Chapter 14: The Shattered Board
The silence in the throne room was the silence of a mass grave. It was thick with the coppery scent of blood and the thin, sharp smell of ozone. The great dragon skulls stared down with hollow indifference at the tableau of carnage Thor had wrought, their ancient malice finding a fresh echo in the present. The game of thrones was a subtle, intricate dance of whispers, lies, and hidden daggers. Thor had just smashed the dance floor with a war axe from another universe.
In the center of the devastation stood Thor, the blood of two dozen men dripping from the head of Stormbreaker. His breathing was heavy, the adrenaline of combat slowly receding, leaving behind the cold, hard reality of his actions. He was no stranger to battle, no stranger to killing. But this was different. This was not a war against frost giants or alien invaders. This was the slaughter of mortal men, soldiers who, moments ago, had been following the orders of their queen. He felt no remorse, only a grim, weary certainty that it had been necessary. He had saved Eddard Stark. That was the only thing that mattered.
Across the blood-slicked floor, the lions were in disarray. Joffrey was a blubbering, whimpering wreck, his fine clothes stained with flecks of blood that were not his own. Cersei, her face a mask of chalky terror, held her son, her own body trembling. The serene, confident queen had been stripped away, leaving a raw, terrified woman in her place. But it was Jaime Lannister who held Thor's attention. The Kingslayer stood before his sister and nephew, his golden sword held in a low, defensive guard. His face was pale, but his eyes, those sharp, intelligent green eyes, were filled not just with fear, but with a warrior's profound, analytical shock. He was calculating the impossible odds, assessing the power he had just witnessed, and he knew. He knew that if Thor chose to, he and everyone he was protecting would be dead before he could even complete a lunge.
It was Ned Stark, his own face ashen, who finally broke the spell. His northern honor, though battered and horrified by the violence, reasserted itself. He stepped forward, his boots squelching in the blood, the King's will still clutched in his hand like a useless prayer.
"It is over, Your Grace," Ned said, his voice hoarse but firm, addressing Cersei. "By the will of King Robert, I am Protector of the Realm. You and your children will be treated with all the honor due your station, but you will yield the throne."
A hysterical laugh, thin and reedy, escaped Cersei's lips. "Yield?" she hissed, her terror beginning to curdle into a venomous rage. "You butcher my guards, you terrorize my son, and you demand I yield? You have proven yourself a traitor and a demon-worshipper, Stark! No one will recognize your authority now!"
"She is right," Jaime said, his voice a low, tense rasp. He did not take his eyes off Thor. "You have shown your hand, Stark. And it is a bloody one. What now? Will your pet monster kill us all? A woman and a child? Will you add kinslaying to your list of treasonous crimes?" He was goading them, testing their limits, trying to find the rules of this new, terrifying game.
Ned was trapped. He had won the physical confrontation in the most brutal way imaginable, but in doing so, he had lost the political war. Cersei was right. He could not simply butcher the royal family. He was a man of law. But he also could not let them go.
Thor saw the dilemma clearly. They held the room, but they did not hold the castle. They were an island of victory in an ocean of enemies. "We leave," he rumbled, his voice cutting through the tension. "Now."
"Leave?" Ned asked, bewildered. "We hold the throne room!"
"We hold a butcher's shop filled with witnesses," Thor corrected him. "We do not hold the Red Keep. We do not hold the city. We retreat to the Tower, we secure your children, and we make a fortress of our own." It was a sound tactical assessment, born of a millennium of warfare. You take the high ground, you consolidate your forces, and you force the enemy to come to you.
The logic, as stark and brutal as the scene around them, was undeniable. Ned gave a sharp nod to his surviving guardsmen, their faces a mixture of terror and awe. "Vayon, see to my daughters. Bar the doors to my chambers. Allow no one in or out. Hullen, with me."
"And them?" Hullen asked, gesturing with his sword towards the Lannisters.
"We let them go," Thor said, before Ned could answer. "They are worth more to us alive as hostages in this castle than they are as martyrs. Let the lioness run back to her den. She will be too afraid to bite, for now."
He took a step back, keeping his body between the Starks and the Lannisters. He was creating a corridor of retreat. Jaime watched him, his knuckles white on his sword hilt, but he did not move to stop them. He knew it was a bluff. He knew that Thor could close the distance and kill them all in the blink of an eye. But he also knew that for some reason, he was choosing not to.
Ned, his face a mask of misery, gave one last look at the Iron Throne, the symbol of the power he had tried, and failed, to claim honorably. Then he turned his back on it and, surrounded by his men and shadowed by his monstrous protector, they made their strategic withdrawal from the field of their bloody victory.
Their retreat through the Red Keep was an eerie, surreal journey. The news of the massacre had already spread through the castle's invisible network of servants and spies. Corridors that were usually bustling with courtiers were now empty. Faces peeked from behind tapestries and doorways, their eyes wide with fear, before vanishing. The entire castle was holding its breath.
They reached the Tower of the Hand without incident. The guards Ned had posted there were pale but loyal. Inside, they found Arya and Sansa, white-faced and terrified. Arya, upon seeing her father safe, ran to him, but her eyes were fixed on Thor, on the blood that spattered his clothes and face. Her expression was not one of fear, but of fierce, terrible pride. Sansa, however, let out a small, choked sob and shrank away, looking at Thor as if he were the Stranger himself, death made manifest.
"Barricade the doors," Ned commanded, his voice shaking with reaction. "Break up the furniture if you have to. Stock what water and food we have. We are under siege."
As his men scrambled to obey, turning the Hand's luxurious quarters into a makeshift fortress, Ned finally rounded on Thor. The two men stood in the center of the solar, the sounds of hammering and shouting echoing around them. The Lord of Winterfell, the man of honor, looked at the God of Thunder, the man of brutal necessity, and the gulf between their two natures had never been wider.
"What have you done?" Ned whispered, his voice trembling with a horrified rage. "Gods, what have you done?"
"I saved your life," Thor stated, his voice flat. "They were going to kill you. All of you. And I stopped them."
"You slaughtered them!" Ned's voice rose, his control finally snapping. "They were men of the City Watch! They were following their commander's orders! You butchered them like animals!"
"They were soldiers following an illegal order to murder the lawful Protector of the Realm," Thor countered, his own patience wearing thin. "In my world, that is called treason. And the penalty for treason is death. I was simply… efficient."
"This is not your world!" Ned roared, jabbing a finger at Thor's chest. "There are laws here! Rules! You cannot just… cut down anyone who stands in your way! I had the King's will! I had the authority!"
"Your authority is a piece of paper," Thor shot back, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Their authority comes from the points of their spears. I chose to respect the authority that was trying to kill you less than I respected my duty to protect you. You brought me to this pit of vipers, Lord Stark. Did you truly expect me to let them bite you?"
The raw, undeniable truth of Thor's words struck Ned like a physical blow. He had been a fool. He had brought a northern wolf's honor to a southern snake pit, and he had nearly gotten himself and everyone he loved killed for it. He had relied on laws and words, while his enemies had relied on betrayal and steel. And the only reason he was still breathing was because his monster, his pet god, had understood the rules of the game better than he did.
He sank into a chair, his head in his hands, the full weight of his failure crashing down upon him. "Gods forgive me," he muttered. "What have I brought upon us all?"
Meanwhile, in the royal apartments, a different kind of war council was taking place. Cersei, her terror having sublimated into a cold, diamond-hard fury, paced before the hearth. Jaime stood by the window, staring down at the city, his mind replaying the impossible scene in the throne room over and over. Grand Maester Pycelle wrung his hands, mumbling about demons and portents, while a shaken, but composed, Petyr Baelish watched them all with his clever, mocking eyes.
"We are trapped," Jaime said, his voice flat. "We are trapped in our own castle with a demon that can kill us all with a twitch of his axe."
"He is not a demon, he is a man!" Cersei spat, though her voice lacked conviction. "A large man, a strong man, but a man nonetheless. He can be killed."
"Can he?" Jaime countered, turning from the window. "I saw him, Cersei. I saw the way he moved. I saw what his axe did to armored men. That was not the strength of a man. I am the greatest swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms, and I tell you now, if I had faced him, I would be a bloody smear on the floor of the throne room. We cannot fight him."
"Then what are we to do?" she demanded. "Allow the northern savage and his monster to hold us hostage? To declare my son a bastard and place Stannis on the throne?"
"Our immediate concern is containment," Littlefinger said smoothly, stepping into the breach. "Lord Stark and his… associate… have fortified the Tower of the Hand. They have two of your children, Your Grace," he added, a subtle reminder to Ned of his own hostages. "They will not be able to hold out for long. They have little food, little water. A siege."
"A siege?" Cersei scoffed. "While they sit in there with a creature that can tear down walls with his bare hands? We need an army. My father's army."
"A raven has already been sent to Casterly Rock," Pycelle mumbled. "Lord Tywin will come. He will restore order."
"By the time my father arrives, Stark and his demon could have taken the entire city," Jaime pointed out. "The City Watch is broken. Their commander is a sniveling coward, and half his men are dead or have deserted. The castle guard is wavering. No one wants to be the next man to face the Thunderer."
"Then we must use other weapons," Varys said, appearing in the doorway as if summoned from the shadows themselves. He glided into the room, his hands tucked into his sleeves. "The monster saved Lord Stark because he is loyal to him. A bond of honor, perhaps. Or a debt. Such bonds can be… strained."
"What are you suggesting, Spider?" Cersei asked, her eyes narrowing.
"I am suggesting that the people of this city are now terrified," Varys purred. "The story of what happened in the throne room is already spreading through every tavern and brothel. It grows with each telling. They say the Hand's northern demon is ten feet tall, breathes fire, and eats the hearts of his enemies. Fear is a powerful weapon, Your Grace. We must use it. We will paint Lord Stark not as a traitor, but as the keeper of a monster he cannot control. A man who has unleashed a plague upon our city. We turn the people against him. A monster cannot fight an entire city."
The cunning of the plan was undeniable. They would isolate Ned, turn public opinion, and make his position untenable. They would use whispers and lies, the weapons they truly excelled at.
As night fell, King's Landing was a city on a knife's edge. The usual chaos of the streets had been replaced by an eerie, fearful quiet. People stayed in their homes, barring their doors. The gold cloaks were nowhere to be seen. Rumors flew like carrion crows, each one more terrifying than the last. They said a war between the gods had begun, and the Red Keep was the battlefield.
And in the Tower of the Hand, now a grim, silent fortress, Eddard Stark stared out at the city he had come to rule and now found himself besieged within. He could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of metal on whetstone from the adjoining room. It was Thor, sitting in the dark, sharpening Stormbreaker. It was a calm, meditative, and utterly terrifying sound. It was the sound of a storm gathering its strength.
Ned knew, with a certainty that chilled him to his soul, that the game of thrones he had been forced to play was over. The board had been shattered. The pieces were scattered. And something far older, far more powerful, and far more dangerous had just made its first move. The whispers of the court were being drowned out by the low, rumbling promise of thunder.