In 258 AC nine outlaws, exiles, pirate lords, and sellsword captains met in the Stepstones beneath a tree remembered afterward as the Tree of Crowns and swore to help each other carve out a kingdom apiece. Among them stood Maelys Blackfyre, called the Monstrous for a vestigial second head grown from an absorbed twin, who had lately made himself captain-general of the Golden Company by the simple expedient of killing his own cousin.
The Band overran the Disputed Lands, sacked Tyrosh and raised up the tyrant Alequo Adarys, then seized the Stepstones themselves with little real resistance — enough success, in the end, to draw the Seven Kingdoms into the conflict the chronicle records as the War of the Ninepenny Kings.
The alliance's ambition outran its unity. A single Westerosi campaign broke the Band's hold on the Stepstones, and Maelys himself fell before the Golden Company's own lines to a young Barristan Selmy in single combat. Of nine crowned ambitions sworn beneath one tree, this chronicle can report that not a single one survived the war that made the Band of Nine's name.