Butcher's Ball

After the Greens' defeat at the battle of the lakeshore, Ser Criston Cole gathered the three thousand six hundred men left to him south of Harrenhal. He meant to join forces with Lord Ormund Hightower and Prince Daeron Targaryen, who were marching up from the Reach. Prince Aemond chose instead to mount Vhagar and burn his way through the Riverlands rather than ride with him.

Cole's column moved down the western shore of the Gods Eye, but the river lords answered by putting their own woods and villages to the torch. The guerrilla war never let up: desertions to the Blacks, ambushes, men dressed as corpses to attack in the night. At Crossed Elms the trick cost Cole twelve soldiers before his men caught on.

On the way to Blackwater Bay, Cole led what was left of his army to a rocky ridge south of the Gods Eye. Waiting there, already formed and outnumbering them two to one, were the men of the North and the Riverlands.

Cole spoke with Ser Garibald Grey, Ser Pate of Hardhorn, and Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton. He offered to surrender, but none of the three would take it. The Kingmaker, still Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and Hand of the King, made ready to fight all three at once.

He never drew his sword: Robb Rivers and two archers cut him down with arrows. With Cole on the ground, Dustin gave the order to charge, and the Winter Wolves, together with the river knights, fell on what remained of the Greens. Hundreds died trying to flee the ridge.

When the fighting was over, Ser Garibald Grey said it had been a butchering, not a battle. Mushroom, standing nearby, kept the phrase and started calling the slaughter the Butcher's Ball.

Cole's death marked the high point of Rhaenyra Targaryen's fortunes in the whole war. Even so, King Aegon II and his brother Aemond kept the Green cause alive.