Chapter 94 — Sweep the Net Clean
"Taken literally… that's still not what it means.
No—even literally, that's not what it means."
Odin stared at Iggo's honest, baffled expression for a few seconds. Then he laughed—there was helplessness in it, but also release.
"…Fine. You win."
He shook his head, turned around, and faced the square filled with terrified, stunned, hollow-eyed faces.
"Remember today."
"It was Odin of the Black Hand who brought you justice—
not the gods."
"I'll say it one last time."
"Kneel and drink poison, or stand and eat clean bread.
Choose for yourselves."
"Now—get the hell home. Unless you want the Gold Cloaks to drag you away as scapegoats."
At those words, the crowd finally began to disperse.
Many of them kept turning back as they walked—
looking at the dissected corpse on the platform,
at the Dothraki chewing on a heart,
and at the man standing calmly in a pool of blood.
Odin.
They would remember that name.
At least for now.
Odin walked over to the woman.
She'd been lucky—unhurt by the fighting—and was curled on the ground with her child wrapped in a cloak.
"Come with me," he said.
"Your child can still be saved."
The woman looked at him. Tears spilled over again. She nodded, dazed, and followed.
Iggo jumped down from the platform, flicked blood from his dagger, and spat repeatedly.
"Disgusting. Tastes like shit."
"Then don't eat it next time," Odin said.
"You said 'kill the man, break the heart,'" Iggo replied indignantly.
"I ripped out the heart. If I don't take a bite, how do I know it worked?"
Odin inhaled slowly, clenched his fist… then let it go.
"When we have time," he said flatly,
"I'm teaching you how to read."
"Study? Study wha—"
One look from Odin shut him up.
Two men, one woman, one child—
an odd little procession—
walked through the blood-soaked Fishmonger's Square toward Flea Bottom.
Behind them, the assistant's hollowed chest cavity gaped toward the sky, like a mouth frozen in a silent prayer, still devoutly calling for the Seven to descend.
---
Deeper in the alleys, the High Sparrow stopped in a hidden corner and glanced back toward the square.
For the first time in more than a decade, the calm in his eyes was gone—
replaced by fire.
As if sensing something, Odin glanced toward the same alley.
He said nothing.
He just grinned—wide and genuinely pleased.
You live by your word in this world.
If you say kill the man and break the heart,
then you do it properly.
Not the way Iggo did it.
But the real way.
---
Noon in King's Landing was a furnace.
Even in late autumn, the heat clung thickly to the streets.
Brienne of Tarth, encased in heavy armor, seemed barely affected. Her greaves struck the stone road with dull, steady thuds—matching her mood.
Terrible.
Ser Loras Tyrell had believed her. He had accepted her account of Renly's death and let her go.
What troubled her was Sansa Stark.
When Brienne found the girl and mentioned Lady Catelyn—mentioned taking her home—Sansa had only shaken her head.
"I'm going to marry Ser Loras," she had said, smiling faintly.
"We'll go to Highgarden. There's no winter there."
But when Brienne spoke of Ned Stark's execution, Sansa's voice was eerily calm.
"My father committed treason," she said.
"King Joffrey is the rightful ruler."
The mechanical obedience chilled Brienne to the bone.
She was free.
And yet—what now?
Renly was dead. Arya was gone. Sansa refused to leave.
Lady Catelyn's trust had been… broken.
Standing in the square outside the Red Keep, Brienne felt lost.
Where could she go?
Back to Tarth? To marriage? To people who would never understand her?
"Go find Odin," Jaime's voice echoed in her mind.
"He'll give you something to do. At least he won't bore you into joining a sept."
On impulse, Brienne stepped into Flea Bottom.
---
"Did you hear?"
"That Odin guy—killed seven septons at Fishmonger's Square!"
"Seven? I heard seventy!"
"Bullshit. Seven hundred! Blood turned the Blackwater red!"
The rumors buzzed like flies.
Brienne snapped.
She seized a man by the collar. "Why are you slandering Odin?"
"I—I'm not lying!" he stammered, terrified. He had never seen a woman taller, broader, and armored like a knight.
"My cousin saw it! That demon beside him ripped a septon's heart out and ate it alive! Ask anyone!"
Brienne shoved him aside and pressed on.
But the deeper she went, the worse the stories became.
Protection rackets. Finger-chopping. Enchanted bread that enslaved minds.
One tale even claimed Odin cracked open a baby's skull and drank the marrow.
Absolute nonsense.
Brienne shook her head. Odin was ruthless, sharp, and pragmatic—but not a mad butcher.
…Right?
Unease crept in.
She broke into a jog, weaving through the final maze of alleys, until she stopped before a three-story stone building.
—The Hall of Order.
Black Hand banners snapped overhead.
She heard shouting inside—men yelling, children screaming, metal striking metal.
Without hesitation, Brienne pushed the door open.
---
The hall was vast.
Rows of crude wooden beds filled the space, each occupied. A dozen robed figures wearing maester's chains moved briskly between them.
On the left, her eyes caught on a little girl—four or five years old—sitting upright on a bed, eyes bright.
A needle was fixed into the back of her hand. Clear liquid dripped steadily from a glass bottle above, flowing through strange tubing into her body.
The girl noticed Brienne staring.
She smiled.
"Hold him down! Rorik, are you useless or what?!"
Odin's voice burst out from behind a curtain.
"He's biting me! The little bastard bit me! Should we just knock him out with a brick?!"
"Idiot! Let him bite! Don't let go! He's already had too many drugs—any more and he'll end up brain-dead!"
Clang! Clang!
A child screamed.
Brienne's blood surged.
Torture. Abuse. Everything she'd heard—
Her hand went to her sword.
Then—
She tore the curtain aside.
"Stop!"
---
She froze.
An oak surgical table stood before her.
Rorik and several men were pinning down a struggling boy—eight or nine years old, skeletal, his right leg twisted grotesquely at the ankle.
Odin had one hand locked at the boy's thigh, the other holding a scalpel—its edge hovering above the blackened, dead flesh.
Everyone looked up.
Odin blinked in surprise.
Then he laughed.
"Brienne! Perfect timing!"
"Quick—come help me hold him down! The kid's stronger than he looks!"
"…So," he added cheerfully,
"you've decided to join me after all?"
---
After the surgery was finished, Odin scrubbed the blood from his hands and asked Brienne casually,
"Jaime said you were looking for something to do."
Brienne's gaze lingered on the dark blood and pus splattered across Odin's surgical gown. Then she looked at little Tommy, whom Rorik was carrying out of the room.
Suddenly, she bent at the waist.
"I'm sorry, Odin. Just now I—"
"You heard the rumors?"
To her surprise, Odin guessed it immediately. He waved it off, unconcerned.
"You know, but why—"
"Come with me."
He didn't answer right away, instead leading her out of the operating room.
They stopped beside the little girl receiving an IV. Odin gently patted her head.
"This is Lysa. Pneumonia. Five days of high fever."
"If I hadn't borrowed these things from that old fox Pycelle, she would've been dead last night."
Then he asked softly, "Where's your mother?"
The girl rubbed her cheek against his hand affectionately, her throat still hoarse.
"She went to work."
"…At the soup kitchen."
Odin smiled faintly. Then he pointed toward the boy who had passed out from pain earlier.
"Little Tommy. He broke his leg, but those septons only gave him hallucinogens mixed with poison."
"He couldn't feel pain, but that also delayed treatment."
"As you saw, the ankle joint was completely necrotic. The bone was rotting. If I hadn't amputated the foot, he'd have lost his life."
"And I couldn't give him any medication," Odin continued calmly, "because he'd already taken too much before. I couldn't control the dosage. One mistake and I'd damage his brain—heal his body, but turn him into an idiot."
"And there's Old Hal the cobbler's wife… Rell's daughter…"
He kept pointing to patients on the beds, calling each of them by name. Every person he indicated bowed to him sincerely in greeting.
"In the past three months," Odin said quietly, "that man they call the High Sparrow 'comforted' at least twenty children who could have been saved."
"He calls it 'the mercy of the Seven.'"
"I call it murder."
Brienne fell silent.
She remembered all the stories she'd heard on the way—persecuted septons, torn-out hearts, demons.
So it was all… lies.
"What do you need me to do?" she finally asked, her expression firming.
"I can help you arrest everyone spreading those rumors. Jaime gave me this—I can't let him down."
She patted the sword at her waist: Oathkeeper.
Odin just smiled.
"Sometimes, when a rat shows up in your house, you don't rush to smash it."
"You give it a taste of something sweet."
"And when it scurries back to its nest and tells the whole family that there's food here—and that it's safe…"
"That's when you catch them all in one net."
As he spoke, Odin pushed open a window and looked out at the now-clean streets, spreading his hands meaningfully.
"Welcome to the Hall of Order, Miss Brienne."
"Here, even good people sometimes have to learn how to do a little 'evil.'"
He paused, then turned back to meet her eyes.
"Are you willing?"
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