The Kingsroad was a route by which armies approached King’s Landing and, during the Dance of the Dragons, became the site of the war’s last major battle. Its passage between a wood and a low hill shaped the fighting: there, in rain-softened ground, Kermit Tully’s riverlords broke Borros Baratheon’s advance and ended the last field army supporting Aegon II.

A Route Toward King’s Landing

The road carried forces from the Riverlands toward the capital. After Elmo Tully called his banners at Riverrun, nearly six thousand men gathered; following Elmo’s death on the march, his son Kermit led them down the Kingsroad. They were six days from King’s Landing when Borros brought his stormlanders out to meet them.

The fighting took place two days from the city, where the road ran between a wood and a low hill. Heavy rain had left the grass wet and the ground muddy. The location offered the riverlords a strong position: their shield wall held the road, archers occupied the hill, and additional fighters could emerge from the wood.

The Battle of the Kingsroad

Borros attacked near dusk, confident that the force before him was led by inexperienced young men and women. He charged in a wedge of knights along the road, with foot soldiers following beneath Aegon II’s golden dragon banner. The riverlords’ archers shot down many of the attacking horses before the riders reached the shield wall; the surviving charge arrived disordered, its horses struggling in the mud.

The stormlanders pressed hard enough to make the shield wall falter, but fresh riverlords filled the gaps. Then hundreds more poured from the wood under Benjicot Blackwood, whose leadership in the fighting earned him the name Bloody Ben. The Citadel called the engagement the Battle of the Kingsroad; those who fought there called it the Muddy Mess.

Defeat and Aftermath

When Borros sounded his warhorn to bring up his reserve, his allies did not answer as he expected. Men from Rosby, Stokeworth, and Hayford stood aside; the armed rabble from King’s Landing scattered, while the knights of Duskendale changed sides and attacked the stormlanders from behind. The army supporting Aegon II collapsed into a rout.

Borros was killed fighting on foot after his horse fell. Kermit Tully called on him to yield, but Borros refused and charged instead. His death on the muddy Kingsroad marked the defeat of Aegon II’s last army and left the approach to King’s Landing exposed to the victorious riverlords and their allies.

The Road in the City’s Unrest

The Kingsroad also became a route out of the capital during the disorder of Rhaenyra’s rule. After Wat the Tanner’s followers overwhelmed the defenders at the Gate of the Gods, they streamed into the countryside up the road. By then three of King’s Landing’s seven gates had been opened to the queen’s enemies. The road thus figures both as an approach along which armies came to threaten the city and as an outlet through which an uprising spilled beyond its walls.