The Battle of the Great Fork was a savage victory for King Maegor over a formidable army raised in response to the High Septon’s call. The Faithful brought thousands of Poor Fellows, Warrior’s Sons, and rebel lords’ forces to the Blackwater; Maegor answered with a host of comparable size, more armored cavalry, longbowmen, and Balerion. The battle ended with the Faithful fleeing, while their captured leader, Wat the Hewer, was carried in chains to King’s Landing.

Causes and Forces

The battle formed part of the conflict between Maegor and the Faith Militant. By the time Ser Horys Hill reached the Great Fork of the Blackwater, an even larger host had gathered than the force Wat the Hewer had led at Stonebridge. The army included close to thirteen thousand Poor Fellows, reinforced by two hundred mounted Warrior’s Sons from Stoney Sept and household knights and feudal levies from a dozen rebel lords in the westerlands and riverlands. Its total strength was put at twenty thousand.

The Faithful’s leaders included Lord Rupert Falwell, known as the Fighting Fool, Ser Lyonel Lorch, Ser Alyn Terrick, Lord Tristifer Wayn, and Lord Jon Lychester. They faced a royal army of similar size. Maegor’s advantage lay in its greater number of armored horse—almost twice that of the opposing host—and a large contingent of longbowmen. The king himself rode Balerion, making the dragon a conspicuous part of the royal force.

Course of the Battle

The fighting was savage rather than an easy royal triumph. The Fighting Fool killed two Kingsguard before the Lord of Maidenpool killed him. On Maegor’s side, Big Jon Hogg was blinded early in the battle, but rallied his men and led a charge that broke through the Faithful’s lines, sending the Poor Fellows into retreat.

Rain complicated the use of the king’s greatest weapon. It dampened Balerion’s flames without extinguishing them, and Maegor descended repeatedly to attack his enemies with fire amid the smoke and confusion. The dragon’s power helped shape the fight, but victory came through the combined pressure of the royal forces: Hogg’s charge broke the lines, while the Faithful’s remaining fighters eventually abandoned the field.

Outcome and Aftermath

By nightfall, the surviving Poor Fellows had thrown down their axes and scattered in every direction. Maegor returned triumphantly to King’s Landing and resumed his seat on the Iron Throne. Wat the Hewer, captured after the earlier fighting at Stonebridge and brought to the capital in chains, remained defiant. Maegor ordered that Wat be kept alive to attend his wedding, turning the captive leader into a forced witness to the king’s next public act.

The battle thus brought the Faithful’s army at the Great Fork to flight, but its aftermath also displayed the harsh terms of Maegor’s victory. Military defeat did not lead to reconciliation: the captured Wat was kept alive at the king’s command, and Maegor’s return to the throne was followed by the announcement of his marriage to Tyanna of Pentos. The battlefield outcome and the spectacle that followed belong to the same pattern of rule—royal force asserted not only in combat, but before the court and its prisoners.