Maidenpool in the Riverlands

Maidenpool in the Riverlands is presented as a town whose wartime importance rests on its people and position: its lord can gather forces for the queen’s cause, while its walls offer a base for dragonriders threatened by Vhagar. During the Dance of the Dragons, the town becomes both a launch point for military action and a refuge under pressure from the war in the skies.

Lords and Local Power

Maidenpool’s role is associated with two successive Mooton lords. Lord Walys Mooton led a hundred knights out of the town to join forces with the Crabbs and Brunes of Crackclaw Point and the Celtigars of Claw Isle. The coalition hurried to Rook’s Rest, where it retook the castle before turning its attention to Sunfyre. Maidenpool thus appears as a source of mounted strength for a wider regional force, rather than merely as a place passed through by armies.

Later, Lord Manfryd Mooton offered the town as a base to Daemon Targaryen and Nettles. Manfryd lived in fear that Aemond Targaryen might descend on Maidenpool with Vhagar, but still received the dragonriders as they pursued the prince across the Riverlands. The town’s lordship therefore carried a double burden: contributing to the war beyond its walls and protecting its own people from the reprisals of a roaming dragon.

A Base for the Dragon Hunt

From Maidenpool, Daemon and Nettles flew out at dawn on Caraxes and Sheepstealer, searching the Riverlands for Vhagar. They circled over the region in widening sweeps and returned at dusk without finding their quarry. Lord Mooton suggested splitting the search to cover more ground, but Daemon refused: he believed the two dragons had to face Vhagar together. His decision kept Nettles beside him in the air and at the castle, day and night, making Maidenpool the fixed base of a hunt whose target could strike far from it and disappear before the pursuers arrived.

Exposure and Strategic Significance

The search brought no quick relief. Aemond attacked settlements and crossings across the Riverlands, including places on both the Green Fork and Red Fork, while repeatedly evading the riders based at Maidenpool. As reports of his attacks spread, Lord Mooton joined other threatened lords in sending urgent appeals to the queen for dragons to defend their holdings. Maidenpool’s importance in these passages is therefore not simply that it housed a royal ally: it stood within reach of Vhagar’s destructive raids, even as it served as the staging ground from which dragonriders tried to stop them.