Chapter 13: The Lion, the Wolf, and the Storm
The end began with a hunt. It was a foregone conclusion, a tragedy written in a wineskin. King Robert, chafing under the tedious weight of ruling, announced his intention to hunt a great white hart that had been sighted in the Kingswood. Ned, his face etched with a grim foreboding, argued against it. He knew it was a fool's errand, an excuse for the King to escape into the only thing that still brought him joy: the prospect of violence and drink.
"The council has urgent matters to discuss, Your Grace," Ned had insisted in the King's chambers, his voice tight with a frustration that was becoming his permanent state of being. Thor stood behind him, a silent mountain of disapproval. He could smell the sourness of Robert's day-long binge, but there was something else, a sweeter, cloying note in the new wineskin that a young, nervous squire—a Lannister boy, Thor noted—had just provided. It was a treacly, fortified vintage, far stronger than even the King was accustomed to.
"Urgent matters can wait!" Robert had roared, his good mood impenetrable. "The realm will still be here when I return, Ned! And I will return with a stag's head for my wall and a belly full of boar! You worry too much. Live a little!" He clapped Ned on the shoulder, then his gaze fell upon Thor. "You should come, Thunderer! A man of your size must have a hunter's blood!"
"I do not hunt for sport," Thor replied, his voice a low rumble. His eyes lingered on the smiling Lannister squire. The boy could not meet his gaze.
"Suit yourself! More glory for me!" Robert bellowed with a laugh, and with his brothers Renly and a retinue of Lannister men, he was gone, a loud, doomed procession riding out to meet its fate.
Ned was left in a state of agitated paralysis. He knew something was wrong. Varys's words about strong seeds and Robert's bastards had taken root in his mind, and he had finally put the pieces together. With Littlefinger's help, he had found the great genealogical tome from the castle library. He had seen the truth written in the long history of the Baratheons, in their unbroken line of black-haired, blue-eyed children. And he had seen the golden-haired exceptions: Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen. The truth was a brand of hot iron in his mind: the royal children were not Robert's. They were Jaime and Cersei's. They were abominations born of incest.
The King was in the forest, hunting a stag, while the true prey, the lions, were in his den, poised to strike. Ned, ever the man of honor, decided he could not act without first confronting the Queen. He would give her a chance to flee with her children, to escape the righteous, bloody fury he knew Robert would unleash upon his return. It was a merciful, honorable, and profoundly foolish decision. He was showing his hand to a player who had never known the meaning of mercy.
Thor listened as Ned laid out his plan. "You will show the lioness your throat before you strike?" Thor questioned, his voice laced with a disbelief that bordered on contempt. "She will not flee. She will rip it out."
"She is still a mother," Ned insisted, clinging to a notion of decency that did not exist in this city. "She will want to protect her children."
"She will protect her power," Thor corrected him. "It is the only child she has ever truly loved."
Their debate was rendered moot two days later. A cry went up through the Red Keep, a sound of panic and chaos. The hunting party was returning, not in triumph, but in bloody disarray. Thor and Ned rushed to the courtyard to see King Robert being carried in a litter, his face pale and sweaty, his massive gut swathed in blood-soaked bandages. A great, tusked boar, Robert's prize, was strapped to a mule, but the beast had clearly had the last word.
They followed the litter to the King's bedchamber, the air already thick with the smell of blood, fear, and Maester Pycelle's milk of the poppy. The wound was horrific. The boar's tusk had ripped Robert's belly open, his insides a mangled ruin. Pycelle, his hands trembling, was doing little more than making the King comfortable as he died.
Robert, his voice a hoarse whisper, waved everyone away but Ned. Thor, however, did not move from his position by the door. His presence was a silent, unassailable fact, and no one, not even the dying King, had the strength to challenge it.
"They… they gave me the strong wine, Ned," Robert rasped, a moment of terrible clarity in his pain-filled eyes. "The Lannister boy… I was drunk. Too slow." He coughed, a wet, bloody sound. "My own damned fault. Always the fool."
He looked at his old friend, his eyes filled with a lifetime of regret. "That throne… it was never meant for me. I was made for a battlefield, not a council chamber." He gripped Ned's hand, his strength failing. "You must rule them, Ned. You must be the King now."
"You have sons, Robert…" Ned began, but the King shook his head, a grimace of pain on his face.
"Joffrey? That cruel, weak boy? He would be the death of us all." Robert's breath was coming in shallow gasps now. "You will be Protector of the Realm. You will rule until my heir comes of age. Write it down. Your words. I will sign it."
Ned, his heart breaking for his friend, took the parchment Pycelle provided. But he did not write 'my heir'. He wrote 'the rightful heir'. A small, honorable change that would seal his own fate. Robert, his vision blurring, signed the decree with a shaky hand, his royal seal pressed into the wax. His last act as King was to give away his kingdom.
"Keep them safe, Ned," Robert whispered, his voice fading. "My children…" He did not know the truth of their parentage, and Ned, in a final act of mercy, did not tell him. A few hours later, as the sun set over the city, King Robert Baratheon, the Demon of the Trident, died, not in a blaze of glory on a battlefield, but in a sweat-soaked bed, his reign ending with the whimper of a burst gut.
The moment Robert's last breath left his body, the game began in earnest. The palace was a hive of frantic, whispered activity. Lord Renly, seeing that Ned intended to pass the crown to the dour, unpopular Stannis Baratheon instead of himself, fled the city with Ser Loras Tyrell and a hundred swords. Littlefinger appeared at Ned's side, his face a mask of solemn concern, pledging the support of the City Watch.
"The Queen will move quickly to install Joffrey," the Master of Coin advised. "We must move quicker. We must seize the royal children and secure the throne room. The man who holds the throne when the sun rises, holds the kingdom. The City Watch is yours, Lord Hand. Two thousand men."
Ned, trusting the word of a man he had been warned not to, agreed. His plan was simple and direct, the strategy of an honorable man who believed in laws and decrees. He would go to the throne room, with the King's last will in hand, and declare for Stannis. The City Watch would secure the room, and the Queen, faced with the King's own words and the armed might of the city, would have no choice but to yield.
Thor listened to the plan with a growing sense of dread. "It is a trap," he said, his voice a low growl. "You are walking into the lion's den, holding a piece of paper as your shield."
"It is the King's own decree," Ned insisted, his honor his armor. "And I will have two thousand men at my back."
"You will have two thousand reasons to regret this day," Thor replied. But he saw the resolve in Ned's eyes. The Hand would not be swayed. "Then I will be at your side."
"No," Ned said. "This is a matter for the laws of men. Your presence would only complicate things."
A cold, hard look entered Thor's eyes. "I was commanded by your King to be your companion. He is dead. I am now commanded by my own conscience. You are the only honorable man I have met in this wretched city. I will not let you walk to your own execution alone. I am going with you." His tone left no room for argument.
They walked to the throne room, Ned flanked by a handful of his loyal Stark guardsmen, and Thor, a silent, grim shadow at his shoulder. Stormbreaker, for the first time since their arrival, was un Fwrapped, its dark Uru head gleaming menacingly in the torchlight.
They found the court already assembled. Prince Joffrey, dressed in black and crimson, stood before the Iron Throne, a smug, eager look on his face. His mother, Queen Cersei, stood beside him, her expression one of triumphant serenity. Ser Jaime Lannister and the remaining Kingsguard formed a white-cloaked wall around them. And lining the vast hall were the gold-cloaked men of the City Watch, their spears held at the ready.
"Lord Stark," Cersei said, her voice ringing with false sweetness. "We were just about to send for you. As my son, Joffrey, the First of His Name, takes his rightful place as King, it is only fitting that the Hand of the late King be here to swear fealty."
Ned Stark strode to the center of the hall, his face grim. He held up the scroll bearing Robert's seal. "This is the last will and testament of King Robert Baratheon," he declared, his voice booming through the hall. "He has named me Protector of the Realm, to rule until the rightful heir comes of age."
"The rightful heir is standing before you," Cersei said, her smile unwavering.
"That is not the truth," Ned said, and with that, he threw his last dice. "Your son has no claim to the Iron Throne. Nor do your other children. They are abominations, born of incest between you and your brother, the Kingslayer."
A collective gasp went through the court. Jaime Lannister's hand flew to his sword hilt, his handsome face a mask of rage. Joffrey's smugness dissolved into a shocked, sputtering fury. But Cersei… Cersei just smiled. It was the smile of a predator that had just watched its prey walk willingly into a snare.
"You are a traitor, Lord Stark," she said calmly. "You spread lies to usurp the throne for yourself. A foolish, predictable plot." She then turned to the Commander of the City Watch, Janos Slynt. "Commander, take this man and his followers into custody. If they resist, kill them all."
Littlefinger, who had been standing near the throne, gave Ned a small, sad smile and a shrug, as if to say, I did warn you to distrust me.
Janos Slynt drew his sword. "Men of the Watch!" he bellowed. And two thousand gold cloaks turned not to defend the Hand, but to surround him. Spears were leveled. Swords were drawn. Ned's handful of Stark guardsmen drew their own swords, forming a tight, hopeless circle around their lord.
It was over in a heartbeat. The trap had been sprung.
But they had forgotten about the storm.
As the first gold cloak lunged at Ned Stark, Thor moved. He was not the lumbering giant of the training yard. He was a blur of motion, a force of nature unleashed. He shoved Ned behind him with one massive arm, and in the other, Stormbreaker came alive.
The axe did not just swing; it danced, it sang, it reaped. The first gold cloak who reached him was not cut in half so much as he simply ceased to exist in a spray of red mist and shattered steel, the Uru blade cleaving through his helmet, skull, and breastplate as if they were parchment.
The throne room erupted into a maelstrom of screams and steel. The City Watch, so confident a moment before, faltered in the face of the whirlwind of destruction that had been unleashed in their midst. Thor was no longer a man. He was a vortex of death. Stormbreaker was a humming, flashing arc of lightning and fury. He did not block or parry. Every swing was a kill. He moved through the press of gold cloaks like a reaper through wheat, his movements economical, brutal, and utterly unstoppable.
A spearman thrust at him. Thor caught the spear shaft in his free hand, ripped it from the man's grasp, and used it to impale two other men behind him. A swordsman tried to flank him. Without looking, Thor swung the flat of Stormbreaker's axe head in a backhand blow. The impact shattered the man's shield, his arm, and his ribcage, sending him flying across the room to crash against the base of the Iron Throne.
Ned and his men, caught in the eye of the hurricane, could only stare in stunned, horrified awe. They had drawn their swords to fight and die with honor. They had not expected their protector to be a literal god of war.
Cersei's face had drained of all color. Her triumphant smile was gone, replaced by a mask of slack-jawed terror. Joffrey was shrieking, a high, thin sound of pure panic, hiding behind his mother's skirts. Littlefinger had vanished. Only Jaime Lannister stood his ground, his golden sword held ready, his face a mixture of disbelief and a warrior's grim, professional assessment of an unwinnable fight.
Within a minute, the floor of the throne room was a charnel house. A ring of two dozen dead and dying gold cloaks lay in a bloody circle around Thor and the Stark men. The rest of the City Watch had broken, fleeing in terror from the demon that was single-handedly dismantling their ranks. They trampled each other in their haste to escape the hall, their discipline, their courage, their loyalty all shattered by the terrifying reality of the Thunderer.
The hall fell silent once more, the only sounds the whimpering of the wounded and the ragged, heavy breathing of Thor himself. He stood amidst the carnage, his boots slick with blood, Stormbreaker humming in his hand, its runes glowing with a soft, malevolent blue light. His face was a grim, stony mask, his eyes a cold, hard winter storm. He was covered in the blood of his enemies, a terrifying, mythic figure come to life.
He looked up at the Iron Throne, at the pale, terrified faces of the Queen and her son. He had saved Ned Stark. He had defied the crown. He had single-handedly destroyed the City Watch. He had broken their game, shattered their board, and rewritten all the rules with an axe forged from a dying star.
He took a step forward, the sound of his boot on the bloody stone echoing like a death knell. Cersei flinched, pulling Joffrey closer. Jaime took a half-step forward, placing himself in front of them, a golden lion protecting his cubs, his face a grim acceptance of his own imminent death.
But Thor stopped. He looked at the carnage around him, at the fear in the eyes of everyone left in the room. He had unleashed the storm. And now, standing in the bloody, silent aftermath, he had to face the terrible, world-altering question: What came next?