Second Dornish War

The Second Dornish War was the campaign against the Vulture King, a rebel leader whose rising drew a vast following through the Red Mountains and into the Reach. It ended with the destruction of his divided forces and his own death in captivity. The name suggests a war between the Iron Throne and Dorne, but the account complicates that description: Princess Deria Martell publicly disavowed the rebellion, and no Dornish lords fought in its campaigns.

Origins and a disputed war

The Vulture King emerged in the Red Mountains amid the unrest that followed King Aenys’s return to King’s Landing. He called on Dornishmen to avenge the harms inflicted on Dorne by the Targaryens. Princess Deria Martell denounced him and declared that she and her loyal subjects wanted peace, yet thousands joined his cause, descending from the hills and crossing through mountain goat tracks into the Reach. Whether Deria secretly sent the rebels men, money, or supplies was rumored but never established.

At first, the Vulture King’s followers were dismissed by Lord Harmon Dondarrion as a disorderly rabble. That judgment proved dangerously complacent: the rebels stormed Blackhaven, mutilated Dondarrion, burned his castle, and withdrew. By the time the conflict reached its greatest scale, the force included hundreds of Dornish knights and several thousand experienced spearmen, while its broader following had swollen to more than thirty thousand. The account calls the conflict the Second Dornish War, but also notes that the supposed war was something of a misnomer: no Dornish lords took the field, and Deria continued to denounce the rebel leader until his death.

The rebel host divides

The Vulture King’s growing army posed its greatest threat along the Dornish Marches. Its size encouraged a consequential division of forces: he led one half west against Nightsong and Horn Hill, while the other marched east to besiege Stonehelm, the seat of House Swann. The eastern force was commanded by Lord Walter Wyl, son of Wyl of Wyl, the mountain lord who had once captured Orys Baratheon.

The choice to divide the host exposed both halves to separate defeats. Orys Baratheon, now known as Orys One-Hand, rode from Storm’s End for one final campaign against the force at Stonehelm. His earlier capture during the First Dornish War gave the encounter a personal history: Wyl of Wyl had taken his hand, and Orys now faced the captor’s son. When Walter Wyl was brought to him wounded but alive, Orys took his hands and feet in repayment. Orys himself died on the march back to Storm’s End from wounds sustained in the battle.

The Vulture Hunt

The western force failed to capture Nightsong. As the Vulture King abandoned the siege and marched west, Lady Caron attacked from behind and joined forces with Lord Harmon Dondarrion, while Lord Samwell Tarly of Horn Hill appeared across the rebels’ route with knights and archers. The Vulture King still had twice as many men as his three opponents combined, but numbers could not overcome the difference in discipline and position. His untrained ranks broke when attacked from front and rear; the fleeing rebels were pursued and cut down in the rout remembered as the Vulture Hunt.

The Vulture King was captured alive by Samwell Tarly and bound outdoors between two posts. Later singers claimed that the vultures from which he took his title tore him apart. The account rejects that version: he died of thirst and exposure, and the birds arrived only after his death. His end is generally treated as the close of the Second Dornish War, even though the distinction between the rebel leader’s campaign and a war against Dorne itself remains important.

Ending and legacy

The Vulture King’s defeat ended the first rising under that title, but not the title’s later use. In subsequent years, other men called themselves Vulture King; whether any shared the first rebel’s blood was unknown. The name therefore outlasted the campaign that made it famous, while the uncertainty surrounding Deria’s alleged support and the absence of Dornish lords in the fighting left the war’s political character unsettled.