Chapter 24: Seeds of Rebellion
The judgment of Janos Slynt did not pacify King's Landing. It cauterized one wound while opening a dozen others. The fear that had paralyzed the city did not vanish; it transformed. For the Lannisters and their allies, it became a cold, simmering dread. For the common folk, it began a strange and volatile alchemy, transmuting their terror into a dangerous, unfamiliar substance: hope.
Thor's sermon had planted a seed. His judgment of Slynt had watered it. Now, in the dark, fertile soil of the city's slums and marketplaces, that seed began to sprout. It started in Flea Bottom, where the authority of the Gold Cloaks had always been a thing of bribery and brutality. After Slynt's public humiliation, that authority evaporated completely. When a Lannister tax collector came to the pot shops, demanding the King's due, he was met not with begrudging compliance, but with a wall of silent, hostile stares. A large, soot-stained blacksmith named Tobb, a man with arms as thick as small trees, simply blocked the collector's path, pointed towards the Tower of the Hand, and said, "The Protector of the Realm has not authorized this tax. Go back to your red castle." The collector, seeing the crowd's mood, wisely fled.
This small act of defiance was a spark in a tinderbox. The story spread. Soon, other small acts of rebellion began. Merchants refused to sell goods to Lannister men. Graffiti began to appear on the city walls: a crude drawing of a direwolf, or a stylized hammer striking a lion. And at the base of the Hand's Tower, the offerings grew. They were no longer just trinkets of fear. They were tributes of loyalty. Freshly baked bread from a baker whose son had been beaten by Gold Cloaks. A finely stitched leather pouch from a tanner who had been extorted by Slynt. A child's drawing of a giant with a thunder axe protecting a wolf. They were building a relationship, not with a distant god in a Sept, but with the one in the tower who had answered their prayers with action.
From their high prison, Ned and Thor watched this unfold. Ned, the man of laws and hierarchies, was deeply unsettled. This was populism, a raw, uncontrolled expression of the people's will. It was not how the realm was meant to be governed.
"This is dangerous," he said, watching Tobb the blacksmith organize a neighborhood watch, his men armed with smithing hammers and cudgels. "This is a mob in the making."
"It is a people learning to stand," Thor corrected him, his voice a low rumble. He, too, was uneasy, but for a different reason. "They are fighting, which is good. But they are fighting in my name. They are putting their faith in an external power, a symbol. It is a fragile foundation on which to build a new world. A people must learn to be their own protectors."
"They see you as a god," Ned stated.
"And I have spent the last five years of my life trying to forget that I am one," Thor replied, a deep weariness in his voice. He looked at the offerings below. "I never wanted their worship. I wanted their courage."
The Lannisters, however, saw this nascent rebellion not as a philosophical problem, but as a direct threat that had to be stamped out. In the Red Keep, the Small Council was a nest of vipers contemplating a brushfire they could not seem to extinguish.
"The city is out of control," Cersei fumed, her knuckles white as she gripped the arms of her chair. "The City Watch is useless. The people mock us in the streets. This cannot stand!"
"Indeed, Your Grace," Varys murmured, his face a mask of sorrowful concern. "My little birds sing a most troubling song. They sing of a new faith growing in the darkness of Flea Bottom. They call him 'Thoros of the North,' which is confusing, as the other Thoros is a red priest. Some call him 'the Hammer.' Others simply, 'the Thunderer.' They say he is the Smith, come to reforge the realm."
"I will reforge their heads on spikes!" Joffrey shrieked, his voice cracking. He had been in a foul temper since the Slynt incident, his humiliation festering. "Mother, let me take the guard! I will teach these commoners a lesson in loyalty!"
Tyrion, who had been quietly observing the proceedings, let out a sigh. "Ah, yes. Nothing inspires love in the common man quite like having his head staved in by the King's guardsmen. An excellent strategy, nephew. Do you have any other brilliant ideas? Perhaps we could poison the wells? Or set fire to the Great Sept?"
"Be quiet, you little monster!" Cersei snapped at him, before turning a fond, approving gaze on her son. In Joffrey's cruelty, she saw the strength she believed Robert lacked. "No, Joffrey is right. A show of force is needed. This rebellion must be crushed in its infancy, before it can grow."
"And who will you send?" Jaime asked, his voice flat. He had been quiet throughout the meeting, a golden statue of disillusionment. "The Gold Cloaks won't march against a man they think is Thor's pet, let alone Thor himself. And I will not have our own household guard commit suicide by walking into that man's axe."
"We will not attack the tower," Cersei said, a cruel, cunning light in her eyes. "We will attack the rabble who worship him. We will attack the blacksmith, Tobb, and his little band of hammer-wielding heroes. A public example must be made. We will show the city what happens to those who follow false gods." She looked at her son. "And you, my sweet lion, will lead them. It is time you showed the realm your strength."
Tyrion groaned. "You would send that sadistic little shit to put down a protest? It's like trying to put out a fire with oil. He will turn a protest into a riot, and a riot into a civil war within the city walls."
But Cersei's mind was made up. It was a perfect plan, in her view. It would crush the rebellion, allow Joffrey to taste blood and power, and it would put Thor and Ned Stark in an impossible position. If they stayed in the tower while their followers were slaughtered, they would be revealed as cowards, their divine protector a sham. If they intervened, they would be openly attacking the King's own person, an act of unambiguous treason from which there was no return.
The confrontation took place in the main market square near the River Gate, a sprawling, chaotic space filled with the stalls of fishmongers and vegetable sellers. Tobb and his militia, fifty strong, had been peacefully dispersing a group of Lannister soldiers who were harassing a merchant. They were armed with hammers, billhooks, and a fierce, newfound sense of purpose.
Then Joffrey arrived, at the head of a hundred Lannister guardsmen in full armor, their crimson cloaks a bloody stain against the market's drab colors. Ser Meryn Trant rode beside the boy king, his face a mask of brutish cruelty.
"So these are the great rebels," Joffrey sneered from his horse, his voice high and mocking. "A gang of peasants and pig-herders led by a man who smells of soot. On your knees, all of you, in the name of your true King!"
Tobb the blacksmith stepped forward. He was a large man, but he was dwarfed by the armored knights and their horses. He held his smithing hammer in one hand. "We recognize no king who hides behind his mother's skirts," Tobb said, his voice a low, steady growl. "We recognize the authority of the Hand, Lord Stark, the Protector of the Realm."
Joffrey's face went purple with rage. This was not the terrified deference he expected. "You dare defy me? I am your King!" He drew his sword, the fine castle-forged steel looking like a toy in his hand. "Ser Meryn, kill this insolent dog."
The fight was not a fight. It was a slaughter. The Lannister guards, professional soldiers, fell upon the citizen militia with ruthless efficiency. The brave, foolish men of the market square stood their ground, their hammers and cudgels ringing uselessly against steel plate. They were cut down in droves. Tobb the blacksmith swung his hammer with mighty blows, crushing the helmet of one guard and shattering the shield of another, but then three swords found their way into his back and chest. He fell with a great, sighing gasp, his hammer clattering on the cobblestones.
Joffrey watched, his face alight with a rapturous, sadistic glee. "Kill them all!" he shrieked, his voice filled with a bloodthirsty joy. "Leave none of them alive! Let this be a lesson to all who would defy their King!" The guardsmen, following his orders, began to cut down not just the militia, but any civilian who was too slow to flee, turning the market square into a field of screams and blood.
The news reached the Tower of the Hand carried on the terrified screams of a baker's boy, his face white with shock, his clothes spattered with the blood of his friends. "They're killing them!" he cried, clinging to the tower gate. "In the market! The King… he's killing everyone!"
Ned Stark's face became a mask of cold, terrible fury. This was it. The final line had been crossed. The Lannisters were now butchering the very people he was sworn to protect.
"They have forced our hand," he said, his voice low and dangerous. He turned to his remaining handful of guardsmen. "To arms."
"My lord, we are but eight men," one of them protested, his voice trembling. "They are a hundred."
"We are eight men and a god," Arya's voice cut in. She stood in the doorway, her wooden sword in hand, her face a miniature version of her father's grim resolve.
Thor, who had heard the boy's cries, stepped into the solar. He had seen enough. He had told these people to find their courage. And they were being slaughtered for it. His counsel, his sermon, his judgment—it had all led to this. A profound sense of responsibility settled over him. These were his people now, in a way. He had made them a promise of justice, and he would not see that promise broken by a petulant, murderous boy.
"Stay with the girls," Thor said to Ned. His voice was calm, but it held an undercurrent of power that made the very air seem to thin.
"No," Ned said, strapping Ice to his back. "I am the Protector of the Realm. Those are my people being slaughtered. I will not hide while they die for me. I will stand with you."
Thor looked at the unyielding honor in the man's eyes and saw that it was not a weakness anymore. It was a different kind of strength. He gave a short, sharp nod. "Then let us go."
The sally from the Tower of the Hand was not a desperate charge. It was an arrow of pure, righteous fury aimed at the heart of the massacre. Led by Ned Stark, with Thor at his side like a walking battlement, the small band of Northmen ran through the terrified, empty streets towards the market square.
They burst into the square to a scene from a butcher's nightmare. The ground was littered with the bodies of the dead and dying. Lannister guards were chasing down fleeing civilians, their laughter sharp and cruel. And in the center of it all sat Joffrey on his horse, a small, monstrous king presiding over his personal slaughter.
"MORE!" Joffrey was screaming. "I WANT MORE BLOOD!"
Then he saw them. He saw the grim face of Eddard Stark. And he saw the towering, armor-clad form of Thor, Stormbreaker now held in his hand, its runes beginning to glow with a furious blue light.
Joffrey's face went from ecstatic glee to abject terror in a heartbeat. "It's… it's the demon!" he shrieked.
Thor did not speak. He did not need to. He raised his axe, and with a roar that was pure, undiluted thunder, he charged.
He moved not like a man, but like an avalanche. The Lannister guardsmen, so brave against unarmed peasants, turned to face him, and their courage dissolved. He was on them in an instant. The first rank of men simply ceased to be, their bodies and their armor turned to red ruin by a single, horizontal sweep of the axe.
He was not just killing them. He was making a statement. He vaulted over a fishmonger's stall, landing amidst a squad of spearmen, and spun, Stormbreaker a whirlwind of death that left a circle of dismembered corpses around him. He hurled the axe, and it flew through the air like a comet, cleaving through three men before returning to his hand with a thunderclap. He was a storm of vengeance, his movements a terrifying blend of grace and brutality. He was fighting to protect, and that fury was more potent than any berserker rage.
Ned and his men fought at his side, a small island of disciplined steel in the chaos. They were no longer just defending their lord; they were liberating a city square, their northern war cries a stark contrast to the southern screams.
Joffrey, his nerve utterly broken, wheeled his horse around and fled, screaming for his mother, Ser Meryn Trant scrambling to follow him, abandoning his men to their fate. Seeing their king and their commander flee, the remaining Lannister guards threw down their swords and ran, their discipline shattered.
Within moments, the battle was over. The market square was silent, save for the groans of the wounded. Thor stood in the center of it all, his chest heaving, his axe dripping blood. He was surrounded by the bodies of Lannister guardsmen and the brave citizens who had dared to stand up for their rights.
Ned Stark walked through the carnage, his heart a heavy stone. He knelt beside the body of Tobb the blacksmith, closing the man's staring eyes with a gentle hand. He had promised these people justice. And this… this was the price.
The surviving citizens began to emerge from their hiding places. They looked at the dead Lannister soldiers, then at the towering, blood-spattered form of Thor, and then at the grim, sorrowful face of their Lord Protector. Their fear was still there, but now it was mixed with a powerful, fervent gratitude. He had come. Their god, their monster, their protector… he had answered their cries.
Ned stood up and faced them, his sword still in his hand. "This was not a riot," he said, his voice ringing through the square. "This was a massacre. Your King, Joffrey, has shown you his true face. He has answered your plea for justice with the sword. I offer you a different path." He looked at Thor, then back at the people. "The lions are not your masters. The storm is here. And it fights for the wolf."
The stalemate was broken. Open war had come to the streets of King's Landing. Ned Stark was no longer a besieged prisoner. He was the leader of an urban rebellion, with a god of war as his champion. He had lost his honor, his men, and his peace. But as he looked at the faces of the people looking to him for salvation, he realized he had found something else: a cause worth fighting, and dying, for.