Balon Byrch

Balon Byrch is a captain of the gold cloaks who is entrusted with command of the city watch during the turmoil in King’s Landing. His appearances connect two stages of the city’s collapse: an effort to restore order in its streets and the dangerous retreat of Rhaenyra Targaryen from the capital.

Identity and Command

Balon is identified as the captain at the Iron Gate. In the aftermath of the fighting in Flea Bottom, Rhaenyra gives him command of the gold cloaks, placing the city’s remaining watchmen under a named leader as lawless groups move through the streets and the surviving guards have retreated to their barracks.

Restoring Order in the City

By dawn, fires burn across King’s Landing, Cobbler’s Square is strewn with the dead, and shops and homes in Flea Bottom are being plundered. Balon and Ser Garth the Harelip lead the gold cloaks stationed at the Old Gate and the Dragon Gate in a sortie. By midday, they have helped restore some semblance of order in the streets north and east of Rhaenys’s Hill. Their success is limited to part of the city, but it stands against the wider breakdown of authority.

Flight from King’s Landing

Later, Balon accompanies Rhaenyra as she flees toward Duskendale. Her party is weakened when half of its gold cloaks desert on the road. During a night attack on the camp, the queen’s knights repel the attackers, but Balon is struck by an arrow. The account then follows Rhaenyra onward toward Duskendale, leaving Balon’s subsequent fate unstated in these passages.