the Lads

The Lads were Kermit Tully, Oscar Tully, and Benjicot Blackwood, three young Riverlands leaders whose battlefield alliance briefly made them the most visible political force in King’s Landing after Aegon II’s death. Their rise joined youthful ambition to hard-won military authority, but their first triumph proved provisional: Cregan Stark’s arrival exposed how little their victory had settled and forced them to reconsider whether peace had truly come.

Identity and Background

The name referred collectively to Lord Kermit Tully of Riverrun, his brother Ser Oscar Tully, and Lord Benjicot Blackwood of Raventree. They were not the oldest or wisest figures among the host that reached King’s Landing. Their distinction was that battle had made them inseparable and, in the wake of the Muddy Mess, its undoubted leaders. Their men began calling them the Lads, turning their youth into a shared identity as well as a measure of how unexpectedly they had come to command.

Kermit was nineteen and nominally commanded the Riverlands host as its liege lord. The account presents him as inexperienced, a young ruler still untested by the responsibilities his title carried. That inexperience mattered in a region where House Tully’s formal rank did not guarantee dominance over its bannermen. The Brackens, Blackwoods, and Vances could command broader lands and larger forces; the Freys were rising in power; the Mallisters had a prouder lineage, and the Mootons greater wealth. Even ruined Harrenhal surpassed Riverrun in scale. Kermit thus led from a position of inherited authority that could be challenged by the very lords he was expected to unite.

Oscar’s battlefield reputation was more immediate. During the Muddy Mess he killed three men and was knighted on the field. He was younger in experience than his elder brother and described as especially proud and prickly, a quality associated with his position as a second son. The contrast between the brothers was not simply ruler and warrior: both were young, but Oscar’s standing had been won in combat, while Kermit had to make his lordship effective among fractious allies.

Benjicot, known to his men as Bloody Ben, was only thirteen. Lordship had fallen to him after his father, Samwell Blackwood, was killed by Amos Bracken at the Battle of the Burning Mill. Despite his age, Benjicot refused to leave authority in the hands of older men. His record already included grief at the many dead at the Fishfeed, followed by an unwillingness to shrink from later fighting. His men helped drive Criston Cole from Harrenhal by pursuing his foragers; Benjicot commanded the center at the Second Battle of Tumbleton; and at the Muddy Mess he led the flank attack from the woods that broke Borros Baratheon’s stormlanders.

From Battlefield Alliance to Political Leadership

The Lads’ authority came from the succession of actions behind their victory, not merely from their titles. Benjicot’s command at the Muddy Mess and Oscar’s fighting there gave the group a conspicuous martial foundation, while Kermit’s position placed him at the head of the Riverlands. Although older lords and renowned knights accompanied the host, the three youths had become its recognized leaders through shared battle. Their collective name registered both their closeness and the surprise of seeing boys occupy the center of power.

In 131 AC, the Riverlands host marched on King’s Landing after its victory over Aegon II’s last army at the Battle of the Kingsroad. The expectation had been that the city might need to be besieged or taken by force. Instead, Corlys Velaryon and the young Aegon met the arriving army beneath a peace banner and yielded the city. The Lads and their allies learned that Aegon II was dead. The news brought relief and celebration, but Benjicot and his aunt Alysanne Blackwood were troubled by the manner of the king’s death: poison, in their view, was dishonorable and cowardly. The response shows that their welcome for a new king did not erase their concern about the means by which the old one had died.

As the Riverlands lords rode into the city, the smallfolk cheered from rooftops and balconies, and the gold cloaks lowered their spears. In the Red Keep, the Lads saw Aegon II’s body lying beneath the Iron Throne, with Queen Alicent mourning beside it. Those circumstances placed them inside a swift transfer of power: the army that had expected to fight was now greeted as a deliverer, and its leaders were among those who bent the knee to Aegon III. Their ascent was real, but it took place amid unresolved questions about the dead king and the political settlement that would follow.

Cregan Stark’s Challenge

The celebration that followed was short. Grand Maester Munkun named the period the False Dawn; when Cregan Stark arrived with his northmen, the feasting and optimistic plans collapsed. Though only a few years older than the Lads, Cregan was perceived as a man among boys. The Lads, who had commanded armies and helped receive the capital, shrank in his presence. The difference was political as well as personal: their recent victory had encouraged them to think the war was ending, while Cregan had come to fulfill a pledge made to Prince Jacaerys two years earlier, despite the deaths of Jacaerys and his mother, Rhaenyra.

Cregan challenged the Lads’ confidence directly. He rebuked them for allowing feasts, flowers, and assurances to persuade them that the conflict was finished. Oldtown had not yielded, Casterly Rock had not returned the Crown’s gold, and Princess Jaehaera remained at Storm’s End, where she might still be crowned queen by Borros Baratheon’s widow. Kermit argued that the stormlanders had been beaten and could not raise another army. Cregan answered that Aegon II had sent three envoys across the Narrow Sea, any of whom might return with sellswords. He invoked the earlier false endings of the war: Rhaenyra had thought herself victorious after taking King’s Landing, and Aegon II had thought he had ended the struggle by feeding his sister to a dragon. Neither expectation had held.

Overmatched by Cregan’s argument and authority, the Lads agreed to join their forces to his for a march against Storm’s End. The sources differ on what persuaded them. Munkun presents them as convinced that Cregan was right and eager for the glory that further fighting could bring. Mushroom instead suggests that fear of Cregan cowed them. Both accounts leave the same outcome: the young leaders who had helped turn a battlefield victory into the peaceful entry into King’s Landing now yielded to an older, more forceful commander and accepted that the war’s conclusion remained uncertain.

Narrative Role and Significance

The Lads embody the unstable passage from military success to political settlement. Their youth did not make their leadership fictitious: Benjicot had commanded men through several battles, Oscar had earned his knighthood in the Muddy Mess, and Kermit bore the formal authority of Lord of Riverrun. Yet the city’s welcome and Aegon II’s death could not by themselves settle the realm’s loyalties. Cregan’s questions made the difference between winning a decisive encounter and ending a war impossible to ignore.

Their collective identity also makes age a measure of both possibility and vulnerability. The Lads had become inseparable through battle and were recognized as leaders even among older and more celebrated figures. In King’s Landing, however, Cregan’s presence restored their sense of how young they were. Their story at this point is not a completed rise or a final defeat: it is a sharp reversal, from celebrated victors and kingmakers to juniors compelled to reassess their judgment and follow a new campaign.