Chapter 26: A City Divided
The truth, once spoken, could not be recalled. It detonated in the market square with the force of Thor's lightning, but its shockwave was far more insidious. It was a tremor that ran not through the stone, but through the souls of the half-million people crammed into the stinking, sweltering pot of King's Landing. For a breathless moment, there was only a stunned, collective silence as the crowd processed the enormity of Ned Stark's declaration. Joffrey is no king. He is the bastard of the Kingslayer.
Then, the silence broke. It was not a cheer, nor was it a gasp. It was a roar. A single, unified, guttural roar of pure, undiluted fury. It was the sound of a people who had been lied to, cheated, and ruled by a sin they could barely comprehend. It was the sound of a city breaking its chains.
A fishwife, her face weathered and hard, hurled a rotten cabbage at the line of guardsmen standing frozen before the Red Keep. The cabbage splattered against a golden lion emblazoned on a shield, a small, pathetic act of defiance that became a signal. A rock followed, then another. The crowd surged forward, their fear of the Lannisters suddenly and completely eclipsed by their righteous rage. The carefully constructed facade of royal authority, already cracked by Thor's sermon, now crumbled into dust.
From the battlements of the Red Keep, Cersei Lannister watched the scene unfold, her face a mask of disbelief that quickly hardened into incandescent fury. Her deepest, darkest secret, the truth she had killed to protect, was now being shouted by the filthy, unwashed masses.
"They dare?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "They dare throw filth at my castle? At my son?"
"They dare more than that, I'm afraid," Tyrion said grimly, standing beside her. He did not need a looking glass to see the tide had turned. He could feel it in the vibrations of the stone beneath his feet. "Your son is no longer a king in their eyes. He is a monster born of sin. And your brother… well, let's just say he shouldn't expect a warm welcome on the Street of Silk anytime soon."
Joffrey, who stood nearby, his face pale and blotchy, reacted with the impotent fury of a cornered rat. "Archers!" he shrieked, his voice a high-pitched squeal. "Put archers on the walls! Shoot them! Shoot them all! Kill every last one of them!"
"And what then, you little fool?" Tyrion snapped, his patience for his nephew utterly exhausted. "Do you intend to rule over a city of corpses? We are trapped in here. Our household guard numbers less than a thousand. There are half a million people out there. If you fire on them now, they will tear these gates down with their bare hands and feast on our bones."
"He is the King!" Cersei snarled, though she did not countermand Tyrion's point. "He will not be defied by peasants!" But she knew, as she looked at the seething mass below, that her power, for the moment, ended at the castle walls. They were the ones under siege now.
The riot spread through the city like a plague. It was a chaotic, violent, and often ugly expression of newfound freedom. The symbols of Lannister power were the first to fall. Taverns with names like 'The Gilded Lion' were looted and burned. Any man foolish enough to wear the crimson and gold of a Lannister guardsman was torn limb from limb. The City Watch, leaderless and utterly demoralized, had vanished, its members either hiding or joining the rioters themselves.
But the anger was not just directed at the Lannisters. It was directed at the entire corrupt system. The Great Sept of Baelor, whose High Septon had blessed the false king, was surrounded by a jeering mob. Granaries owned by wealthy merchants known for hoarding grain were broken open, the food distributed amongst the hungry. It was justice and anarchy, intertwined.
In the Tower of the Hand, Ned Stark watched the city burn with a heavy heart. He had unleashed this. This was the fruit of the truth he had planted.
"This is not what I wanted," he said, his voice thick with regret. "This is chaos."
"It is the birth pangs of a new order," Thor corrected him, his expression grim as he watched the smoke rise from a burning warehouse. "Freedom is never a clean or quiet birth. But you are right. If left unchecked, this fire will consume the city, the innocent along with the guilty. The people have been told who their enemy is. They have not been told what to do next."
He looked at Ned, his gaze piercing. "You are the Protector of the Realm. It is time to protect it from itself. You cannot let them burn their own city down. You must give their anger a purpose. You must give them your law."
The decision was made. They could not remain a passive island of defiance. They had to lead. The Protector's Guard, Ned's new, hastily assembled militia, was called to arms. They were still a ragtag force, their new steel barely cooled from Thor's forges, but their hearts were filled with a fervent loyalty.
"We do not march to conquer," Ned told them in the market square, his voice cutting through the din of the nearby riots. "We do not march to loot or to burn. We march to restore order. The Hand's order. We will protect the innocent. We will secure the food supplies for the people. We will hunt down the known agents of the Lannisters, but we will not harm a single citizen who has not taken up arms against us. We will show this city the difference between the justice of the wolf and the tyranny of the lion."
Their first objective was the great flour mill at the base of Visenya's Hill. It was a strategic asset, holding enough flour to feed the city for a month. A gang of looters, using the riots as cover, was already trying to break down its doors.
Ned and his Guard arrived to find chaos. But as the disciplined ranks of the Protector's Guard advanced, the looters faltered. And then they saw the figure at the head of the column, and they fled in terror.
Thor did not even raise his axe. His very presence was enough. He was no longer just a legend; he was the living embodiment of the new power in the city. The Guard secured the mill, placing its own men at the doors, and a great cheer went up from the assembled crowd. It was their first act of governance, of protecting the people's assets from the anarchy.
But the greater challenge lay in the heart of the riot, where the mob's anger was focused on the Red Keep. Thousands of people now swarmed the plaza before the main gate, hurling stones and insults, their rage a palpable, physical force. It was here that Joffrey's cruel stupidity made a bad situation infinitely worse.
From the battlements, the boy king appeared, flanked by Ser Meryn Trant and a contingent of crossbowmen. "You dare defy your King?" he shrieked down at the crowd, his voice a thin, hysterical whine. "You are all traitors! You will all die!" He turned to the crossbowmen. "Fire on them! Fire into the crowd!"
Even the hardened Lannister crossbowmen hesitated. To fire on unarmed smallfolk, on women and children, was an atrocity. But Ser Meryn, ever the loyal toady, drew his sword. "You heard the King! Fire!"
A volley of crossbow bolts rained down on the front ranks of the crowd. Screams of pain and terror replaced the roars of anger. A dozen people fell, their bodies twitching on the cobblestones. The act was a lit match dropped into a barrel of oil. The crowd's anger turned into a tidal wave of pure, murderous rage. They surged forward, a human battering ram, throwing themselves against the massive iron-bound gates of the Red Keep.
When news of this reached Ned, his face became a mask of cold fury. "He is a monster. A rabid dog in a crown." He turned to Thor. "They will be slaughtered."
"Yes," Thor agreed, his eyes flashing with a cold, blue light. "They will." He gripped Stormbreaker. It was time for another sermon, but this one would be preached with thunder and wind.
They marched towards the Red Keep, their small, disciplined force of a few hundred guardsmen a stark contrast to the raging, chaotic sea of the mob. As they approached, they could see the sheer madness of the scene. The people were clawing at the gates, throwing their bodies against the wood and iron, while the archers on the walls continued to pick them off with a casual, systematic cruelty.
Ned knew he could not stop them with words. And Thor knew he could not simply slaughter the mob he had inspired.
"I will disperse them," Thor said, his voice a low command. "But I will not harm them. Keep your men back."
He strode forward, alone, into the no-man's-land between the rioters and the gate. He was a solitary figure, walking into the heart of a hurricane. The rioters at the back saw him first, and a path began to clear, the people falling back not just in fear, but in awe.
He stopped a hundred feet from the gate, planted his feet, and raised Stormbreaker. The crossbowmen on the walls saw him, a single, perfect target. "Shoot the demon!" Ser Meryn screamed.
A dozen crossbow bolts streaked towards him. Thor did not move. He did not block. He simply stood there. As the bolts neared him, they suddenly slowed, as if hitting a wall of thick, unseen air. They wobbled, then stopped completely, hanging in the space before him as if frozen in time. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent them all clattering harmlessly to the ground.
A collective gasp of disbelief went through the crowd and the men on the walls.
Thor then slammed the butt of his axe into the cobblestones. A deep, resonant BOOM echoed through the plaza, but it was not just sound. It was a wave of pure, concussive force that radiated outwards. It was not a killing blow. It was a physical push. The thousands of people pressed against the gate were thrown back, stumbling and falling over each other, but unhurt. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had gently, but firmly, shoved the entire crowd back a hundred feet.
The plaza fell silent, the people staring at him, their rage momentarily forgotten, replaced by a profound, religious terror.
Thor then pointed his axe at the men on the battlements. He did not summon a lightning bolt. He summoned the wind. A focused, howling gale erupted in the plaza, aimed directly at the archers. It was a miniature hurricane, a physical force that ripped shields from their arms and tore crossbows from their hands, sending them clattering over the side of the wall. Men were thrown back from the crenellations, their fine cloaks whipping around them. Within seconds, the battlements were cleared, the soldiers scrambling for cover from the impossible, localized storm.
The wind died as quickly as it had come. The silence that followed was absolute. Thor stood alone between the castle and the city, having defeated both sides without taking a single life.
He then turned to the crowd, his face not one of anger, but of stern disappointment. "Is this the justice you seek?" he boomed, his voice carrying to every corner of the plaza. "To beat yourselves to death against the walls of your own city? To become the very monsters you seek to overthrow? You are fighting with rage. Rage is a weapon that consumes the hand that wields it."
He pointed back to where Ned and the Protector's Guard stood, a disciplined, orderly line. "There stands your justice! There stands your order! You want to fight the lions? Then fall in behind the wolf. You want your city back? Then learn to be soldiers, not a mob. Go home. Tend to your wounded. Find your courage. The war has just begun, and it will be won with discipline and steel, not with rocks and fury."
He had chastised them like a stern father speaking to unruly children. And they listened. The anger in their eyes was replaced by a shamefaced understanding. Slowly, in ones and twos, then in larger groups, the crowd began to disperse. They carried their wounded with them, their revolutionary fervor now tempered by the hard lesson they had just received.
As the plaza cleared, Ned Stark walked forward to stand beside Thor. He looked at the bodies of the commoners shot down by Joffrey's crossbows, and his heart ached. He looked at the high, impenetrable walls of the Red Keep, and he knew the war was far from over.
He had won control of his city. He had an army, of a sort. He had the love of the people. But he was at war with the ruling house of the Seven Kingdoms, his king was a murderous boy, and his greatest ally was a god from another world who was as unpredictable as the storms he commanded.
"You saved them," Ned said quietly. "From themselves, and from the Lannisters."
"I only delayed the inevitable," Thor replied, his gaze fixed on the Red Keep. "The lions are trapped. They are afraid. And now, they will be desperate."
He was right. Up on the battlements, Tyrion Lannister had watched the entire display with a kind of intellectual horror. He had seen Thor's power before, but this was different. This was control. This was precision. This was a being who could choose to shatter a man's armor without scratching his skin.
"He's shepherding them," Tyrion whispered, a dawning realization on his face. "He's not just their weapon. He's becoming their leader. Their king."
Cersei stood beside him, her face a mask of pale, cold fury. She had seen her son's orders result in a massacre, and she had seen his enemies turn that massacre into a victory. She had seen her own power, the power of her name, her beauty, her crown, rendered utterly meaningless.
"Father will be here soon," she said, her voice a low, venomous promise. "Let's see how this Thunder God fares against the armies of Casterly Rock."
The battle for King's Landing was over, for now. But the war for Westeros was about to begin.