Argilac Durrandon

Argilac Durrandon, called the Arrogant, was the last Storm King of House Durrandon and a seasoned warrior whose final decision to meet Aegon Targaryen’s forces in the field ended both his life and his dynasty’s rule. His story turns on a reversal: an attempt to use marriage and territory to strengthen his kingdom against Harren Hoare instead brought the Targaryens into direct conflict with him, while his death transferred Storm’s End and the Durrandon inheritance to Orys Baratheon.

Identity and declining power

The Storm Kings had once ruled the eastern half of Westeros, from Cape Wrath to the Bite, from their stronghold at Storm’s End. By Argilac’s time, that domain had been steadily reduced. The rulers of the Reach had taken land from the west, the Dornish had harried the south, and Harren Hoare and the ironborn had pushed the Storm Kings out of the Trident and the lands north of the Blackwater Rush. Argilac briefly reversed this decline: as a boy he turned back a Dornish invasion, later crossed the narrow sea to join an alliance against Volantis, and, twenty years afterward, killed Garse VII Gardener, King of the Reach, at the Battle of Summerfield.

His age altered the balance. The black mane for which he had been famous had gone grey, and his skill at arms had faded. He was also the last of the Durrandon, with only his unmarried daughter as heir. At the same time, Harren Hoare’s cruelty was feared throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and Harren’s long effort to complete Harrenhal threatened to free his ironborn to pursue further conquests. Argilac faced not only territorial losses but the prospect that his kingdom would be caught between an expanding neighbor and a succession without a male heir.

The proposed alliance and its failure

Argilac sought an alliance with Aegon, offering his daughter in marriage and the lands east of the Gods Eye, between the Trident and the Blackwater Rush, as her dowry. Aegon refused the marriage, explaining that he already had two wives, and rejected the grant because those lands had belonged to Harrenhal for more than a generation. The proposal would have placed Targaryen power along the Blackwater, creating a buffer between Argilac’s lands and Harren Hoare’s.

Aegon countered with broader territorial demands: he would accept the lands offered only if Argilac also ceded Massey’s Hook and the country south from the Blackwater to the Wendwater and the headwaters of the Mander. He proposed sealing the arrangement by marrying Argilac’s daughter to Orys Baratheon, his childhood friend and champion. Argilac rejected the terms in anger. Orys was rumored to be Aegon’s baseborn half-brother, and Argilac regarded the proposed match as an insult to his daughter. He had Aegon’s envoy’s hands cut off and returned in a box with a defiant message. The exchange turned a failed negotiation into open hostility: Aegon made no immediate reply, but summoned his allies to Dragonstone and soon declared his intention to unite Westeros under one king.

The Last Storm

After Harrenhal fell, Argilac gathered a great host at Storm’s End. Although the castle’s curtain wall was considered even thicker than Harrenhal’s and its defenses seemingly impregnable, he refused to wait for the Targaryen army to besiege him. Hearing of Harren Hoare’s death and learning that Queen Rhaenys and her dragon had been seen, Argilac declared that he would choose his own fate in battle. He rode out to meet the invaders in the field.

The encounter became known as the Last Storm. Rhaenys had witnessed Argilac’s departure and gave Orys Baratheon an account of the stormlanders’ numbers and positions. Orys established himself on the high ground south of Bronzegate. Argilac’s force outnumbered the Targaryen army almost two to one and had nearly four times as many knights and heavy horses. His bannermen advised delaying the attack until the weather cleared, but Argilac observed that the wind-driven rain was blowing into the faces of Orys’s men and ordered the assault.

The storm shaped the fighting. Argilac led repeated cavalry charges up the steep, rain-softened slopes, where the horses struggled and the attacks lost cohesion. His foot soldiers had more success climbing the hills, while rain-blinded defenders could not see them until they were close and wet bowstrings made the archers’ weapons ineffective. The fourth charge broke through the Baratheon center, but encountered Rhaenys and Meraxes. The dragon’s fire threw the horses into panic and disrupted the advance, and Argilac was unhorsed.

He continued fighting on foot. When Orys came down the hill, Argilac was still resisting several opponents. Orys dismounted and offered him a final chance to yield; Argilac refused. The two men fought and each was said to have wounded the other. Argilac died with his sword in hand, and his death broke the resistance of the stormlander host. His lords and knights laid down their weapons or fled as news of the king’s fall spread.

Argella and the Durrandon legacy

Argilac’s daughter, Argella, continued the resistance from Storm’s End, declaring herself Storm Queen and refusing to submit. She threatened that anyone who took the castle would find only death and ruin, but the garrison did not share her resolve. Its soldiers opened the gates and delivered her to Orys’s camp, bringing the siege to an end without the destruction of Storm’s End.

Orys treated Argella gently and told her how her father had fought and died. He then married her and adopted the Durrandon arms and words: the crowned stag became his sigil, and Storm’s End his seat. Argilac’s death therefore ended the old royal line, but the signs of that line endured through the man who had killed him. The transfer of his seat and inheritance to Orys made the defeat more than a battlefield loss: it joined the new Baratheon house to the defeated Storm Kings through Argella and their shared legacy.