as merely "Lads", but any who had fought through the Fishfeed and at Tumbleton had gained years' worth of combat experience in a few days of heavy fighting - far more than Borros and the Stormlanders did while they feasted in their halls at home. The combat experience of the remaining black army evened the odds against the vastly larger but inexperienced Stormlander army.

But Borros gave no thought to such concerns, and underestimated his opponents, boldly charging forward without heed. When Borros met the Lads in battle on the Kingsroad a stone's throw away from King's Landing, he charged right into a trap, sending his cavalry charging into a section of the road that the rains had turned into muck. The resulting Battle of the Kingsroad would later become popularly known as the "Muddy Mess", as the Stormlander army became mired and fell out of formation, as the blacks fell into them in a hard fought battle in the rain. Bloody Ben broke the flank of the Stormlanders, while Black Aly led the archers who picked off many of their immobilized knights. Borros was defiant to the last, killing a dozen knights as well as Lord Darry and Lord Mallister. Finally he faced off against the young Lord Kermit Tully in single combat. Their duel proved on a personal level what had already played out for their armies: despite Borros's bluster, Kermit's heavy combat experience gave him the edge, and he personally slew Borros, ending the battle. The Stormlander army was shattered, with few survivors.

Aftermath

The victorious black army of the Lads was now a day's march outside of King's Landing, with no significant green forces remaining to stop them. New black armies were also advancing, with Cregan Stark passing south of the Neck, and other armies from the Vale as well. Aegon II had lost the war. Corlys Velaryon, now Master of Ships on Aegon II's small council, advised him that the only remaining option was to surrender and take the black. Aegon II petulantly refused, and gave orders to have his nephew's ear cut off and sent to the Lads as a warning - if his bloodline died, so would Rhaenyra's. He climbed back into his litter to be carried to his chamber from the small council, and was given a cup of wine along the way to ease his pain. When his escort arrived at his private chamber and lifted the litter's curtains, Aegon II was dead, with blood on his lips. No one knows exactly who poisoned Aegon II - some say it was Coryls Velaryon, others that it was Larys Clubfoot, and still others that all of Aegon II's advisors had agreed to poison him, as the most sensible remaining option.

References and Notes