Field of Fire

Aegon had landed on the shore that would become King's Landing and was pushing on, kingdom by kingdom, breaking whoever stood in his way. Loren, King of the Rock, and Mern, King of the Reach, old enemies, set their quarrels aside and joined banners against him: together they mustered close to fifty-five thousand men, six hundred of them lords and five thousand mounted knights.

Against that, Aegon could field barely a fifth of their number, and most of his soldiers had served the king he'd just killed, so their loyalty was anything but certain. He put Jon Mooton, lord of Maidenpool and one of the first to bend the knee to him, in command of his army.

The two hosts met on the plains of the Reach, among wheat fields ready for harvest. When Loren and Mern led the charge, Aegon's lines began to break, and for a moment it looked like the conquest would end right there. Then the three dragons rose and set the field alight from every side, with the wind behind them.

Four thousand men burned to death and another thousand fell to sword and spear; ten thousand more came away scarred. Fewer than a hundred died on the Targaryen side, though an arrow caught Visenya in the shoulder. It was the only time Balerion, Vhagar and Meraxes ever flew into the same battle. King Mern died on the field, and House Gardener died with him; the combined army of the Reach and the Rock was destroyed.

Loren gave up his crown and stayed on as Warden of the West under Aegon. At Highgarden, Harlen Tyrell, until then no more than steward to the Gardeners, handed over the castle and its strength without a fight. In return, Aegon gave him the whole Reach: House Tyrell became Lords of Highgarden and Wardens of the South, a rise nobody in the region would have guessed at before that afternoon.