Chapter 41: The Lion's Fall
The world returned to them in a spray of salt and a scream of gulls. They materialized not on solid earth, but on a stretch of wet, black sand in a secluded cove, the Bifrost disgorging the thousand-man strike force in a chaotic, disoriented heap. The elite soldiers of the Grand Alliance, knights and guardsmen alike, were humbled by the journey, collapsing to their knees, gasping for air that did not taste of ozone and lightning.
Thor himself was visibly drained, the effort of transporting such a mass of life leaving him pale and leaning on his axe for support. The faint, tell-tale trickle of blood reappeared at his nose, a sign of the immense strain he had placed upon himself. He had the power of a god, but the body he wore was still bound by mortal limits.
Ned Stark found his footing, the world still swaying around him. He looked out from the mouth of the cove. It was dawn. A thick, grey mist rolled off the sea, cloaking the world in a shroud of silence. But through a break in the mist, he saw it: the great, bustling port of Lannisport, nestled at the foot of the impassive stone fist of Casterly Rock. The city was just beginning to stir, its lights twinkling like captured stars, its people utterly oblivious to the impossible army that had just appeared on their doorstep.
"My lords," Ned said, his voice a low, urgent command that cut through the groans of his men. The other leaders of the strike force—Oberyn Martell, Garlan Tyrell, Yohn Royce—gathered around him, their own faces pale but set with a grim determination. "This is it. We have achieved what no army in history ever has. We are at the gates of our enemy before they even know there is a war to be fought here."
He unrolled a map on a damp rock. "The plan is as we discussed. The main prize is the city and the fleet. We cripple their ability to sail, and we trap Tywin's main host between our armies, his supply lines cut. Lord Royce, your Knights of the Vale will form the reserve, ready to secure the main squares once we are inside. Ser Garlan, your men of the Reach will follow my own, pushing through the main gate. Prince Oberyn…"
"My men and I will take the western wall near the sea," the Red Viper purred, his eyes glittering with a predatory excitement. "The walls are lower there, and the guards will be lazier. We will be inside and opening a gate for you before the first watch has finished their morning piss."
"Good," Ned nodded. He then looked at Thor. "The fleet."
Thor wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand and nodded, his gaze fixed on the forest of masts visible in the harbor. "The ships will not sail," he promised, his voice a low rumble.
The attack began with the unnatural fury of a summoned storm.
From the perspective of a sailor swabbing the decks of the Golden Lion, the flagship of the Lannister fleet, the morning began like any other. The mist was thick, but the sun was beginning to burn it away. Then, the air grew still. The gulls fell silent. A strange, low humming sound seemed to come from the very water itself.
He looked up. The sky directly above the harbor, a placid grey a moment before, was now a swirling, angry vortex of black cloud. It was a storm that had appeared from nowhere, a perfect, contained hurricane that raged only over the ships at anchor.
"What in the Seven Hells…?" he breathed.
Before he could finish the thought, the sea beneath his ship began to heave. A massive waterspout, a roaring, twisting pillar of seawater and fury, erupted from the center of the harbor. It was not a natural phenomenon. It moved with a terrifying, intelligent purpose. It struck the first war galley, a vessel of a hundred oars, and tossed it into the air like a child's toy, its timbers splintering, its men screaming as they were thrown into the churning sea.
Thor stood on the cliffs overlooking the harbor, his arms outstretched, Stormbreaker planted in the earth beside him, its runes glowing with a power that channeled the ocean's rage. He was not just calling a storm; he was conducting it, a maestro of destruction. The waterspout, at his command, tore through the fleet. It snapped masts, crushed hulls, and dragged ships down into the depths. He summoned great waves that crashed over the docks, smashing the smaller trading cogs against the stone. Within ten minutes, the formidable Lannister fleet, the pride of the westerlands, was a ruin of splintered wood and drowning men. The port was sealed.
As the unnatural storm at sea reached its crescendo, the storm on land broke. Oberyn Martell and twenty of his best Dornish spearmen, silent as shadows, used grappling hooks to scale the lower sea wall. The few guardsmen they encountered died with poisoned daggers in their throats before they could even raise an alarm. The Red Viper himself moved with a dancer's deadly grace, and within minutes, the hinges of a secondary gate were being smashed, the way into the city opened.
At the main gate, Ned Stark and his Northmen, flanked by the knights of the Reach, made their own, more direct, assault. They did not need subtlety. They had the element of absolute, paralyzing surprise. The Lannisport City Watch, seeing an army appear from the dawn mist, was thrown into chaos.
Ned led the charge himself, Ice in hand. He was no longer the reluctant politician; he was the Quiet Wolf of the North, a veteran of a rebellion that had toppled a dynasty. He fought with a cold, efficient fury, his Valyrian blade a blur of motion. The Protector's Guard, their star-forged steel shearing through the gilded armor of the Lannisport watch, followed him with a zealous devotion. They were the common men of King's Landing, and they were here to repay the arrogance of the lions in kind.
The battle for Lannisport was short, brutal, and decisive. The city was not prepared for war. Its garrison was a fraction of its normal size, its commanders second-rate lords left behind by Tywin. They faced an elite force of the greatest houses of Westeros, led by a battle-hardened lord and a legend. Resistance crumbled into chaos, and chaos into a full-blown rout.
The Protector's Guard, under the disciplined command of Kael and Arric, secured the main avenues, while the Knights of the Vale, led by Bronze Yohn Royce, took the central square. Oberyn Martell and his Dornishmen, fighting with a joyful, deadly abandon, cleared the western districts, their vengeance for Elia exacted on every Lannister banner they could find.
The final objective was the castle that stood on the hill overlooking the city, a smaller, more elegant version of Casterly Rock. The remaining Lannister garrison had retreated there, barring the gates, determined to make a last stand.
As Ned prepared his men for a difficult siege, a shadow fell over the courtyard. Thor, his work with the fleet concluded, had rejoined them. He walked to the great iron gate of the castle, ignoring the arrows that now rained down from the battlements, pinging harmlessly off his Asgardian armor.
He did not call the lightning this time. He did not shatter the stone. He simply placed his hands on the gate. He took a deep breath, and with a low grunt of effort, he tore the gate from its hinges. He ripped the massive structure of iron and oak from the stone as a man might rip a weed from the ground, and then tossed it aside with a crash that echoed through the city.
The soldiers on the walls stared down in stunned, abject terror. The last of their fight drained away. A moment later, a white banner was raised from the highest tower. The city had fallen.
By midday, the direwolf banner of House Stark flew over the battlements of Lannisport. The greatest port of the westerlands, the jewel of Lannister power, had been taken in a single morning.
The victory, however, brought its own challenges. The victorious soldiers, particularly the Dornish and the Rivermen, were filled with a lust for plunder and vengeance. Ned Stark, standing in the main square before his assembled army, knew this was a pivotal moment.
"You have won a great victory today!" he called out, his voice ringing with authority. "You have broken the lion in his own den! But I will not have it said that we are no better than the monsters we fight! There will be no looting! There will be no raping! Any man found harming an unarmed citizen of this city will be hanged! We are not conquerors! We are liberators! We have come to bring the King's Justice to a land that has been poisoned by a false king's tyranny. Show them what that justice looks like!"
His words, backed by the silent, imposing presence of Thor at his side, had their effect. The army, though still simmering with bloodlust, submitted to his discipline. Order was established.
Ned spent the rest of the day consolidating his position. He met with the city's terrified magistrates and merchants, assuring them they would not be harmed if they swore fealty to the authority of the Lord Protector. He seized the contents of the Lannister treasury and used it to secure food supplies for his army and for the city itself. He was not just a general; he was a statesman, building a new order on the ruins of the old.
The final act of the day was to ensure the news reached its intended target. It would not be a raven. It would be a rider, a man who had seen it all with his own eyes.
In Tywin Lannister's Camp, The Riverlands
The Old Lion of Casterly Rock was in his element. His army was a well-oiled machine of war, and his campaign of terror was proceeding perfectly. The Riverlands were burning, and soon, he knew, the pressure on the capital would become unbearable. He was reviewing reports with his brother Kevan, a rare look of satisfaction on his cold face. He was confident. He was in control.
That was when the rider was dragged into his tent. The man was a guardsman from Lannisport, his uniform torn, his face a mask of mud and utter, soul-shattering terror. He had ridden for three days straight, killing two horses beneath him.
"My lord!" he babbled, falling to his knees before Tywin. "Lannisport… it… it has fallen!"
Tywin Lannister's face did not change, but a stillness fell over him, a quiet so profound it was more terrifying than any rage. "Explain yourself," he said, his voice dangerously soft.
The man's tale was a frantic, incoherent mess of impossible images. A storm that appeared from a clear sky and ate the fleet. An army that materialized from the dawn mist. And a demon, a giant in dark armor, who tore the gates from the castle with his bare hands.
"The direwolf flies over Lannisport, my lord," the man finished, sobbing. "They hold the city. The fleet is at the bottom of the sea. We are cut off."
Kevan Lannister looked as if he had been struck by lightning himself. All the blood drained from his face. "Tywin… it cannot be…"
Tywin said nothing. He simply stood, walked over to his great campaign map, and stared at it. He stared at his own army's position in the Riverlands. He stared at the feinting Alliance army to his east. And he stared at the new, impossible direwolf marker that now sat deep in his rear, in his own homeland, controlling his only port.
His brilliant strategy was in ruins. He was not the besieger; he was the besieged. He was trapped between two armies, his supply lines severed, his back to a sea controlled by his enemy. And his enemy… his enemy could be anywhere. They could appear from thin air, strike at will, and vanish. They were not playing by the rules of war. They were not playing by the rules of reality.
He thought of his son Jaime, a captive. He thought of his daughter Cersei and his grandson the king, hostages. He thought of his legacy, his home, the gold mines that were the source of his family's power, now silenced. In the space of a few weeks, Eddard Stark, the quiet, honorable fool from the North, had systematically dismantled a dynasty that had stood for a thousand years.
The Old Lion did not roar. He did not rage. He simply stood there, staring at the map of his own defeat, a cold, hard, and unfamiliar feeling creeping into his heart. It was the feeling of being outmaneuvered. The feeling of being outmatched. It was the feeling of absolute, impotent checkmate. It was fear.
And on the walls of Lannisport, Ned Stark looked east, towards the Riverlands, towards the now-trapped army of his greatest foe. The first part of the plan was complete. The lion was wounded, isolated, and bleeding. Now, it was time to hunt.