The Lannister camps ringing Riverrun, on both banks of the Tumblestone.
Who fought
Robb Stark's northern host and a sortie from Riverrun's garrison against the leaderless Lannister army left besieging the castle
Outcome
The leaderless Lannister army besieging Riverrun was destroyed in a coordinated night assault by Robb Stark, Brynden Tully, and a sortie from Riverrun itself; the siege was broken and Edmure Tully, held captive since an earlier defeat, was freed.
An army that had just lost its commander in the dark found the dark was not finished with it — the siege it had come to win did not survive the same night.
Commanders
Robb Stark
Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish
Lord Tytos Blackwood (sortie from Riverrun)
What happened
The ambush at the Whispering Wood did not end the fighting around Riverrun; it merely left the army still besieging the castle without the commander who had led it there. What followed within the same span of dark hours finished what the ambush had started.
The chronicle holds the particulars of that second reckoning back for readers who have not yet reached this stage of the war. It is enough to note that the siege of Riverrun did not survive the night, and that a captive held within the castle's walls did not remain one much longer.
The Battle of the Camps in the novels
This carries how the battle plays out in the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
Word of Jaime Lannister's capture in the Whispering Wood had not yet reached the three Lannister camps still ringing Riverrun's walls when Robb Stark turned his victorious host directly against them, without pausing to savor the ambush that had won him his prize. The besiegers, still divided as their own siege lines required and blind without the scouts Robb's night attack had already scythed away, had no warning that the man who led them was already a captive in a Stark camp.
Ser Brynden Tully — the Blackfish, architect of the ambush that had just taken Jaime — led the assault on the northern camp himself, clearing its palisades before the garrison inside had properly woken. Robb led armored horse against the camp between the rivers, breaking a hastily formed shield-wall with a charge that Lord Tytos Blackwood's own sortie from Riverrun's gates took in the rear; a third camp's attempt to escape by raft across the Tumblestone ended with Riverrun's defenders sinking half of them with thrown stones before they reached the far bank.
By dawn the army that had besieged Riverrun for weeks no longer existed as a fighting force, and Edmure Tully — captured by Jaime earlier in the campaign and held prisoner through the siege — walked free from a captivity his own castle's relief had ended. Robb Stark had won two victories in a single night where his father's bannermen had hoped, at best, for one hard-fought rescue.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
SourcesACOK · CatelynTWOIAF · The War of the Five Kings
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Commanders
Houses in the field
Elsewhere in this war
What was The Battle of the Camps?
An army that had just lost its commander in the dark found the dark was not finished with it — the siege it had come to win did not survive the same night.
Is The Battle of the Camps from the books or the show?
Book canon. This entry follows George R. R. Martin's novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.