Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The horse—truest friend to man in war.

There was a reason horses had been used from the first cries of tribal warfare to the thunderous frontlines of World War II. Be it for the devastating shock of a knight’s charge, the swiftness of a scout slipping through enemy lines, or simply to haul supply-laden carts across broken terrain—horses had been inseparable from the art of war.

Even where mules outmatched them in sheer endurance and labor, it was the horse that men sang about, wept over, and died beside.

That’s why Valen found it strangely disquieting to stand on the eve of a battle in which cavalry would play no part.

There would be no sweeping maneuvers around the enemy flanks, no thunderous tide of hooves crashing into disordered ranks, no glint of lances like a wave of silver death rolling down a hill. This would not be Egil’s kind of war—no darting riders with eagle-feathered helms, loosing javelins from horseback and vanishing before a counterstrike. No, what waited ahead was a battle of footmen, unromantic and unrelenting. Steel to steel. Shield to shield. Sweat and mud and blood, without the elegance of galloping grace.

And in a strange way, Valen found himself excited.

He was, after all, a commander of infantry. One of Alpheo’s hand-picked captains—the kind who didn’t ride at the head of a mounted column but marched with men whose armor bore the weight of their country’s hopes. Leading those armored ranks across killing fields had given Valen a hardened reverence for the infantryman. They were not as glamorous as knights nor as swift as horsemen, but they were resolute. Solid. When others faltered, it was the infantry who planted their feet and held the line.

Alpheo had seen the same truth, and had built his army around it. Where other lords poured gold into the breeding of horses and the polishing of banners, Alpheo had forged his strength in iron and discipline. His infantry carried the best weapons , wore the best mail that could be afforded, and trained in formations drilled again and again until they became reflexes.

Still, Valen had not entirely left the horse behind. His mounted guards had been indispensable in scouting the battlefield. They had skirted the ground and even traced the enemy’s movements through broken terrain, before having returned with dust-caked reports of where and how their foes would march. It had taken time—messages passed through three languages, translated and retraced until meaning finally settled into something clear.

But the result was worth it.

They knew where the enemy was.

And, more importantly, the enemy did not know where they were.

The opportunity for surprise was theirs. In war, that was half the battle won.

Yet even with that advantage, Valen found himself reining in his confidence. The enemy they faced wasn’t some ragtag band or rebellious vassal. These were mountain-born warriors, forged by a land that crushed the weak.

The tactics that made the White Army feared in the cultivated fields of the south—tight formations, disciplined volleys, slow, grinding advances—might prove brittle here, among ridges and rockslides and sudden, screaming ambushes.

Valen had studied war in theory, lived it in practice, and taught it to green conscripts. But now, a small ember of doubt crept into him. Not fear. Never that. But a sharpened sense that the coming clash would not unfold by any familiar pattern. Here, the ground itself would shape the battle. Here, the old laws of war did not apply.

Valen stood aside in that circle where the great chieftain and his eldest warrior gathered.

His helm tucked under one arm, the wind catching the hem of his cloak as it billowed behind him like a war banner yet unfurled. Behind them the warriors gathered—ragged lines at first, then swelling into a sea of bodies, iron, and firelight.

And then one of the old warrior stepped forward at least with his voice.

He was a great figure —his beard braided with bones, face creased like cracked leather, eyes burning beneath a brow shadowed by years of bloodshed. Scars ran down his arms like ancient runes, the ink of old battles etched in flesh. He stood taller than most, his bare chest, which he refused to cover with any sort of armor, painted with war-markings, the lines of them twitching with each breath he took.

He raised his axe to the sky—an old thing, chipped and darkened by use, but still heavy with death.

And he howled.

The words were alien to Valen. A language older than the mountains themselves, rough and thunderous—not spoken, but thrown into the air like a thrown spear.

Others took up the cry. One voice became ten.

Valen didn’t need to know the words to understand, as he knew very well the history between the Chorsi and the DuskWindai.

Valen stood still, awed and silent, letting the last of their howls die like thunder rolling off into the mountains. The echoes faded into the cold dusk air, and for a heartbeat, the only sound was the wind rustling through the worn banners and fur-lined cloaks of the tribesmen.

Then, with purpose in his step, Valen approached the towering figure that sat atop the carved stone seat, his silhouette outlined by the fire burning behind him.

”Aru ghogi,” Valen said, the words foreign and thick on his tongue—but among the few he had committed to memory.

The Chieftain, Varaku, turned having being called. His eyes, like polished obsidian, fixed on Valen with the weight of a hawk sizing up prey.

Around him, the circle of seated warriors, elders, and war-scarred chieftains fell into sudden silence. All eyes turned toward the foreigner. A dozen hearth-fires burned around them, casting flickering shadows over painted faces and iron-bound weapons.

With the translators beginning to murmur his words, Valen started

”As you all know, my warriors have scouted the enemy positions and the surrounding terrain. I come not to command, but to offer a suggestion—if you will hear it.”

He had barely finished the sentence and as the translators was doing his job, a voice burst out like a stone hurled through glass.

One of the older warriors stood, his cloak of white goat-fur swirling behind him. He spat into the dirt and shouted something guttural and sharp, his finger stabbing the air at Valen. His voice rose like a growl, filled with venom. Even without knowing the language, Valen could feel the insult woven into the syllables.

He kept his posture calm and his eyes steady, turning his gaze from the spitting elder back to Varaku. He said nothing, refusing to rise to anger. The elder’s face twisted with fury, and his shouting only grew more bitter—less words now, more bark and snarl, as if language itself failed to carry the weight of his disdain.

The moment hung in the air like a poised axe.

Then Varaku’s deep voice broke the tension.

”Skor-ahg! Varom’da khi’dranak!”

The words thundered out of him like stone grinding against stone, harsh and primal. His voice carried over the circle like a command issued to wild beasts. The elder silenced at once, his lips curling into a grimace, but he sat back down.

The translator stepped beside Valen and bowed slightly, then spoke in a low voice:

”The Great Chieftain offers you his apologies. Not all of his warriors see kindly to the counsel of an outsider, even one who fights beside them. But he speaks for the tribe, and he says this—your presence is honored, and your friendship, respected.”

Valen gave a short nod, accepting the words with a calm grace.

”There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, loud enough for the translator to carry it back to the circle. ”I understand the distrust. I do not come with pride, only with purpose.”

Valen stepped closer to the firelight, the warm orange glow catching the polished edges of his armor and the worn lines beneath his eyes. Around him, the mountain warriors remained silent, listening with the tense focus of men who knew the weight of every word before battle.

”Our advantage,” Valen began, his voice calm but sharp, ”does not lie in numbers.”

A few heads nodded knowingly.

”It does not lie only in steel,” he continued, tapping his knuckles gently against the pommel of his sword, ”nor in the armor that my prince has gifted your warriors—though I assure you, they will soon learn what your spears and axes can do when bound with Romelian iron.”

He looked around the circle, measuring their gazes. Then he added, ”But most of all, our advantage lies in their ignorance.”

Varaku’s brow arched slightly.

”The enemy does not know,” Valen said, ”what you have become. They still see the mountain tribes they forced from their lands last year. The same tribes who packed up their lives and rode west to avoid war.”

At that, a muscle in Varaku’s jaw twitched. His expression twisted—not at Valen, but at the memory. He clenched his fists on his knees, his eyes flaring like embers kicked to life. There was pain there, yes—but beneath it, rage. And pride, bruised but not broken.

”They think you are still that people,” Valen said, voice softer now, threading through the space like smoke. ”But you are not.”

Varaku’s growl was low and bitter, like a bear roused in winter. He did not speak, but the firelight caught his nod.

”My prince,” Valen continued, ”is a great warrior—and a wise one. He has a saying: ’Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.’”

The translators murmured the phrase across the circle

”Right now,” Valen said, ”they think you’re weak. Still scattered. Still unready. That’s what they will walk into this valley expecting. And that,” he added, stepping forward and driving his words into the earth, ”is exactly what you must give them.”

Varaku finally spoke, his voice a rasp of smoke and steel.

”Drath-kal?”

The translator turned. ”He asks... How?”

Valen gave a thin, cunning smile, happy at being heard.

”We don’t meet them in full force at first,” he said. ”We show them your youngest, your thinnest lines. We let them believe they’re pushing you back. We lure them in, deeper and deeper—until they’re wedged in a ravine so narrow even their banners can’t unfurl.”

He gestured to the fire.

”Then, when their line is stretched, when they believe they’ve broken your back... that’s when we break theirs.”

He turned back to Varaku, firelight dancing in his eyes.

”Let them think you are the same tribe they forced from your homeland. Let them think they still hold power over you. And when they reach for your throat—cut off theirs”

”There is a forest,” he said, voice sharp and deliberate, ”dense and wide, growing from both sides of the valley where the enemy must march.”

He pointed to the marks traced in the dirt by one of his scouts. ”My warriors noted it from the hills. It hugs the battlefield closely, a narrow pass with trees on either side thick enough to swallow an army without a sound. The enemy, arrogant and assured of their superiority, will walk into that funnel believing they face only frightened boys and aging men.”

He looked up, his voice now steeled. ”That is when your veterans—those who will remember the hardest and feel the most shame of being cast out—will fall upon them from the trees, from the shadows, with the steel we’ve given you. And they will not simply win.”

He stepped forward, eyes burning like the fire behind him.

”They will shatter them. And when it is done, they will give them twice the humiliation your people were served. Twice.”

The crack of a boot rang out as one of the warriors—broad-shouldered and with a scowl carved into his face like stone—rose to his feet, ready to speak, his mouth parting for what promised to be a challenge.

But before a word escaped his lips, the sharp sound of a shift in leather echoed.

Varaku turned toward him slowly, his gaze heavy, a silent mountain pressing down.

The warrior froze mid-breath.

The chieftain’s stare said everything: Sit down.

And so he did.

And that at that moment he said the words that would change forever the history of a civilization trapped in their old traditions and isolationism.

”Drath-karak.” he growled.

And so the road for a new age was opened up with two words.