King’s Landing’s Dragonpit District links Cobbler’s Square to the Dragonpit on Rhaenys’s Hill. During the city’s crisis, it became the stage for a preacher’s call to destroy the dragons, the march that gathered around him, and the uprising at the Dragonpit. After the revolt was suppressed, the same streets were used for the execution of his followers, and the thoroughfare leading uphill acquired a new name: Shepherd’s Way.

Setting and Associations

Cobbler’s Square was the district’s gathering point. The Shepherd, an unnamed itinerant preacher with a missing right hand, appeared there during a night of fear after news of the slaughter at Tumbleton spread through King’s Landing. His origins were unknown; Grand Maester Munkun only suggested that he might once have been a Poor Fellow. The area’s streets and alleys offered a route from his preaching place toward the Dragonpit, turning a local assembly into a procession across the city.

The Dragonpit stood atop Rhaenys’s Hill, reached by a broad cobbled thoroughfare running east from Cobbler’s Square. It was both a royal site housing dragons and a vulnerable place within the city: its great main gates were too strong for the attackers to break, but the building had many lesser entrances. The Dragonkeepers guarded it, though their numbers were limited and fewer than fifty were on watch that night.

The Shepherd’s March and the Dragonpit

The Shepherd preached that the dragons were unnatural and that the city could not be safe while they and their masters remained. His appeal drew a crowd that cried for the dragons’ deaths and moved through the streets toward the hill. Some left along the way, but others joined; by the time the crowd reached Rhaenys’s Hill, its numbers had doubled. Torches and weapons made the march visible across the city, while the growing procession carried the disorder of the square to the Dragonpit itself.

Queen Rhaenyra ordered riders at the Old Gate and Dragon Gate to disperse the crowd, seize the Shepherd, and defend the royal dragons. The city’s turmoil obstructed the response: the gold cloaks who came from the Dragon Gate could not force their way through the mob, and the messenger sent to the Old Gate never arrived. At the Dragonpit, the outnumbered Dragonkeepers were overwhelmed after attackers entered through the lesser doors and windows. The ensuing assault became a battle within the building, where the dragons were awake and confined by its walls, dome, and chains.

Shepherd’s Way and the District’s Aftermath

After King’s Landing returned to Aegon II’s control, the Shepherd was brought before the Iron Throne and condemned with his followers. On the last day of the year, 241 of the most devoted followers were placed along the road from Cobbler’s Square up to the Dragonpit. Aegon proceeded uphill in his litter, accompanied by his knights and two members of the Kingsguard; at the top, he personally set fire to the pole where the Shepherd was bound. The execution fixed the route in the city’s memory as the setting for the end of the revolt.

The thoroughfare had formerly been called Hill Street. After the execution it was known as Shepherd’s Way, a lasting change to the district’s place-name that tied the preacher and his uprising to the geography of King’s Landing. Cobbler’s Square, the uphill road, and the Dragonpit thus formed a connected sequence of locations: a place of preaching, a route of mass mobilization, and the destination where the conflict—and later its punishment—was concentrated.