Chapter 154 — I, Lord of Winterfell, Sentence You to Death!
BANG!
The goblet exploded against the icy stone floor, shattering into glittering fragments as scarlet wine splashed outward like blood.
At the same moment—
Chaotic footsteps erupted from every direction.
More than twenty armed men—some wielding axes, others swords—stormed into the Hall of a Hundred Hearths with savage howls.
But the instant their eyes landed on their target…
Their charge stuttered.
Their momentum died.
Because there, behind the banquet table, stood the tall knight in white—both hands resting on a Valyrian steel greatsword.
His immaculate cloak flared high behind him like a banner.
And beside him, the newly appointed Lord of Winterfell, draped in a black wolfskin cloak, had already drawn his blade, eyes sharp and wary as he tracked the ambushers flooding in.
The soldiers froze.
Confusion flashed across their faces.
…Huh?
Didn't the plan say to poison them first?
Why are these two still standing?
A low chuckle slid from the white knight's throat, breaking the suffocating silence like a knife through cloth.
Lance tilted his head slightly. His gaze drifted past the nervous soldiers—
And fell on the high seat, where Oswell Whent sat pale-faced, shaking with fury and panic now that the plan had been ripped apart.
"...That's it?"
His voice carried unmistakable disappointment—and worse, contempt.
The corner of his mouth curved.
"I really did… overestimate you, Ser Oswell."
Truthfully, Lance hadn't been fully sure there was a scheme.
But a man like Walter Whent—healthy and vigorous only months ago, desperate to please, practically licking boots—
To suddenly collapse into a deathbed "illness"?
Anyone with a brain would suspect something.
And Shella Whent's acting was dreadful.
Every time she saw him, her body trembled like a rabbit staring at a wolf.
That alone was enough to raise Lance's suspicion.
Because in his previous life…
He'd heard more than enough stories like this.
Still—he'd expected something larger.
Something worthy of the risk.
Apparently Oswell's authority inside Harrenhal wasn't as great as he imagined.
He'd only managed to buy a handful of loyal dogs.
And Lance's arrogance—his casual disdain—lit a fuse deep inside Oswell.
The terror.
The humiliation.
The memory of kneeling before the Iron Throne as this very man hacked his right hand away—
It all came screaming back.
"KILL HIM!!"
Oswell's left hand seized the table's edge like he was holding on to sanity itself.
He shrieked, voice cracking into hysteria.
The soldiers closest to Lance surged forward, weapons flashing.
Seven or eight blades dropped toward him at once.
Eddard reacted instantly.
He stepped forward, ready to fight beside Lance.
"We cut our way out—"
But before the words even left his mouth—
Lance's armored boot stomped onto the table, and his flowing white cloak snapped outward, completely blocking Eddard's view like a curtain falling at the end of the world.
A sound rang out.
Not a clash—
Not steel grinding—
Just a faint, almost delicate note…
A whisper of a blade.
Then—
Under the warm glow of torchlight—
A deep, black arc cut through the air.
So fast it could not be tracked.
So clean it looked unreal.
There was no fierce collision.
No ringing exchange.
Time itself seemed to pause for half a breath.
The axeman at the front still held his lunging posture—
But his head slid off his neck along a perfectly smooth cut.
It rolled onto the floor.
His eyes were still wide open.
Next to him, a swordsman's upper body separated from his lower half at an impossible angle.
The cut was so clean it looked polished.
Organs spilled.
Blood erupted.
And not just those two.
Around them—
At least seven soldiers collapsed almost simultaneously.
All from a single, simple motion.
Thick blood instantly soaked the expensive carpet beneath their boots.
The entire scene happened so quickly it felt like hallucination.
Oswell's screaming stopped dead.
His eyes bulged.
His throat worked, sucking in air like he was drowning.
He couldn't speak.
Couldn't blink.
Couldn't even move.
Behind Lance—
Even Eddard Stark stared in disbelief.
He'd seen Lance's swordsmanship.
He had watched him defeat the Sword of the Morning.
But that fight—as legendary as it was—still belonged to the world of men.
This…
This wasn't human.
One sword.
One swing.
Seven dead.
Eddard's mind went numb.
Seven hells… what am I looking at?
A perfect knight like Ser Galladon? A warrior reborn?
Meanwhile Oswell was no longer a man.
He was a shell possessed by terror.
"Clearly, Ser Oswell…"
Lance's voice flowed, calm and cold.
"You don't understand…"
"What true power looks like."
He swept his eyes across the hall.
Every soldier had gone stiff, just like Oswell.
One had even wet himself—dark spreading shame across his trousers.
Lance gave a faint laugh.
Then planted the blood-drenched greatsword into the floor again with a heavy thunk, resting both hands on its hilt.
He shrugged—relaxed, almost bored.
He didn't slaughter the rest.
Because he didn't need to.
And right then—
A new sound rolled in like thunder.
Heavy.
Unified.
A marching rhythm of iron and inevitability.
BOOM!
The great doors of the Hall of a Hundred Hearths were blasted open.
Ser Balman Byrch, hair bright gold, charged in first with a sword in hand—
And behind him, over a hundred armored knights flooded into the hall like a steel tide.
Unlike everyone else's shock, Balman's expression didn't change in the slightest when he saw the towering white-armored figure—and the circle of corpses around him.
He rode up in a few strides and stopped beside Lance.
"Ser."
"We brought him."
Lance nodded and flicked him a look.
Balman understood instantly. He raised a hand toward the crowd.
The soldiers split into two neat lines.
And in Oswell's despairing gaze, a young man in heavy armor stepped forward—nine black bats emblazoned across his chest.
Torrhen Whent.
Lord Walter Whent's eldest son.
"Why would you do this, Uncle Oswell?!"
The heir of Harrenhal still wore youth in his face, but the fury in his eyes was real.
His gaze swept painfully over his mother—Shella—slumped pale and shaking in her seat, and his expression twisted with heartbreak.
Then his eyes snapped back like heated iron, pinning Oswell to the high seat.
His voice trembled with rage.
"You tried to murder the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, violated guest right—this is TREASON!"
"You'll drag House Whent into a pit so deep we'll never climb out!"
Oswell stared at his nephew, at Balman, at the wall of armored knights.
Only then did he truly understand—
The moment Lance stepped into Harrenhal, the game had already been decided.
Lance wasn't the prey.
He was the idiot being led—step by step—into a trap.
"...Heh."
A bitter laugh crawled out of Oswell's throat.
"Hehehe… hahahaha…"
Failure and humiliation drowned him.
But before he could even speak—
A shrill voice slashed through the hall.
"It was HIM! It was all HIM!!"
Shella Whent scrambled from the table like an animal, crawling to her son.
She clutched Torrhen's breastplate with both hands, shaking hard, then jabbed a trembling finger toward Oswell.
"This bastard raped me! He threatened me—said he'd kill your father and YOU if I didn't obey!"
"I did all of this to protect you, Torrhen! My son, you have to believe me!"
She collapsed sobbing at his feet, clinging to his leg, wailing theatrically as though trying to carve the word MISERY into the stone.
Oswell didn't argue.
Didn't scream.
Didn't curse.
He only laughed again—hollow, broken, like the sound of a man already dead.
Yes, the plan had been his.
But at this point…
There was no "but."
There was nothing left.
Oswell inhaled sharply and forced his hunched spine straight.
He didn't look at Shella anymore.
Didn't even look at the soldiers surrounding him.
He looked only at Lance.
"LANCE LOT!!"
RIIIP—
The expensive crimson velvet tore open—
Revealing beneath it the armor he refused to abandon even at death.
A suit of pure white plate—symbol of the glory that once defined him.
The white cloak shimmered mockingly in firelight.
He ignored the dozen blades aimed at his throat.
And roared with everything he had left.
"I DEMAND TRIAL BY COMBAT—HERE! NOW!"
"Fight me!"
"Knight to knight!"
Every gaze in the hall snapped toward Lance.
Everyone knew it.
A one-armed cripple could never defeat him.
Oswell knew it too.
But this wasn't about victory.
This was the last piece of dignity he could imagine claiming—
The last "honorable" ending he could still grasp.
And just as everyone expected Lance to grant him a clean, quick death—
The Lord Commander reached out and lightly patted the boy beside him.
"How old are you, kid?"
"Fifteen…"
Eddard hesitated.
"Next month."
"Fifteen…"
Lance's mouth curved.
And then, in a voice loud enough for the entire hall to hear, he issued an order that made everyone freeze in disbelief.
"You."
"Go fight him."
Eddard snapped his head up.
His dark grey eyes widened, blank with shock.
"If this 'former' Kingsguard, the noble Ser Oswell Whent…"
Lance stressed the words former, and fifteen-year-old child with deliberate cruelty—
"…can defeat a fifteen-year-old boy…"
"Then I'll pardon your crimes."
"No."
Eddard's voice cut through the air—firm, clear, and startlingly resolute for a child.
He straightened his back and faced Lance.
"I'm only fifteen, yes—but I trained in the Vale under Lord Vardis Corbray!"
"I refuse to fight a cripple."
"There is no honor in it."
Silence.
Dead silence.
Eddard was thin, not tall, malnourished from months in the black cells.
And Oswell, even without his right hand—
Was still a former Kingsguard.
Yet in this situation…
A fifteen-year-old boy had looked him in the eye and dismissed him as a cripple, unworthy even of being fought.
The laughter in people's eyes—
The sheer humiliation—
Stabbed Oswell like knives directly into his pride.
"AAARGH!!!"
Oswell exploded.
His remaining left hand tore his sword from its sheath, and he charged Eddard like a rabid beast.
"You little Stark whelp!! You dare insult me?!"
"DIE!"
Eddard didn't even have time to react.
Instinct screamed at him to step back—
But a gloved hand slammed hard into his back.
He stumbled forward uncontrollably, directly into Oswell's killing range.
The cold blade came crashing down—
Eddard twisted on reflex, muscle memory taking over.
His sword snapped upward in a perfect rising parry.
CLANG!
The impact numbed his arm to the bone.
"Careful, Stark~~~"
Lance's voice drifted behind him—half amused, half poisonous.
"One hand or not—'former' Kingsguard aren't so easy to handle."
"And if you can't beat even this…"
"Then you clearly don't have what it takes to be Lord of Winterfell."
Eddard clenched his jaw.
Because Oswell's attacks didn't stop.
The failed strike only made him wilder.
His left hand swung again and again—brutal, chaotic, vicious—
Not swordplay.
Brawling with steel.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
But after the first shock, Eddard's mind settled.
Corbray's training—years of drilled fundamentals—rose like a shield.
He stayed light on his feet, stepping around Oswell's clumsy, heavy blows—blocking, slipping, evading.
Then—
SHNK!
Eddard found the opening.
His blade punched into Oswell's thigh with perfect precision.
Blood sprayed.
Oswell's leg buckled.
His balance shattered.
THUD!
Eddard drove a boot straight into his chest, kicking him flat.
He surged forward, planted a foot on Oswell's breastplate, raised his sword with both hands—
And thrust downward.
He was going to end it.
A forced fight.
A humiliating fight.
A fight he never wanted.
But Oswell—on the ground—threw up his right arm to block.
A right arm that shouldn't exist.
SCREEECH—!
Steel slammed into metal.
Eddard's sword stopped less than an inch from Oswell's chest—
Locked hard.
Caught.
Clamped.
By a cold golden grip.
Eddard's heart dropped.
He yanked.
Nothing.
The blade wouldn't move.
Oswell's face flashed with savage delight.
His left hand stabbed upward toward Eddard's stomach—
RIIIP!
The sword scraped Eddard's armor, sparks bursting.
He barely saved himself by abandoning the blade and leaping back.
One heartbeat slower—
He'd be dead.
Oswell rose and wrenched the trapped sword free from his golden hand.
With a contemptuous toss—
CLANG!
Eddard's weapon hit the floor.
Oswell smiled like a monster.
"Kingsguard…"
Eddard breathed hard, eyes narrowed.
He hadn't expected it—
Even missing his sword hand, Oswell was still dangerous.
Then Eddard raised his fists.
If he had to—
He'd fight barehanded.
"Catch."
A sharp call came from behind.
Eddard turned purely on instinct and reached back—
His fingers closed around something heavier.
Colder.
Different.
He looked down.
A black blade.
A strange, beautiful pattern rippled along the steel like living darkness.
His breath caught.
He'd seen that kind of blade before.
In the halls of his own house.
Valyrian steel.
Eddard turned his head slightly.
Behind him, Lance's blue eyes held his gaze.
No mockery now.
No laughter.
Just calm expectation.
And suddenly—
The sword in his hands felt even heavier.
"DIE, WHELP!!"
Oswell screamed and lunged again, dragging his wounded leg, abandoning defense completely—
A wounded beast determined to take someone with it.
Eddard inhaled.
Gripped the wide hilt of Dragonfang.
And swung.
A rising slash—bottom to top—with every ounce of strength in his body.
Oswell's golden hand snapped out again.
Trying the same trick.
His left-hand sword stabbed forward at the same time—
But this time—
The result was different.
SHHHK!
No clang.
No resistance.
The Valyrian steel cut through the golden hand like a hot knife through fat.
The severed golden limb spun away.
And the black blade didn't stop.
It bit into Oswell's white armor—
Straight through it.
A horrific diagonal wound split him open from shoulder to ribs, bone-deep.
Blood erupted like a fountain.
THUD.
Oswell dropped to his knees.
He stared down at his ruined chest.
At the broken golden hand on the floor.
Hatred and agony twisted his face.
Eddard stepped forward.
Raised the sword over his head.
But—
His arms trembled.
He'd never killed a man.
Training in the Vale. Hunting boar and bear.
None of it was this.
And Oswell looked up—
Eyes bloodshot.
Face twisted.
And for one awful second—
The man looked like he was begging.
Eddard hesitated.
Then Lance's voice sliced into the hall like an executioner's blade.
"The cloak on your shoulders…"
"It marks you as Lord of Winterfell—appointed by His Grace."
"That cloak is not simply rank."
"It is responsibility, Stark."
"Your brother and your sister paid for betrayal with their lives."
"But your father and your brothers still try to drag the North into ruin."
Lance stared at him—unmoving, merciless.
"Either swing the sword."
"And drag the North back from the cliff."
"Or keep being a soft child who hides behind grief…"
"And watch House Stark be destroyed."
"The choice is yours."
"No one can choose for you."
Eddard's gray eyes flickered in the firelight.
His hands tightened around the massive black blade—
Too large for his lean frame.
But he stood straighter.
Steadier.
A boy no longer.
A wolf forced into leadership.
"I…"
"My name is Eddard Stark."
His face still held youth, speckled with blood—
But his voice became clear.
Heavy.
Firm.
Like a young lord taking his first true breath.
"In accordance with the laws of the realm…"
"By decree of His Grace, Aerys Targaryen the Second…"
He paused.
And for the first time, spoke the title like it belonged to him.
"As Lord of Winterfell…"
He raised the Valyrian sword high.
Black steel swallowed the firelight.
"I sentence you…"
"To death."
And in that instant—
The last hesitation vanished.
Eddard swung.
The blade fell clean.
A dull, final thump.
Oswell Whent's head rolled across the stone floor—eyes still open, full of hatred.
The hall remained silent.
Only the crackling of the hearths filled the air.
The tip of the black blade lowered slowly.
Blood slid from the dragon's maw engraved near its base.
And the new Lord of Winterfell—
In the cursed belly of Harrenhal—
Delivered his first judgment…
With iron.
With blood.
With firelight trembling over the steel.