Robert's Rebellion

It began with a disappearance. Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen reportedly carried off Lyanna Stark, the woman betrothed to Robert Baratheon, and with her went whatever peace the Seven Kingdoms had left. Lyanna's older brother, Brandon Stark, didn't wait for explanations — he rode to King's Landing and stood before the Red Keep demanding the prince come out and die for what he'd done.

Aerys II was no longer a reasonable man. Years of confinement during the Defiance of Duskendale had left him suspicious to the point of madness, and he answered the challenge by arresting Brandon along with the men who'd ridden with him. He then summoned their fathers to answer for their sons, and when they arrived he executed all of them without trial: Lord Rickard Stark he burned alive inside his own armor, forcing Brandon to watch, strapped to a device that tightened every time he strained to reach him. Brandon strangled himself trying.

Emboldened, Aerys then demanded the heads of Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. Jon Arryn, who had fostered both of them, refused to hand them over and called his bannermen to arms. The war had its sides before a single arrow flew.

Jon Arryn struck first. While Eddard Stark rode north to gather his own men, Lord Marq Grafton decided Gulltown would stay loyal to the crown. Arryn marched on the city with his bannermen, and its walls didn't hold; Robert Baratheon was the first man through the breach and killed Grafton with his own hands. With the Vale secured, Robert crossed into the Stormlands to take command of his vassals.

There he fought three separate battles in a single day at Summerhall. Lords Grandison, Cafferen, and Fell had planned to combine their armies before marching on Storm's End, but Robert learned of it in time and struck each one alone. Fell died on the field; his son, nicknamed Silverhand, was taken prisoner and ended up joining the rebel cause along with the other two defeated lords.

Not everything went Robert's way. At Ashford, Randyll Tarly's vanguard shattered his forces before the bulk of Mace Tyrell's army arrived, and Cafferen — the same lord who'd just switched sides — died at Tarly's hands, who sent his head to the king as proof of loyalty. It was a royalist win, but not a decisive one: Tyrell moved on to besiege Storm's End, where Stannis Baratheon was left in command and would hold out for nearly a year on starvation rations while the besiegers feasted every night outside the walls.

Wounded, Robert took shelter in Stoney Sept, and Aerys's army — commanded by his Hand, Jon Connington — searched it house by house without finding him. It was close: Eddard Stark's and Hoster Tully's troops arrived in time, and amid the town's ringing bells the rebels won a battle that forced Connington to retreat in good order.

The defeat shook Aerys more than any other. He banished Connington, ordered Kingsguard knights Jonothor Darry and Gerold Hightower to gather what remained of his army at Stoney Sept, and put Ser Lewyn Martell in command of the ten thousand Dornishmen sent by Doran Martell. At the same time, hedging against outright defeat, he began secretly filling King's Landing with wildfire.

The decisive battle came at a ford of the Trident. Rhaegar and Robert found each other amid the fighting and settled it in single combat; Robert brought him down with a hammer blow to the chest so violent it scattered the rubies from his armor across the water, which is why the crossing is now called the Ruby Ford. The Targaryen army broke with the prince's fall. Robert, badly wounded, handed command to Eddard Stark.

In King's Landing, the news pushed Aerys into one last act of caution: he sent the pregnant Queen Rhaella and their son Viserys to Dragonstone, escorted by Willem Darry. Elia Martell and her children he refused to let go, afraid of losing Dorne's support.

Meanwhile, in the Iron Islands, Lord Quellon Greyjoy — neutral until then — gave in to his sons' pressure and sent fifty longships to raid the Reach before the war ended with no plunder to show for it. The ironborn captured a few ships and towns, but Shield Islands vessels intercepted them at the mouth of the Mander. Quellon died in the fighting, and his heir, Balon, ordered the retreat to Pyke: the raid had barely mattered to the war.

Tywin Lannister, who had stayed out of the war since resigning as Hand of the King, finally marched on the capital swearing loyalty to Aerys and asking for the gates to be opened. Against Varys's warning, the king opened them. It was a deception: Tywin's men sacked the city in Robert's name.

Aerys, seeing the throne lost, ordered his new Hand, the pyromancer Rossart, to light the wildfire he'd spent months stockpiling beneath the city. "Let him be king of charred bones and roasted meat. Let him be king of ashes," he is said to have told him. He also ordered Jaime Lannister, the only Kingsguard left at his side, to kill his own father. Jaime killed Rossart before he could reach the caches, then killed Aerys himself on the Iron Throne.

Tywin didn't stop there: he sent Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch to secure the throne by eliminating the rest of the royal family, then presented their bodies to Robert as proof of loyalty when he reached the city. Robert pardoned Jaime for the kingslaying and accepted the corpses from Tywin's hands. Eddard Stark, arriving shortly after to find Jaime still seated on the Iron Throne, argued with Robert over it and left at once for Storm's End.

At Storm's End, Stannis and his men had held out through the siege until Eddard Stark arrived and lifted it without a fight. From there Eddard rode to the Red Mountains of Dorne, to a small stronghold called the Tower of Joy, where three Kingsguard knights — Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower — had stayed out of the entire war guarding something, or someone.

With six companions, among them Howland Reed, Eddard fought the three Kingsguard. Only he and Reed survived. He later traveled to Starfall and delivered his brother Arthur's sword, Dawn, to Lady Ashara Dayne.

With the siege of Storm's End over, Stannis took command of the royal fleet and sailed against Dragonstone, the last Targaryen stronghold. Before he arrived, Ser Willem Darry got Viserys and the newborn Daenerys off the island — their mother, Queen Rhaella, had died giving birth to her during the storm that wrecked the Targaryen fleet — and sailed with them to Braavos, into exile.

With the royal family dead or exiled across the Narrow Sea, Robert Baratheon took the Iron Throne and named Jon Arryn his Hand, who negotiated peace with Dorne through Doran Martell. Since Lyanna had died after her abduction, Robert married Cersei Lannister, and the Seven Kingdoms accepted the Baratheons as their new dynasty.