The Trident - Post-Battle
The morning after the battle, the air was thick with the smell of wet ash and iron. The Trident had returned to its normal color, washing the blood of princes and peasants alike into the Narrow Sea, but the scars on the land remained.
Ned stood by his horse, watching the sun rise. He looked exhausted. His armor was dented, his cloak stiff with dried mud, but his eyes were wide awake.
"We move now," Ned told the assembled lords.
Robert was still in the medical tent, cursing the maesters who were stitching his side. He wasn't going anywhere for a week. That meant the command fell to Ned.
"The men are tired, Lord Stark," Lord Vance said. "We fought a battle yesterday."
"And Tywin Lannister has been resting for a year," Ned countered, tightening his saddle girth. "He is marching on the capital. I know it."
He looked at the Greatjon, Rickard Karstark, and the Blackfish.
"Take the uninjured. Anyone who can ride and swing a sword. We leave the wounded here with Hoster. I want ten thousand men ready to move in the hour."
"Ten thousand against the Lion?" the Greatjon grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Fair odds."
"We aren't fighting him," Ned lied, swinging into the saddle. "We're racing him."
The Race
The march to King's Landing was a blur of dust and desperation.
Ned pushed the pace relentlessly. He used every trick in his new mental library to keep the column moving—rotating the vanguard, enforcing strict water breaks to prevent heatstroke.
Every night, Ned stared south, his senses extended. He could feel the Lion. A massive, golden presence moving from the West. Tywin wasn't rushing like Robert; he was moving with the inexorable, crushing weight of a glacier.
"He should already be on his way to Kings Landing," Ned muttered to Howland Reed one night by the fire. "He knows Rhaegar is dead."
"The birds sing," Howland agreed, sharpening his bronze knife. "And lions have good ears."
"If he gets there first..." Ned didn't finish the sentence. He knew exactly what Tywin would do. He would try to prove his loyalty to the new regime by presenting Robert with a gruesome gift. Red bodies in red cloaks.
Elia, Ned thought. Rhaenys. Aegon.
He remembered the Oberyn Martell of the show, the grief that had poisoned a kingdom. He remembered the Mountain smashing a baby's head against a wall.
"Not this time," Ned whispered.
The Gates of the Gods
Tywin Lannister arrived at King's Landing two weeks later.
The sun glinted off the Red and golden armor of twelve thousand westermen. They looked magnificent—clean, disciplined, and utterly terrifying. The Lion of Lannister flew high above the Gate of the Gods.
Inside the Red Keep, panic was a physical thing.
King Aerys II sat on the Iron Throne, his fingernails digging into the armrests, scabs breaking open. He was a scarecrow of a man, consumed by madness and rot.
"He is here to save me!" Aerys cackled, looking at his council. "My old friend Tywin! He has come to crush the rebels!"
"Your Grace," Varys whispered, his powdered face pale. "The Lion does not come to save the Dragon. He comes to eat it. Keep the gates barred. We can hold until—"
"Treachery!" Aerys screamed, spitting foam. "You are all traitors! Pycelle! What says the Citadel?"
Grand Maester Pycelle shuffled forward, his chains clinking softly. He looked frail, harmless.
"Lord Tywin is a man of honor, Your Grace," Pycelle quavered. "He served you faithfully for twenty years. He is the only hope we have against the Stark savage and the Baratheon usurper. Open the gates. Let the lions defend you."
Aerys looked at Varys, then at Pycelle. He looked at the walls where he imagined traitors lurking in every shadow.
"Open them," Aerys commanded. "Open the gates for my friend."
The heavy timber doors of the Gate of the Gods groaned open. The portcullis rose.
Tywin Lannister rode in. He didn't smile. He didn't bow. He raised his hand.
"Sack the city," Tywin ordered calmly.
It happened instantly.
The disciplined columns of the Westerlands dissolved into a mob of butchers. They didn't march to the walls to defend the city; they turned on the city itself.
Spears were thrust into the bellies of the Gold Cloaks who had just welcomed them. Shops were kicked open. Torches were thrown into thatch roofs.
The screaming started near the gate and spread like a wildfire.
"Kill them all!" a Lannister captain shouted, cutting down a fleeing baker. "For King Robert!"
It was a lie, of course. They weren't doing it for Robert. They were doing it because Tywin had taken the leash off. This was the Lion's price for being late.
They were raping. They were looting. They were murdering men, women, and children in the streets. The City of Kings is becoming a slaughterhouse.
Ned Stark arrived thirty minutes too late.
He crested the final hill overlooking the city and saw the smoke beginning to rise. It wasn't the black pall of a ruined city yet, but the grey, choking tendrils of a fire just finding its appetite.
"Seven Hells," the Greatjon breathed, pulling up his horse. "They're already inside."
Ned felt it before he saw it. A wave of terror and death hitting his mind like a physical blow. Thousands of voices crying out in panic. It was deafening in the Force.
Tywin.
Ned didn't freeze. He didn't hesitate.
"They aren't fighting the city," Ned said, his voice cold as the winter wind. "They're sacking it."
He drew his sword. It was the castle-forged blade he had used at the Trident, sharp and heavy.
"We are not here to watch," Ned shouted to his vanguard. "We are here to save the people! Any man who harms a civilian dies! Any man who rapes dies! And any man wearing a red cloak..."
He looked at the Greatjon.
"...is an enemy."
"Kill the lions?" The Greatjon asked, a savage grin spreading across his face. "I was hoping you'd say that."
"Rickard!" Ned barked. "Take the left flank. Secure the Street of Seeds. Greatjon, take the right. Clear Flea Bottom. I'm going up the middle."
"To the Keep?" Howland Reed asked quietly.
"To the Keep," Ned confirmed. "Before he kills the children."
The Lion's Watch
From the high balcony of the Gate of the Gods, Tywin Lannister watched the chaos of King's Landing with a dispassionate eye.
He did not enjoy the slaughter, nor did he shrink from it. It was simply a necessary tool. The Targaryens had to be uprooted, root and stem, and the city had to be pacified before Robert arrived. A brutal sack would ensure the smallfolk feared the new regime more than they missed the old one.
"The Gold Cloaks are broken, my lord," Kevan Lannister reported, stepping up beside him. "The city is yours."
"Not yet," Tywin said, his green eyes flecked with gold, staring north. "The Red Keep still holds. And Aerys—"
He stopped.
Through the smoke and the screams, a new sound cut through the air. A horn. Not a Lion's horn. A deep, mournful sound, like the howl of a winter storm.
Tywin looked to the northern road.
A column of cavalry was smashing into the rear of his own forces. Grey banners. A white direwolf running on a field of ice.
"Stark," Tywin murmured. "He made good time."
"He's attacking," Kevan said, sounding confused. "Why is he attacking? We are on the same side. We declared for Robert."
Tywin watched as a wedge of Northern cavalry cut through a company of Lannister spearmen like a knife through butter. He saw the discipline. He saw the fury.
"He does not see it that way," Tywin said coldly. "He sees a sack. He sees dishonor."
He watched the leader of the vanguard—a figure in grey armor riding a black horse. The man was moving with terrifying speed, carving a path straight toward the Street of Sisters.
"That is Eddard Stark?" Tywin asked.
"It must be," Kevan said. "Though he fights like a demon. Look at him."
Tywin narrowed his eyes. He saw Stark deflect a spear thrust with a movement so fast it blurred, then decapitate the attacker with a single, fluid backswing. It wasn't the flailing of a berserker; it was the precision of a surgeon cutting out a tumor.
"He is cutting a path to the Keep," Tywin realized. "He intends to take the prize before we do."
"Should we reinforce the center?" Kevan asked.
"No," Tywin said, turning away from the balcony. "If we fight the Stark host in the streets, we lose the army. Let him go. Let him break his teeth on the Mountain. Send word to the commanders—secure the city, but do not engage the Stark banner unless attacked. We are allies, remember?"
Tywin's lip curled slightly.
"Let the Wolf have the Keep. Let us see if he has the stomach to do what must be done to the children."
The Street of Sisters
Ned didn't know Tywin was watching, and he didn't care.
The street was a choke point, clogged with looting soldiers and fleeing civilians. A squad of Westerlands men-at-arms had cornered a group of merchants against a wall, spears lowered.
Ned hit them like a freight train.
He didn't use a Force Push. He didn't throw lightning. He just rode his horse directly into the lead soldier, the impact shattering the man's shield and sending him flying ten feet backward.
Ned vaulted from the saddle. He landed in the mud, sword in hand.
Flow.
The world slowed down. He could feel the panic of the merchants, the aggression of the soldiers, the heat of the burning buildings.
A Lannister men swung a spear at Ned's head.
Ned didn't block. He ducked under the blade, moving faster than the soldier could track. He rose, driving his shoulder into the man's chest.
The impact cracked the breastplate. The sergeant collapsed, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
Two more soldiers rushed him. Sword and axe.
Ned spun. He parried the sword with a flick of his wrist, the force of his parry knocking the weapon wide. In the same motion, he slashed the axe-man across the throat. One stroke. Clean. Lethal.
He reversed his grip and drove his pommel into the swordsman's helmet. Steel crumpled. The man dropped.
"Go!" Ned shouted to the merchants. "Get to the gates! The North holds the gates!"
He didn't wait for thanks. He kept moving.
He ran up the Street of Sisters. Every hundred yards, another atrocity. Another group of red cloaks thinking they were the masters of the city.
Ned became a blur of grey steel. He didn't duel. He didn't exchange pleasantries. He killed.
A knight on horseback charged him, lance lowered.
Ned stood his ground. He waited until the tip of the lance was feet away.
Force Speed.
He sidestepped. He grabbed the shaft of the lance as it passed. He didn't just hold it; he clamped down with the grip of a vice. The momentum of the horse nearly tore his arm off, but he reinforced his muscles, his bones, his tendons with the Force.
He held.
The knight was ripped out of his saddle by his own momentum. He crashed onto the cobblestones with a bone-shattering crunch.
Ned stepped over him, eyes fixed on the Red Keep rising ahead.
The gates to the Keep were closed, but the postern door was being battered by a ram carried by Lannister men.
"Clear them out!" Ned roared to the Greatjon, who had caught up, his axe dripping red.
"With pleasure!" the Greatjon bellowed.
The Northmen surged forward. The Lannisters at the gate turned to fight, but they were looters, not a shield wall. They broke against the ferocity of the Starks.
Ned reached the ram. He didn't wait for his men to pick it up. He grabbed one of the iron handles.
"Heave!" he shouted.
He pulled. He poured his will into his muscles. The ram, meant for four men, lifted easily.
With the Greatjon and two others, they swung it.
BOOM.
The postern door splintered.
BOOM.
The hinges groaned.
BOOM.
The door gave way.
Ned was the first one through. He stepped into the outer yard of the Red Keep. It was chaos. Loyalists fighting Lannisters. Bodies everywhere.
But the path to Maegor's Holdfast—the fortress within a fortress where the royal family lived—was clear.
Ned looked up at the massive holdfast. He felt them. Two small, terrified lights in the Force. And one terrified mother.
Elia.
And closer, a massive, burning void of hatred. The Mountain.
"Rickard! Greatjon!" Ned shouted, pointing to the main yard. "Hold this ground! Kill anyone wearing red who isn't a Stark!"
"And you?" Rickard yelled, cutting down a Lannister archer.
"I'm going for the children!"
Ned sprinted across the yard. He moved with a speed that made the soldiers pause. He vaulted a pile of corpses. He didn't stop to fight the stragglers. He deflected arrows with casual swipes of his blade, his senses warning him of the danger microseconds before it arrived.
He reached the drawbridge of Maegor's Holdfast.
He was coming for them. Not as a hero of song, but as a father who remembered a different life, and a different grief.
Not today, Tywin, Ned thought, his grip tightening on his sword as he entered the dark maw of the Holdfast. You don't get to present these bodies.