Chapter 31: The Victor's Burden
Victory was not a trumpet blast or a triumphant parade. It was the heavy, echoing silence in the halls of the Red Keep. It was the acrid smell of smoke that still clung to the air. It was the sight of thousands of hungry refugees huddled in the shadow of a castle whose queen had just threatened to burn them all alive. Eddard Stark, the Hand of the King and Protector of the Realm, had won the city of King's Landing. And now, he found himself king of a powder keg, holding a single flickering candle of order in a hurricane of chaos.
The days following the surrender were a blur of relentless, grinding work. Ned, drawing on a lifetime of experience governing the vast, empty North, applied its simple, pragmatic principles to the sprawling, corrupt South. His first priority was not power, but bread. The granaries seized during the riots were placed under the direct control of the Protector's Guard, his new, zealous, and surprisingly disciplined militia. He established ration stations in every major square, ensuring a fair, if meager, portion of food for every citizen, from the highborn lady to the lowest guttersnipe. It was an act of governance so fundamentally just and unexpected that it did more to cement his rule than any threat or proclamation.
His second act was to restore law. The Protector's Guard, armed with their star-forged steel and a righteous sense of purpose, became the new City Watch. They patrolled the streets not as predators, but as peacekeepers. Ned held public court daily in the market square, listening to the grievances of the smallfolk and dispensing a swift, unyielding justice that was blind to wealth or station. A merchant caught hoarding grain had his stock confiscated for the public good. A Lannister man-at-arms caught assaulting a woman was hanged from the city walls before noon. The message was clear: the age of impunity was over. The law had returned to King's Landing.
Thor watched all this with a quiet, observant approval. He rarely participated in the governance, seeing it as Ned's domain, but he was a constant, looming presence at the Hand's side. His role had shifted from that of a weapon to that of the ultimate deterrent. His very existence was the shield that allowed Ned the freedom to rule. No lord or merchant dared question a decree made by a man who had a god for a bodyguard.
But Thor's new status brought its own set of complications. The nascent cult that had sprung up around him was growing, transforming into something more organized. Shrines to "The Hammer" appeared in the back alleys of Flea Bottom, decorated with crude carvings and lightning bolt symbols. People would bow their heads and mutter prayers when he passed. He found it all deeply, profoundly unsettling.
One afternoon, as he and Ned were inspecting a newly established refugee camp near the Dragonpit, a young woman with a sick infant in her arms fell to her knees before him, begging him to heal her child. Thor stopped, his face a mask of discomfort and pity. He knelt down, his massive form seeming to gentle as he looked at the feverish child. He placed a large, calloused hand on the infant's brow, not with any divine energy, but with the simple, assessing touch of a man checking for a fever.
"His breath is shallow. He is burning with it," Thor said, his voice a low rumble. He looked at the mother. "Your prayers are wasted on me, good woman. I cannot knit flesh nor banish plagues." He then stood, lifted the child with a tenderness that stunned the onlookers, and turned to Ned's guards. "Take this child to Maester Colemon at once," he commanded, referring to one of the few maesters who had sworn loyalty to Ned. "Tell him he is to use every art he possesses to save him, by order of the Hand's protector." He then looked back at the mother. "Your child needs a healer, not a god. Have faith in the skill of mortal hands."
His actions, meant to dispel the notion of his divinity, only served to amplify it. The story spread like wildfire: the Thunderer, in his wisdom, had guided a dying child to healing, showing his favor for the learned and his compassion for the smallfolk. He was becoming a symbol of a new kind of power, one that was not just about brute force, but about a strange, gruff, and undeniable sense of justice.
The most difficult part of Ned's new rule was dealing with his prisoners. The lions in their gilded cage were a constant, festering problem. Joffrey was confined to his chambers, his petulant shrieks and demands for wine echoing through the royal apartments, ignored by his Stark guards. Cersei was held in the Queen's Ballroom, a vast, beautiful chamber that had become her prison.
Ned confronted her there, Thor standing guard at the door. She was no longer the raging, hysterical queen of the battlements. She was cold, silent, and filled with a venom that was more potent than any fire.
"You have won, Stark," she said, her voice a low, chilling whisper. She sat on a silken settee, a glass of wine untouched beside her. "You have taken my city, my son's throne, my brother. Are you here to gloat?"
"I am here to ensure you are treated with the dignity befitting your station, until King Stannis arrives to pass judgment," Ned replied, his voice formal and cold.
A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Dignity? You have turned my people against me, declared my children abominations, and shattered my family's legacy. Do not speak to me of dignity." Her green eyes, like shards of wildfire, locked onto his. "My father is marching. His army is vast. This victory of yours is a fleeting thing. He will scour you and your pet demon from this world. He will burn your precious North to the ground and salt the earth where your castle stands."
"Your father is marching on a city that is now united against him," Ned said calmly. "And his famous wealth is now buried under a mountain of rock. He is a lion without claws or teeth."
The color drained from Cersei's face. She had heard the rumors from a terrified servant, but had dismissed them as the mad ramblings of the smallfolk. To hear it confirmed, so plainly, by her captor… it was a blow from which her pride could not recover. She stared at him, speechless, her beautiful face a mask of utter devastation. Ned left her there, a queen of a fallen house, with nothing left but her hatred.
His conversation with Tyrion was a different affair entirely. The Imp was confined to the library, where he seemed perfectly content, surrounded by books and a steady supply of wine.
"Lord Stark," Tyrion greeted him, offering a cup. "To what do I owe the honor? Have you come to debate the finer points of post-rebellion governance? I must say, your food distribution system is surprisingly efficient. Though I would advise against hanging looters. It's so… permanent. Fines and public humiliation are far more profitable for the state."
"I have come to ask you what your father will do," Ned said, getting straight to the point.
Tyrion sighed, taking a long drink. "My father? My father is a creature of singular, predictable purpose. He will not attack the city directly. Not while you have Thor. And not while you have me, my sister, and the boy king. We are far too valuable as hostages. No, he will do what he is doing now. He will wage a war of terror on the Riverlands. He will burn and pillage until the entire country cries out for a king to restore order. He will try to make your rule so bloody and chaotic that the other lords will turn against you."
"And will they?" Ned asked.
"That, Lord Stark, is the question, isn't it?" Tyrion said. "You have declared for Stannis, a man beloved by none. His brother Renly has a larger army and the loyalty of the south. And your own son is now a king in his own right in the Riverlands, with the North at his back."
This was news to Ned. A raven had arrived that morning from the northern host. It brought word of Robb's stunning victory over Jaime Lannister in the Whispering Wood, and his subsequent smashing of the main Lannister army at the Battle of the Camps. But it also brought a piece of news that made Ned's heart both swell with pride and sink with dread. The northern lords, in the flush of victory and out of love for their captured lord, had renounced their fealty to the Iron Throne. They had declared Robb the King in the North.
"My son is fighting to free me, and to see justice done for King Robert," Ned said, though he knew Tyrion was right. The realm was fractured, a five-sided war now inevitable.
"Of course he is," Tyrion said gently. "But you have unleashed a storm, Stark. And a storm has no king. You have shattered the board. Now, everyone is trying to pick up the pieces that benefit them most." He looked at Ned, his mismatched eyes serious for once. "You have the city. You have the people. You have a god. But you are surrounded. Tywin in the west, Stannis in the east, Renly in the south, and your own son fighting a war in your name in the north. You cannot win a defensive war on four fronts."
The dwarf's cynical wisdom was undeniable. The victory in King's Landing, as total as it seemed, was only the opening move of a much larger, deadlier game.
This new, terrible strategic reality was the topic of the war council that night. Ned, Thor, and his new commanders stood around the map. The news of Robb's victories and his new crown, of Stannis's impending arrival, and of Renly's ambition, laid the situation bare.
"We have won the capital," said Kael, the stonemason, his voice rough. "But we are an island. Sooner or later, the tide will overwhelm us."
"Lord Tywin is the tide," said Tobin, his young face grim. "He is destroying the Riverlands. The homeland of my lady mother. We cannot allow him to continue."
"Then we must take the fight to him," Ned declared, his voice ringing with a newfound authority. The hesitant lord was gone, replaced by a general. He looked at Thor. "The Bifrost. Can we use it again?"
"It is a strain," Thor admitted. "The energy here is… thin. Unfamiliar. And it is not precise. I cannot land us in the middle of Tywin's camp. But I can get us close. I can get us to the Riverlands."
"It's too risky," Arric, the ex-Gold Cloak, argued. "To leave the city now, even for a day… the Lannisters in the Keep…"
"The lions in the Keep are declawed," Thor countered. "The fear of my return would be enough to keep them in their cage. The true threat is Tywin. He is the head of the serpent. All other threats—Renly, even Stannis—are secondary. If Tywin's army is broken, the Lannister cause will shatter. The realm will rally to a victor."
The plan that formed was even more audacious than the raid on Casterly Rock. They would not just attack Tywin's army. They would supplant it. They would use the Bifrost to transport not a dozen men, but the elite of the Protector's Guard—a force of five hundred of their best-trained, best-equipped soldiers—deep into the Riverlands, to the great, ruined fortress of Harrenhal. From there, they could strike at Tywin's supply lines, rally the Riverlords to their cause, and force the Old Lion to turn and face them on ground of their choosing.
It was a move of breathtaking strategic genius, a lightning leap that would bypass weeks of marching and completely upend the entire war.
Ned's final act before they prepared to leave was to speak with his daughters. He found them together in the gardens, a rare moment of quiet truce between them. Arya was practicing her swordplay, her movements swift and deadly. Sansa was sitting on a bench, stitching a direwolf sigil onto a new cloak for her father, her fingers moving with a sad, mechanical precision.
He told them he was leaving again, to take the fight to Tywin Lannister himself. Arya's eyes lit up. "Take me with you!" she begged.
"No, little wolf," he said gently. "Your place is here. You must protect your sister."
He then turned to Sansa. She did not look at him, her eyes fixed on her needlework. "I know you do not understand what I am doing, Sansa," he said, his voice soft. "I know you are afraid. But I need you to be brave."
She looked up, her blue eyes, so like her mother's, filled with a confused, weary sorrow. "They say you are a traitor, Father," she whispered. "That you started a war."
"I am trying to end one, sweetling," he said. "I am trying to build a world where a good man can be king, and where little girls are safe from lions." He kissed her forehead. "Be strong."
That night, in the great courtyard of the Red Keep, five hundred men of the Protector's Guard assembled, their new steel gleaming under the torches, their faces a mixture of terror and exhilarating purpose. They were about to become the first army in the history of the world to travel by rainbow bridge.
Ned Stark stood before them, Thor at his side. He looked at their faces, these common men who had become soldiers, who had placed their faith in him. He felt the weight of their lives, of their hopes, and of the kingdom itself on his shoulders.
Thor raised Stormbreaker. The air began to hum, the familiar, terrifying colors swirling around the axe head. He looked at Ned, a silent question in his eyes. Are you ready?
Ned looked back, his face grim, his heart pounding, but his resolve was iron. He had been a man of honor, a man of peace. But the world had demanded more of him. It had demanded he become a commander, a rebel, a kingmaker. It had demanded he become the Hand of the Storm.
He drew Ice, its Valyrian steel singing in the night air, and pointed it towards the swirling vortex of cosmic light.
"For the North," he roared. "For the Realm!" And together, the wolf and the thunderer led their army into the storm, on their way to a war that would decide the fate of nations and gods alike.