“We shall meet in hell before this year is done”

“We shall meet in hell before this year is done” is the Shepherd’s warning to Lord Borros Baratheon and, later, to Aegon II. Repeated without alteration at his capture and judgment, the line carries his defiance from the streets around the Dragonpit into the royal court, where it becomes the last recorded statement attributed to him.

First utterance and capture

The Shepherd spoke the words when Borros led the assault on the Dragonpit. The prophet’s call to defend the Hill of Rhaenys had drawn fewer than three hundred followers; many fled when the attack began. Borros approached on horseback as his knights and Perkin the Flea’s men broke through the defenders and entered the ruins. Amid the decaying dragon heads and a ring of torches, the Shepherd pointed his stump at Borros and cursed him with the warning. He was taken alive and carried back to the Red Keep in chains.

Repetition before Aegon II

When brought before Aegon II for judgment, the Shepherd neither repented nor admitted treason. Instead, he repeated the same words he had spoken to Borros. The unchanged phrase thus marks both encounters: first, the moment of capture, and then the prophet’s refusal to recant before the king who judged him. Aegon ordered the Shepherd’s tongue removed and condemned him and his followers to death by fire.

The warning’s final echo

On the last day of the year, Aegon proceeded through the city as his knights set fire to the chained followers lining the route to the Dragonpit. At the hilltop, the king himself set the Shepherd aflame. The account gives no fulfillment of the warning beyond this sequence; its force lies in the repeated words and their return at the prophet’s final encounter with royal power. A threat first directed at the captor remains audible at the judgment that seals the Shepherd’s fate.