Ruby Ford

The ford lies at a stretch of the Green Fork where there's no other way across until the Twins, further upstream. The nearby Crossroads Inn had served travelers waiting to cross for centuries.

When Robert Baratheon marched south leading his rebellion, he ran into the loyalist host commanded by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen at that crossing. The fighting cost many lives before Robert reached the prince and struck him down with a blow to the chest. The blow was hard enough to knock the red stones set into Rhaegar's armor loose into the current. Without its commander, the royal army fell apart.

Once the killing was over, soldiers from both sides waded into the murky water searching the mud for the fallen gems. In time, the current carried some of them as far as the Quiet Isle, where a few are still kept.

Once the war among five claimants to the crown broke out, control of the ford stopped being something anyone could take for granted. Lord Roose Bolton, after coming off worse in a clash at the Green Fork, seized the crossing and the nearby inn as a foothold.

Roose Bolton left Harrenhal and took the Kingsroad toward the Twins. When he reached the ford, he found the river running so high and violent that his men couldn't cross on horseback, and he had to ferry his troops over bank by bank in boats.

With half his men still on the south side when the Lannister force arrived, the attack fell on that divided flank. The clash that followed became known as the Battle of the Ruby Ford.

Around that same time, Brienne of Tarth was taking Jaime Lannister prisoner toward King's Landing, and chose not to risk the ford in case guards were posted there.

Sandor Clegane, escorting Arya Stark toward the Twins, avoided the crossing for the same reason. Instead of staying on the Kingsroad, he cut southeast through fields and woods. By then the river had dropped back to its normal level, so crossing it gave them no trouble at all.