Battle of the Gullet

Otto Hightower, Hand to King Aegon II, crossed the narrow sea to offer the Triarchy an alliance, old enemies of Prince Daemon Targaryen since the Stepstones war. His talks dragged on so long that Aegon II finally replaced his own grandfather with Ser Criston Cole, but the offer had already taken hold: the Triarchy's council accepted it in Tyrosh, and ninety warships sailed from the Stepstones under the Lyseni admiral Sharako Lohar, bound for the Gullet.

At Dragonstone, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon sent his half-brothers Aegon and Viserys toward Pentos, escorted by seven of the Sea Snake's warships, to keep them safe while their mother secured the Iron Throne. The Triarchy's fleet, already in the Gullet, fell on the escort: Viserys, carrying nothing but a dragon's egg, was taken prisoner by a Tyroshi captain, while Aegon escaped on his young dragon Stormcloud, which reached Dragonstone wounded and died there soon after.

On the fifth day of the new year, 130 AC, Sharako Lohar struck at dawn with two squadrons. Jacaerys flew Vermax against a line of Lyseni galleys, joined by Ulf the White on Silverwing, Addam Velaryon on Seasmoke and Hugh Hammer on Vermithor, and together they broke the enemy line. But Vermax fell wounded into the sea and sank, and crossbowmen from Myr killed Jacaerys when he swam clear. To the south, another squadron bypassed Dragonstone and struck Spicetown, burning it, sacking Hightide, and putting its people to the sword.

Thousands died that day, and Spicetown was never rebuilt; the Velaryon fleet lost close to a third of its ships. Both Blacks and Greens counted Viserys among the dead, not knowing Sharako held him captive, and on Dragonstone many began to blame Rhaenyra for the kin they had lost in the battle.

Only twenty-eight of the Triarchy's ninety ships made it home, a bloodletting that Myr and Tyrosh would later blame on Sharako, seeding the quarrel that grew into the War of the Daughters. Greens could call it a tactical win; Blacks, a strategic one — the eastern blockade held, and for the rest of the war their enemies had no more allies among the Free Cities.