Sharako Lohar

Sharako Lohar was the Lysene admiral who led the Triarchy’s fleet in the Battle in the Gullet, a catastrophic defeat that destroyed most of his ships and helped set the Three Daughters against one another. His campaign joined two consequential episodes: the capture of Prince Viserys aboard the Gay Abandon and the assault on Driftmark that ended in the fleet’s rout by dragons.

Command and the capture of Prince Viserys

The Triarchy’s alliance with Otto Hightower brought a fleet of ninety warships from the Stepstones toward the Gullet. Among the ships caught in its path was the Pentoshi cog Gay Abandon, carrying two Targaryen princes. After its escorts were sunk or taken, the cog was captured. Prince Viserys tried to pass as a ship’s boy in ragged, salt-stained clothes and hid his dragon’s egg, but another boy betrayed him. A Tyroshi captain first recognized the prince; Lohar soon took the captive from that captain as his own prize.

The attack on Driftmark

Lohar divided his fleet into two squadrons, ordering one to enter the Gullet south of Dragonstone and the other to the north. At dawn on the fifth day of 130 AC, the ships used the rising sun’s glare to surprise Lord Velaryon’s galleys, ramming some and boarding others. The southern squadron bypassed Dragonstone and struck Driftmark instead: its forces landed at Spicetown and sent fire ships into the harbor, while Myrish and Tyroshi troops attacked High Tide. By mid-morning Spicetown was burning.

The fleet met resistance from Prince Jacaerys, who attacked aboard Vermax, and then from four more dragons: Silverwing, Sheepstealer, Seasmoke, and Vermithor. Faced with five dragons, the Triarchy’s line broke. Ships were destroyed or set alight, and the surviving warships turned away. Jacaerys also died in the battle, but the rout did not spare Driftmark: Spicetown was sacked and never rebuilt, High Tide was burned, and the Velaryon fleet lost almost a third of its strength.

Defeat and its political consequences

The battle continued into the night in the waters north and south of Dragonstone. Of the ninety Myrish, Lyseni, and Tyroshi warships Lohar had brought from the Stepstones, only twenty-eight limped home; all but three of the survivors were crewed by Lyseni. The losses therefore fell unevenly among the Three Daughters. Widows in Myr and Tyrosh accused Lohar of sending their fleets to destruction while holding back his own, turning military disaster into a dispute among the allied cities. That quarrel began the chain of division that ended in the Daughters’ War two years later, when the cities turned against one another.