Bowing her head in defeat, Queen Alicent surrendered the keys to the castle and ordered her knights and men-at-arms to lay down their swords. “The city is yours, Princess,” she is reported to have said, “but you will not hold it long. The rats play when the cat is gone, but my son Aemond will return with fire and blood.”

Rhaenyra’s men found her rival’s wife, the mad Queen Helaena, locked in her bedchamber…but when they broke down the doors of the king’s apartments, they discovered only “his bed, empty, and his chamberpot, full.” Aegon II had fled. So had his children, the six-year-old Princess Jaehaera and two-year-old Prince Maelor, along with Willis Fell and Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard. Not even the Dowager Queen seemed to know where they had gone, and Luthor Largent swore none had passed through the city gates.

   There was no way to spirit away the Iron Throne, however. Nor would Queen Rhaenyra sleep until she claimed her father’s seat. So the torches were lit in the throne room, and the queen climbed the iron steps and seated herself where King Viserys had sat before her, and the Old King before him, and Maegor and Aenys and Aegon the Dragon in days of old. Stern-faced, still in her armor, she sat on high as every man and woman in the Red Keep was brought forth and made to kneel before her, to plead for her forgiveness and swear their lives and swords and honor to her as their queen.

Septon Eustace tells us that the ceremony went on all through that night. It was well past dawn when Rhaenyra Targaryen rose and made her descent. “And as her lord husband Prince Daemon escorted her from the hall, cuts were seen upon Her Grace’s legs and the palm of her left hand,” wrote Eustace. “Drops of blood fell to the floor as she went past, and wise men looked at one another, though none dared speak the truth aloud: the Iron Throne had spurned her, and her days upon it would be few.”

      * Initially both claimants to the Iron Throne flew the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, red on black, but by the end of 129 AC, both Aegon and Rhaenyra had introduced variations to distinguish their own supporters from their foes. The king changed the color of the dragon on his banners from red to gold, to celebrate the brilliant golden scales of his dragon, Sunfyre, whilst the queen quartered the Targaryen arms with those of House Arryn and House Velaryon, in honor of her lady mother and her first husband, respectively.

Even as King’s Landing fell to Rhaenyra Targaryen and her dragons, Prince Aemond and Ser Criston Cole were advancing on Harrenhal, whilst the Lannister host under Adrian Tarbeck swept eastward.

At Acorn Hall the westermen were checked briefly when Lord Joseth Smallwood sallied forth to join Lord Piper and the remnants of his defeated host, but Piper died in the battle that ensued (felled when his heart burst at the sight of his favorite grandson’s head upon a spear, Mushroom says), and Smallwood fell back inside his castle. A second battle followed three days later, when the rivermen regrouped under a hedge knight named Ser Harry Penny. This unlikely hero died soon after, whilst slaying Adrian Tarbeck. Once more the Lannisters prevailed, cutting down the rivermen as they fled. When the western host resumed its march to Harrenhal, it was under the aged Lord Humfrey Lefford, who had suffered so many wounds that he commanded from a litter.

Little did Lord Lefford suspect that he would soon face a stiffer test, for an army of fresh foes was descending on them from the north: two thousand savage northmen, flying Queen Rhaenyra’s quartered banners. At their head rode the Lord of Barrowton, Roderick Dustin, a warrior so old and hoary men called him Roddy the Ruin. His host was made up of grizzled greybeards in old mail and ragged skins, every man a seasoned warrior, every man ahorse. They called themselves the Winter Wolves. “We have come to die for the dragon queen,” Lord Roderick announced at the Twins, when Lady Sabitha Frey rode out to greet them.

   Meanwhile, muddy roads and rainstorms slowed the pace of Aemond’s advance, for his host was made up largely of foot, with a long baggage train. Ser Criston’s vanguard fought and won a short, sharp battle against Ser Oswald Wode and the Lords Darry and Roote on the lakeshore, but met no other opposition. After nineteen days on the march, they reached Harrenhal…and found the castle gates open, with Prince Daemon and all his people gone.

Prince Aemond had kept Vhagar with the main column throughout the march, thinking that his uncle might attempt to attack them on Caraxes. He reached Harrenhal a day after Cole, and that night celebrated a great victory; Daemon and “his river scum” had fled rather than face his wroth, Aemond proclaimed. Small wonder then that when word of the fall of King’s Landing reached him, the prince felt thrice the fool. His fury was fearsome to behold.

First to suffer for it was Ser Simon Strong. Prince Aemond had no love for any of that ilk, and the haste with which the castellan had yielded Harrenhal to Daemon Targaryen convinced him the old man was a traitor. Ser Simon protested his innocence, insisting that he was a true and loyal servant of the Crown. His own great nephew, Larys Strong, was Lord of Harrenhal and King Aegon’s master of whisperers, he reminded the Prince Regent. These denials only inflamed Aemond’s suspicions. The Clubfoot was a traitor as well, he decided. How else would Daemon and Rhaenyra have known when King’s Landing was most vulnerable? Someone on the small council had sent word to them…and Larys Clubfoot was Breakbones’s brother, and thus an uncle to Rhaenyra’s bastards.

Aemond commanded that Ser Simon be given a sword. “Let the gods decide if you speak truly,” he said. “If you are innocent, the Warrior will give you the strength to defeat me.” The duel that followed was utterly one-sided, all the accounts agree; the prince cut the old man to pieces, then fed his corpse to Vhagar. Nor did Ser Simon’s grandsons long outlive him. One by one, every man and boy with Strong blood in his veins was dragged forth and put to death, until the heap made of their heads stood three feet tall.

   Thus did the flower of House Strong, an ancient line of noble warriors boasting descent from the First Men, come to an ignoble end in the ward at Harrenhal. No trueborn Strong was spared, nor any bastard save…oddly…Alys Rivers. Though the wet nurse was twice his age (thrice, if we put our trust in Mushroom), Prince Aemond had taken her into his bed as a prize of war soon after taking Harrenhal, seemingly preferring her to all the other women of the castle, including many pretty maids of his own years.

West of Harrenhal, fighting continued in the riverlands as the Lannister host slogged onward. The age and infirmity of their commander, Lord Lefford, had slowed their march to a crawl, but as they neared the western shores of the Gods Eye, they found a huge new army athwart their path.

Roddy the Ruin and his Winter Wolves had joined with Forrest Frey, Lord of the Crossing, and Red Robb Rivers, known as the Bowman of Raventree. The northmen numbered two thousand, Frey commanded two hundred knights and thrice as many foot, Rivers brought three hundred archers to the fray. And scarce had Lord Lefford halted to confront the foe in front of him when more enemies appeared to the south, where Longleaf the Lionslayer and a ragged band of survivors from the earlier battles had been joined by the Lords Bigglestone, Chambers, and Perryn.