Chapter 27: Forging a Kingdom
The roar of the riot gave way to the rhythmic clang of the forge, and the scent of blood was slowly replaced by the smell of baking bread. King's Landing, a city that had been on the verge of devouring itself, found itself in the grip of a new, unfamiliar sensation: order. It was not the precarious, fear-based order of the Lannisters, but the grim, purposeful order of a northern lord preparing for winter. And winter, in the form of Tywin Lannister's army, was coming.
Eddard Stark, the reluctant rebel, had become a reluctant king in all but name. From the Tower of the Hand, which had transformed from a prison into the capital of a city-state at war, he governed. His first act was to seize every major granary and food merchant in the city, not as a tyrant, but as a protector. He established a system of rationing, ensuring that every citizen, from the highborn to the low, received a daily portion of bread. The grumbling of the wealthy merchants was silenced by the cheers of the smallfolk, who for the first time in their lives were being protected by a great lord instead of being preyed upon by one.
His Protector's Guard, once a ragtag mob, began to take the shape of a true army. Under the tutelage of the last of his Stark guardsmen, they learned the basics of the shield wall, the discipline of the spear-thrust, the importance of holding a line. They were still green, a militia of bakers and masons, but they were filled with a fervent zeal. They were no longer just fighting for a cause; they were fighting for the man who had given them bread, and for the god who had given them steel.
Thor became a figure of mythic industry. He did not lead the drills or walk the patrols. His role was more fundamental. He became the heart of their war machine. The Miracle of the Forges was no longer a one-time event; it was a daily occurrence. The smiths of the Street of Steel worked in shifts, their forges burning with the impossible white-blue heat of Thor's star-fire. The quality of steel they produced was unprecedented. Old, rusted breastplates were melted down and reforged into armor that could turn a knight's blade. Simple iron was transformed into spearheads and sword-blades of incredible strength and sharpness. King's Landing, a city of merchants, was being remade into a city of warriors.
Thor found a strange, grim satisfaction in the work. It was tangible. It was purposeful. He was not just a weapon of destruction; he was a creator, a builder. As he watched the smiths work, their faces alight with a craftsman's awe, he felt a flicker of what he imagined his father, the Allfather, must have felt when shaping the realms. The act of creation was a powerful balm for a soul weary of destruction.
He also became the rebellion's greatest deterrent. The Red Keep remained a sullen, silent island in the midst of their sea of control. No assassins came in the night. No further delegations attempted to breach their walls. The memory of the lightning bolt that had shattered the courtyard, of the melted sword of Janos Slynt, was a more effective shield than any wall.
Yet, Thor remained deeply uneasy with the cult that was growing around him. The offerings at the base of the tower now included crudely carved Mjolnir-like hammers, a symbol they had adopted from the stories he had once drunkenly told. He would sometimes see people fall to their knees as he passed. One morning, he found a woman trying to get him to "bless" her sick child. He had knelt, examined the child with a gentleness that surprised everyone, and then carried him personally to the nearest maester who had sided with the rebellion, demanding the man use all his skill.
"I am not a healer," he had growled at the awestruck mother. "I cannot mend a fever with a touch. Your faith should be in those with the knowledge to help, not in me." But his act of gruff compassion only fueled the legends further.
This new dynamic was the subject of many a late-night council between the two leaders of the rebellion.
"They are calling you the Smith God," Ned said one evening, as they looked over a freshly delivered crate of superior spearheads. "The All-Father. It is a title of a king of the gods in the old tales."
"It was my father's title," Thor said, his voice quiet. He picked up a spearhead, its new steel feeling solid and true in his hand. "And he was a king, not a god. Not in the way these people think. He did not answer prayers. He made hard choices. He ruled. He bled. And he died." He looked at Ned. "You must be careful, Lord Stark. The faith they are placing in me is a shortcut. They want a miracle to save them. But miracles do not win wars. Discipline, strategy, and the will to fight for something more than just survival—that is what wins a war."
To that end, Thor took it upon himself to train a new generation of commanders. He took Ned's most promising lieutenants—a hard-faced stonemason named Kael, the late Tobb the blacksmith's strong-willed son, Tobin, and a disgraced former Gold Cloak sergeant named Arric who had turned against Slynt—and began to teach them. He did not teach them how to swing a sword. He taught them how to think.
In a dusty warehouse near the docks, he would draw maps of famous Asgardian battles in the dirt. He spoke of flanking maneuvers against the Dark Elves on Svartalfheim, of holding a choke point against the fire demons of Muspelheim. He spoke of tactics and logistics, of morale and the importance of knowing your enemy.
"A warrior fights the man in front of him," he told them, his voice resonating with the authority of a thousand years of combat. "A commander fights the battle that will happen two days from now. You must learn to see the shape of the field, not just the steel in your enemy's hand. You must learn to anticipate, to adapt, to sacrifice a piece to save the board."
The men listened, rapt. They were simple men, but they were not fools. They were learning the art of war from a being who had practiced it on a cosmic scale.
While the wolf and the storm forged their new kingdom, the lions in their cage were growing desperate. The news that had trickled in from the outside world was uniformly grim. The Vale was closed. Renly had declared himself king, stealing the allegiance of the Stormlands and the Reach. And, most devastatingly of all, Robb Stark had smashed Jaime's army in the Whispering Wood and captured the Kingslayer himself.
When that raven arrived, Cersei had shattered a priceless flagon of wine against the wall of the solar. Her twin, her love, her other half, was a captive of the son of the man she was trying to destroy. Her rage was a terrible, consuming thing.
"This is your fault!" she had screamed at Tyrion. "Your scheming, your clever words! Look where they have gotten us! My brother is in chains, and we are prisoners in our own home!"
"My scheming?" Tyrion had retorted, for once not backing down from her fury. "I was not the one who decided to put a crown on a witless sadist and then murder the most honorable man in the kingdom to protect our sordid little secret! You started this fire, sister, do not blame me because you cannot control the flames!"
Their fight was interrupted by the arrival of a panicked servant. "Your Grace… a raven. From Lord Stark."
Cersei snatched the letter. It was not a threat. It was not a demand. It was a simple statement of fact, a copy of the letter he had sent to Casterly Rock. It detailed Robb's victory and Jaime's capture, and it ended with a cold, simple offer.
Release my daughters. Swear fealty to the rightful king, Stannis Baratheon, and command your father, Lord Tywin, to stand down his army. Do this, and I will plead with King Stannis for mercy for you and your children. Ser Jaime will be held as a hostage to ensure your good faith. Refuse, and the North will answer your crimes with iron and fire.
It was an offer of surrender. Her surrender.
"He dares?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "He holds my brother, and he dares to offer me terms?" She crumpled the letter in her fist. "Never. I will burn this city to the ground before I bend my knee to Stannis Baratheon or that northern traitor." She turned to her brother. "Tyrion. You are clever. Your whole life, you have used your wits to survive. So be clever now. Find me a way out of this."
Tyrion looked at his sister, at the ruin of their plans, at the city that now belonged to their enemy. There was no easy way out. But there was always a way.
"We cannot fight the Thunderer," he said, thinking aloud. "We cannot fight Stark's new army within the city. We cannot fight public opinion. Our only hope is Father. But Stark knows this. He will have the walls manned, the gates reinforced. He is preparing for a siege."
He began to pace. "So, we must find a way to make a siege unwinnable for him. A city needs more than walls and soldiers. It needs a leader the people trust. They trust Stark now. They worship his demon. We need to break that trust. We need to show them that their new protectors cannot, in fact, protect them from what is coming." He stopped, a dark, brilliant idea forming in his mind. "We cannot win the battle for the walls. So we must make sure that the battle never reaches the walls. We must attack the city's stomach."
The plan was as simple as it was monstrous. King's Landing relied on shipments of food from the farms and villages of the Crownlands. Tywin Lannister's army was not just an army; it was a swarm of locusts. Tyrion sent a raven to his father with a new set of instructions. Do not march directly on the city. Instead, spread out. Burn the fields. Salt the earth. Slaughter the livestock. Create a great, barren wasteland around King's Landing. Let the refugees, the hungry, the terrified, flood into the city.
"Let Stark's new kingdom swell with a million hungry mouths," Tyrion explained to a horrified, but intrigued, Cersei. "Let his granaries empty. Let the people he has sworn to protect begin to starve. Let us see how much they love their Thunder God when their children are crying from hunger. A god who cannot provide bread is no god at all. We will turn his new kingdom into a pressure cooker and let it explode from within."
The first sign that the nature of the war had changed again came a week later. A scout from the Protector's Guard returned to the city, his face pale with horror. He reported that the Lannister army was not marching on the city, but was fanned out across the countryside, burning everything in a fifty-league radius. Villages were being put to the torch, their people either killed or sent fleeing towards the capital.
The first wave of refugees arrived the next day, a ragged, desperate tide of humanity, their faces etched with horror, their hands empty. They brought with them tales of unimaginable brutality, of fields set ablaze and wells poisoned. They brought with them their hunger, and their fear.
Ned Stark stood on the walls of his city, looking out at the black columns of smoke rising from the horizon. He listened to the growing cries of the hungry within his walls. He had prepared for a siege of steel and stone. He had not prepared for a siege of starvation and sorrow.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Thor. The god was looking out at the same grim vista, his face a mask of cold, ancient fury.
"This is Tywin Lannister's work," Ned said, his voice heavy.
"I have seen this tactic before," Thor said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "On a world called Korbos. A race of beings called the Kronans. They would burn the moons of a planet to demoralize the inhabitants before the main invasion. It is the strategy of a coward. A butcher who fears a fair fight."
He turned his gaze from the horizon to the city below, to the newly established refugee camps, to the long lines at the granaries. He saw the hope that had so recently blossomed beginning to wither under the harsh glare of hunger.
He had told the people he was their protector. He had judged the corrupt and armed the willing. But he had not fed the hungry. He had not healed the sick. He had offered them justice, but justice was a poor substitute for bread.
He looked at Ned, at the deep despair in the man's eyes. He had pushed this honorable man to become a king of sorts, to lead this rebellion. And now, he saw that leadership was about to crush him.
"You cannot feed a city that is cut off from the world," Thor said. "Your granaries will be empty in a month. The people's loyalty will turn to desperation, and their desperation will turn to rage. The Lannisters will win without ever setting foot inside your walls."
"Then what is left?" Ned asked, his voice a whisper of defeat. "We are trapped. We have nowhere to go."
"No," Thor said, and a new, terrible light began to dawn in his eyes. He looked up at the sky, then back at the Red Keep, then at the smoking fields beyond the walls. "We have been thinking like mortals. We have been thinking about defending one city, one kingdom." He hefted Stormbreaker, the axe seeming to thrum with a life of its own. "The lions have burned the fields. They have attacked the body of the realm to get at its heart."
He turned and faced Ned fully, his expression one of grim, cosmic resolve. "It is time we reminded them where the true heart of the lion lies. It is not in an army in the field. It is in a rock filled with gold."
Ned stared at him, uncomprehending. "Casterly Rock? It is on the other side of the continent. It is impregnable."
"Nothing is impregnable," Thor said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "And we do not need to march." He raised Stormbreaker, and the axe began to glow, not with the blue of lightning, but with the swirling, incandescent, multicolored light of the Bifrost. It was weak, unstable, but it was there.
"You said it was broken," Ned breathed, his eyes wide with a terrifying, dawning hope.
"It was," Thor said. "But this world, its magic, its life force… it has been… feeding it. Healing it. I am not strong enough to take us all home. But to take us across a continent?" He grinned, a true, wolfish grin of a warrior who has just seen the perfect, impossible move on the board. "The lions have burned your kingdom to starve your city. We will answer by bringing the thunder to their home."