The Myrish Invasion of Tarth and Battle of Tarth was a campaign to drive an exiled Myrish faction from the island, where its surprise landings had taken the eastern side. The royal response combined the Velaryon fleet, Tarth’s own levies, and Stormlander forces, with Prince Aemon Targaryen and his dragon Caraxes as a formidable additional strength. The Myrish were ultimately overwhelmed, but the battle’s defining consequence was not simply their defeat: a scout’s bolt killed Aemon instead of its intended target, and the victory became inseparable from the grief and retribution that followed.

Background and Invasion

The invasion followed the Myrish Bloodbath of 91–92 AC, a struggle between rival factions for control of Myr. After one faction was driven from the city, it attempted to establish itself on the Stepstones, where the Archon of Tyrosh joined forces with a league of pirate kings to expel it. The displaced Myrish then turned to Tarth. Their landings caught the Evenstar by surprise, and they soon occupied the island’s entire eastern side.

By the time the royal council considered its response, the invaders had become little more than a ragged band of rogues. The king and his council judged that the Myrish could be forced back into the sea without a major effort. The plan nevertheless accounted for their strength at sea: Corlys Velaryon and the Velaryon fleet would protect Lord Boremund Baratheon’s crossing to Tarth. There, the Stormlanders could join the Evenstar’s levies, creating a combined force expected to be sufficient to retake the island. Aemon’s dragon, Caraxes, offered a further advantage should the campaign prove more difficult than expected.

The Expedition to Tarth

Corlys and his fleet sailed from Driftmark on the ninth day of the third moon of 92 AC. Aemon followed a few hours later, after taking leave of Jocelyn Baratheon and their daughter, Rhaenys Targaryen. Rhaenys had just learned she was pregnant; otherwise, she would have accompanied her father on Meleys. Aemon’s parting exchange made clear that he did not intend her to join the fighting, and that he looked ahead to the child she was carrying.

Caraxes quickly outpaced the Sea Snake and the Velaryon fleet, carrying Aemon to Tarth ahead of the ships. Lord Cameron, the Evenstar, had withdrawn into the mountain spine running down the island’s center and established a camp in a hidden valley, from which he could observe the Myrish movements below. Aemon met him there, and the two planned their response. The camp’s concealment proved incomplete: smoke from Caraxes’s fires attracted two Myrish scouts moving through the heights.

The Battle and Aemon’s Death

At dusk, one scout recognized Lord Cameron walking through the camp with Aemon. The scout hid behind rocks and prepared his crossbow, aiming from roughly a hundred yards away at the Evenstar. Dusk and distance made the shot uncertain. The bolt missed Cameron and struck Aemon, who was standing beside him. The prince died at the camp, before he could return to the fleet or see his family again.

The attack’s outcome turned on the difference between its intended target and its actual victim. The Myrish scout had aimed at the Evenstar, but the prince beside him was killed instead. The episode thus abruptly altered the meaning of the campaign: the force sent to restore Tarth’s security had suffered a dynastic loss, even as the military operation continued. Aemon was thirty-seven years old, and his final moments were marked by his struggle to speak.

Defeat of the Myrish and Aftermath

Aemon’s death was followed by a forceful counterattack. Prince Baelon Targaryen came to Tarth on Vhagar seeking vengeance. The Myrish ships were burned, while Lord Cameron and Lord Boremund descended from the mountains against the invaders. With their ships aflame and the land forces closing in, the Myrish had no route of escape. Thousands were killed, and their bodies were left along the beaches. The scale of the defeat turned the anticipated operation against a weak enemy into a destructive reckoning for the invading force.

Baelon took part in the slaughter with Dark Sister. When he returned to King’s Landing with his brother’s body, the smallfolk hailed him in the streets as a hero. Yet the public acclaim did not restore what the campaign had cost his family: on seeing his mother, Queen Alysanne, he wept, and his words made plain that vengeance could not bring Aemon back. The account places the celebration of military success beside private grief, refusing to treat the Myrish defeat as a simple triumph. Tarth was the scene of both the invasion’s collapse and a loss that remained with the royal family long after the fighting ended.