Sack of Bitterbridge

Bitterbridge had swollen with people fleeing the advance of Lord Ormund Hightower's great host on its way to Maidenpool. Among the new arrivals, unrecognized, were Ser Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard and the young prince Maelor Targaryen, both travelling in disguise to meet Hightower.

They took a room at an inn in the town. The stableboy, pressed by the innkeeper, went through the knight's belongings and found a dragon's egg; word spread through the common room within the hour. The innkeeper was dead by that same night, and Rickard tried to cross the bridge to the southern bank, where crossbowmen cut him down. Accounts of how young Maelor died soon after do not agree with one another, but they all end the same way: the boy killed by the mob.

Lady Caswell, widowed after King Aegon II had her husband executed at the start of the war, was horrified by what had happened on her lands. She had the stableboy hanged, along with a woman suspected of having a hand in the prince's death and the man whose horse Rickard had stolen. She sent the knight's body and Maelor's head to Queen Rhaenyra in King's Landing, and sent the dragon's egg on to Maidenpool, where Lord Hightower's siege had just ended without bloodshed among the defeated, hoping he would show the same mercy.

Lady Caswell's plea went unanswered: she asked for the same terms Lord Hightower had granted Lady Merryweather, but Prince Daeron Targaryen refused and loosed his dragon Tessarion on the town. The fire started at the inn where Maelor had died and spread from there to other inns, storehouses and homes.

Hundreds of the wounded died trapped inside the town's sept. Soldiers cut down anyone trying to flee or drove them into the river to drown. Only the bridge escaped the flames, since the army still needed it to cross the Mander.

From atop the gatehouse tower, a noose already round her neck, Lady Caswell watched her town burn, yielded the castle, begged mercy for her children, and threw herself off. Lord Ormund carried the lady's daughter and younger sons off as prisoners to Oldtown and had the remaining garrison put to the sword.

Those who escaped the slaughter fled to Longtable, the last Black stronghold left between King's Landing and Lord Hightower's forces.

When the Greens' army reached its gates, the war for the Mander moved into a new chapter: the Battle of the Honeywine.