Roderick Dustin

When House Targaryen split into two camps, Roderick Dustin declared for Princess Rhaenyra and gathered two thousand northmen, who would come to be known as the Winter Wolves, to march south on her behalf. They crossed the Neck heading south, an unusual move for a northern lord.

At the Twins they were received by Lady Sabitha Vypren, and from there marched on to God's Eye, where their troops joined the forces of Lord Forrest Frey and Robb Rivers. That combined host was holding the Lannister army under siege, now led by Lord Humfrey Lefford after the death of Lord Jason Lannister.

Roderick pushed to finish off the Lannister forces before reinforcements could arrive from Harrenhal, where Prince Aemond Targaryen waited with his dragon Vhagar. When word came that Lefford was trying to send ravens for help, they resolved to attack without further delay.

The next morning the northmen charged five times against the Lannister spearmen along the western shore of God's Eye, in a clash the survivors would name Chum for the Fishes. Two of every three Winter Wolves fell dead or wounded, but Roderick came through the fighting alive.

Together with Pate of Longleaf and Ser Garibald Grey, Roderick took part of the combined army of northmen and rivermen to harry Ser Criston Cole's forces with ambush after ambush. The attrition worked, and by the time they finally showed themselves openly, the green army was badly worn down.

Criston Cole asked to parley and offered to surrender, but they refused his terms. Roderick, set on dying blade in hand rather than at a bargaining table, answered that winter had come and it was time to go.

Cole then demanded single combat; Pate ordered Robb Rivers to bring him down with arrows, and Roderick sounded his war horn to send his men into the final charge. Mushroom, the queen's fool, would later name that fight the Butcher's Ball. Roderick lived through it as well.

The army marched from the Riverlands to Ladera to stop Lord Ormund Hightower's advance. While the rest of the troops fell back behind the walls, Roderick and the Winter Wolves slipped out through a postern gate.

They swung around the left flank of the besieging army, which outnumbered them many times over, and cut their way through to Lord Ormund himself. Ser Bryndon Hightower struck off his shield arm, but Roderick still managed to kill both Hightowers before he went down, dying of his wounds.

The deaths of Lord Ormund and his finest sword, Ser Bryndon Hightower, left the green army at Ladera without clear leadership. Ser Hobert Hightower, Jon Roxton and Lord Unwin Peake each tried in turn to seize command and failed, and that paralysis dragged on for weeks.

The time it bought let Ser Addam Velaryon gather a new host loyal to Rhaenyra and strike at Ladera, a blow that would finish off what remained of Ormund's army. Maesters such as Yandel and Gyldayn would later set down the charge of Roderick Dustin and his Winter Wolves as one of the war's remembered episodes.