Chapter 28: The Winter King's Peace, The Lions Lament
King's Landing was a city subdued, its populace cowed by the terrifying display of dragonpower and the swift, brutal justice meted out by the returned King of Winter. Joffrey Waters, the boy-tyrant, was dead, his head adorning a spike on the Red Keep's battlements alongside that of his executioner, Ser Ilyn Payne. Queen Regent Cersei Lannister languished in the Black Cells, her beauty faded, her pride shattered, her fate hanging by Torrhen Stark's whim. The Iron Throne sat empty, a twisted monument to broken ambition, ignored by the ancient Stark king who had no desire for it.
Torrhen Stark, his presence an overwhelming aura of ageless power, wasted no time in establishing a semblance of order. He had no wish to rule this southern capital, but nor could he allow it to descend into utter anarchy, for chaos had a way of spreading. He installed a temporary council composed of respected Riverlords, a few chastened Crownlands lords who had swiftly bent the knee, and, surprisingly to some, a heavily guarded and magically compelled Tyrion Lannister. The Imp, captured during the Red Keep's fall, possessed a keen mind for governance and a deep understanding of the city's workings. Torrhen, ever the pragmatist, saw his utility.
"You will maintain order, Lannister," Torrhen had told Tyrion in the Red Keep's throne room, his voice like the grinding of mountains. Morghul's shadowy form had filled the great arched windows behind him, a silent, terrifying sentinel. "You will ensure the smallfolk are fed, that no opportunistic looting or rioting breaks out. You will manage this city until one of your southern 'kings' proves himself capable of ruling it without threatening the North. Fail, and your sister's fate will seem a mercy." Tyrion, for all his wit, could only nod, acutely aware that his life, and perhaps the city's, depended on his performance.
The Starks United and Divided
Sansa Stark, rescued from her torment, was slowly recovering under the care of her brother Robb and, eventually, her mother Catelyn, who arrived from Riverrun with a heavily armed escort, her face a mask of grief, relief, and trepidation. The reunion between mother and children was fraught with sorrow for Eddard and an overwhelming uncertainty about their new, god-like protector. Catelyn found Torrhen Stark an enigma – ancient beyond comprehension, his power terrifying, his motives veiled behind eyes that had seen millennia. She pleaded for Cersei's life, for the sake of future peace, but Torrhen merely regarded her with a look that brooked no argument. "Peace with lions who have tasted Stark blood, Lady Catelyn? That is a fool's hope. They will be dealt with."
The search for Arya Stark became a priority. Torrhen, drawing upon the immense sensory network afforded by the Philosopher's Stone and his warging abilities, cast his consciousness across King's Landing. He felt the fear, the desperation, the hidden scurrying of life in the city's underbelly. He tasked his most skilled Northern trackers, men who could read a broken twig in a blizzard, to search for any sign of his fey descendant. It was Issylra, Winter's Light, whose keen senses and subtle empathic connection to Stark blood, finally located her. Arya, wild and terrified, but alive and unbroken, was found amongst a group of refugees trying to flee the city, mistaken for a common street urchin. Her reunion with Robb and Sansa was fierce and emotional, though she regarded Torrhen with a child's unfiltered awe and a touch of wildling suspicion. Torrhen saw in her the untamed spirit of the North, a resilience that pleased him.
With his Stark descendants safe for the moment, Torrhen turned his attention to the primary threat: Lord Tywin Lannister and his remaining field armies. Reports placed Tywin near Harrenhal, attempting to rally his forces and the remnants of other defeated Lannister contingents, his pride undoubtedly demanding retribution.
The Lions' Last Stand – The Battle of the Blackwater Fields (Reimagined)
Torrhen did not intend to give Tywin time to consolidate. "A wounded lion is still dangerous," he told Robb and his war council, now convened in the Red Keep's map room. "We will hunt him down and end his threat permanently."
He left a strong garrison of Northmen and Riverlords to hold King's Landing under the command of Ser Brynden "Blackfish" Tully, whose tactical acumen he respected. Then, with Robb, his three dragons, and the bulk of his veteran Northern host, he marched west, towards Harrenhal.
Tywin Lannister, despite the devastation wrought upon his House, was not a man to yield easily. He had gathered what forces he could – perhaps twenty thousand men, a mix of Westerlanders, Crownlanders coerced into service, and sellswords. He chose his ground carefully, on the rolling plains south of the Blackwater Rush, near where it met the Gods Eye, a position that offered some defensible terrain but was ultimately open, a testament to his desperate hope that somehow, conventional tactics might still prevail, or that Torrhen's dragons were not as invincible as rumor claimed.
He was wrong.
The battle, if it could be called such, was less a contest of arms and more an execution. Torrhen, astride Morghul, directed his dragons with chilling precision. Skane descended upon the Lannister cavalry, his golden flames turning knights in shining armor into screaming torches, their horses bolting in terror. Issylra, with Robb on her back (now a more seasoned, if still awed, dragonrider), swept over the Lannister infantry formations, her ice-breath shattering shield walls, freezing entire cohorts solid, her wingbeats creating localized blizzards that blinded and disoriented.
Morghul himself, with Torrhen, was the embodiment of dread. He did not always use fire. Instead, he flew low, his colossal shadow passing over the Lannister lines, his terror aura amplified by Torrhen's will, shattering morale, causing men to drop their weapons and flee or turn on each other in madness. Targeted shadow-blasts from Morghul disintegrated siege engines and collapsed command tents.
Lord Tywin Lannister, watching from a rise as his army dissolved into chaos and horror, his face a mask of stony disbelief, finally understood the futility of resistance. His famed discipline, his strategic genius, meant nothing against this ancient, elemental power. He saw his banners fall, his knights incinerated or frozen, his proud army cease to exist as a coherent force.
When Morghul landed before him, the very earth trembling, Tywin Lannister did not draw his sword. He simply stared up at the obsidian behemoth and the ageless, ice-eyed King who rode him.
"You have lost, Tywin Lannister," Torrhen's voice was devoid of triumph, merely stating a fact. "Your House is broken. Your king is dead. Your daughter is my captive. Your armies are ash and ice."
Tywin's cold eyes met Torrhen's. "What… what are you?" he finally managed, his voice hoarse.
"I am the North's memory," Torrhen replied. "I am the winter that was promised. And you, Lord Tywin, are a lesson to those who would harm my blood."
Tywin Lannister's fate was sealed. Torrhen offered no terms, no chance of surrender for the Lord of Casterly Rock himself. Morghul's jaws opened, and a torrent of pure, cold shadow, deeper than any night, enveloped the last great Lion of Lannister. When it cleared, Tywin Lannister was gone, not even ash remaining, his essence seemingly unmade, absorbed into the ancient, chilling power that Morghul wielded under Torrhen's command. A fittingly silent, terrifying end for a man who had lived by ruthless pragmatism.
The remaining Lannister lords and knights, witnessing their commander's utter annihilation, threw down their swords and knelt in the blood-soaked mud, begging for mercy. The Battle of the Blackwater Fields was a massacre, a final, brutal punctuation mark on Lannister ambition.
The Realm Trembles – New Oaths, New Fears
With Tywin Lannister dead and his last great army shattered, the Westerlands collapsed. Lords who had once proudly flown the golden lion now sent desperate ravens to Torrhen Stark, pledging fealty, offering tribute, anything to avoid the fate of Lannisport and their liege lord. Torrhen accepted their submissions, installing Ser Edmure Tully as temporary Warden of the West to oversee their disarmament and the payment of heavy reparations, his authority backed by the occasional, pointed flight of Skane over their lands. Casterly Rock itself, its mines sealed, its pride broken, was garrisoned by Northern troops.
Stannis Baratheon, upon hearing of Tywin's absolute destruction and the subsequent collapse of Lannister power, made his move. With the Lannister threat removed, he sailed his fleet from Dragonstone and, after a brief, tense standoff with the Northern garrison left in King's Landing (who had orders from Torrhen not to interfere in southern succession disputes as long as Northern sovereignty was respected), occupied the capital and claimed the Iron Throne. His coronation was a grim, joyless affair, the city still bearing the scars of Torrhen's dragons and the memory of Joffrey's demise. Stannis immediately sent envoys to Torrhen, acknowledging the Kingdom of the North and the Trident as sovereign, and proposing a formal alliance against Renly, who still commanded a vast host in the Reach.
Renly Baratheon, his dreams of a grand, joyous coronation now thoroughly undermined, found his massive coalition of Stormlords and Reachermen fracturing. Many lords, terrified of the Northern dragons and seeing Stannis now on the Iron Throne (however tenuously), began to reconsider their allegiances. Renly, caught between his brother's implacable will and Torrhen Stark's terrifying, distant power, grew increasingly desperate. The shadow of a kinslaying assassin, conjured by Melisandre's dark arts on Stannis's behalf, soon ended Renly's ambitions permanently.
With Renly dead and Stannis precariously seated on the Iron Throne, Westeros was a fractured, fearful land. Only the North, under its ancient Dragon King, seemed truly secure, truly powerful. Torrhen had achieved his primary war aims: Eddard was avenged, Lannister power was broken, his Stark descendants were safe, and Northern independence was a recognized, dragon-enforced reality.
Consolidating the Kingdom of Winter – The Long View
Torrhen Stark, with Robb, Sansa, and a newly recovered Arya (found by Northern trackers being sheltered by a stonemason's family who had recognized her Stark fierceness), returned to Riverrun, which now served as the southern capital of his expanded domain. Catelyn wept with joy and sorrow at the reunion.
In the Great Hall, Torrhen addressed his victorious Northern and Riverlord commanders.
"The lions are dead or declawed," he announced. "The South may squabble over its Iron Chair as it wills. Our Kingdom of the North and the Trident is secure. Now, we rebuild. We fortify. We prepare."
He began to lay the foundations for his true, long-term goals. He commissioned the construction of a series of heavily fortified dragon-roosts and watchtowers along the southern borders of the Riverlands, magically enhanced structures that would serve as permanent deterrents. He used the reparations from the Westerlands and the new trade agreements to bolster the North's infrastructure, to fill its granaries, to equip its armies. He initiated projects to deepen the Moat Cailin defenses, making them truly impregnable even to magical assault.
His mind, however, was increasingly drawn to the lands beyond the Wall. The reports from his warged sentinels were growing more ominous. The wildlings were fleeing south in unprecedented numbers, not in raiding parties, but as desperate refugees, speaking of an unkillable enemy, of ice spiders as large as hounds, of a winter that devoured souls.
The Philosopher's Stone pulsed with a steady, immense power, its energies now fully integrated with Torrhen's ancient magic. He was more than a king, more than a sorcerer. He was an elemental force, a guardian forged over centuries for a singular, terrible purpose. The War of Five Kings had been a necessary, brutal clearing of the board. Now, with the South cowed and the North ascendant, he could finally turn his full attention to the true enemy, the Great Other, and the Long Night that was no longer a distant prophecy, but a rapidly approaching, existential threat. His dragons, resting in the fortified dragon-roosts he was constructing throughout his new kingdom, were not just symbols of his power; they were the fire that would meet the endless ice. The game of thrones was over, for him. The war for the dawn was about to begin.