Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

They had finally arrived. As the Yarzat banners crested the last hill, the city of Turogontoli emerged from the rolling horizon.

Alpheo reined in his horse for a moment, letting the rest of the column catch up as he took in the sight.

He knew this place well, not by person mind you; this was the first time he set foot on these lands.

His knowledge of the area came from the intel he received from Lucius’ agents, who, of course, put down in ink everything that they knew: terrain, castles, and the number of soldiers in the garrison.

But more importantly, Alpheo had studied the relations between the local lords, memorized grudges and alliances.

From those studies, one fact stood out above the rest: the lord of Turogontoli and the crown were not on friendly terms.

Whether it was born from a personal slight, a feud over taxes, or some tangle of bloodlines, Alpheo could not say for certain. But he didn’t need to know the cause to exploit it.

And yet, now that the city stood before him in the flesh, he could feel that the ink on Lucius’s reports had not done it justice.

This would not be an easy mark.

He found himself hoping, more strongly than usual, that steel would not be needed here. The sight of the prince’s humiliating flight from Apurvio, he hoped, would be enough to broaden the lord’s view about changing sides.

After all, not all lords wanted to risk everything on the whims of a siege, as if they lost, they would see their ancestral birthright lost under their noses by the hands of those whom they opposed.

Such a defection would not only save Alpheo precious time, it would also spare his army the nightmare of hammering at these walls until their strength bled away.

Because if it came down to a siege, he shuddered, as he knew it would be a butcher’s work, bloody, exhausting, and wasteful.

Not that he wasn’t capable of sending men to their death, he had little care for the men that did not serve him. It was just that he was never fond of vain deaths.

The wind pressed against his back, tossing his hair and snapping the banners overhead. He drew a slow breath. This was not a hill he wanted to take in blood. But whether it became one or not depended on a man he had yet to meet, for now it would be time to make camp.

He turned in the saddle, his gaze sweeping over the sea of men trailing behind him. The long, wavering line of spears and banners stretched back toward the horizon, thousands strong. More than enough to fully encircle the city, to choke it in a ring of steel until its gates creaked open from hunger or despair.

”Jarza,” he called, his voice low but carrying.

The commander of the First emerged from the press of riders, his heavy horse snorting as it drew alongside.

”Quite the city,” Jarza rumbled, his deep voice cutting through the whistle of the wind.

Alpheo’s eyes shifted back to the prize ahead. On that point, he could not argue. The city stood as if it had grown from the land itself, solid and unyielding.

Yet the thought of ordering his men forward, of hurling them against those defenses, brought with it a cold weight in his chest.

The walls themselves were formidable, though not the tallest he had encountered, Herculia’s battlements still reigned supreme in that regard, and even they were conquered through treachery instead of strength of arms.

The height and thickness of those that he would face today would not make the assault impossible, but they would make it costly. The real danger, however, was not in the masonry.

It was in the land on which the city was planted.

Contrary to what a casual glance might suggest, the walls did not fully encircle it. Three sides were guarded by solid stone, yes, but the fourth was walled by nature herself, one that made a whimper of any man-made structure.

Behind the city rose a low but imposing mountain, its slopes of weathered gray stone tumbling steeply toward the waters of a vast lake. At its far end, the mountain dropped into a sheer cliff, a jagged precipice that plunged directly into the dark, rippling expanse below.

No army could march up that cliff face. No fleet could anchor at its base, the lake’s waters swirled too close to the rock, and there was no harbor to be found.

Worse still, the lord’s own keep had been built upon that height, its towers jutting like spearheads from the rocky crown. From there, half the city’s rear was protected without a single man on the wall. The other half curved outward in a semicircle of stone, its battlements joining the mountain’s edge as though city and cliff had been carved from the same hand.

It was a fortress married to the land itself, and land, unlike men, did not tire or break.

Alpheo let his gaze drift from the looming fortress back to Jarza.”Send the First ahead,” he ordered, his tone calm but clipped. ”Establish a perimeter and have the men begin work on the camp.”

Jarza’s eyes swept the ground ahead, measuring the lay of the land. ”One camp, or more?”

”Three,” Alpheo replied without hesitation, giving a small shake of his head. ”We’ll finish the first before moving on to the others. We need to seal every approach where they might attempt a sortie. Fortunately, their own defenses work against them, their ditches cut both ways.”

Jarza’s gaze followed the jagged lines of the earthworks the defenders had carved into the fields. ”They’ve dug deep. Will you have Egil ride out and gather the villagers for labor?”

Alpheo’s mouth tightened into a thin line. ”No. The enemy has prepared too well for this. Every village within reach has been stripped clean; people, animals, and stores of grain have all been taken inside those walls. By now they’ll be manning the battlements and cursing our names. There’s nothing left for us to take out here.”

”I suppose that means starving them into submission is not an option,” Jarza said, his voice low.

”Our food will vanish long before theirs does,” Alpheo admitted. ”We’ve just come from victory, with more than enough able bodies to throw against their walls. Normally, I’d be wary of wasting them in a bloody storm, but if a long siege is impossible, then we may have no choice, assuming the lord proves unwilling to talk.”

Jarza glanced at him sidelong. ”Do you think he will? I have yet to see a lord that would not bend to the wind if a storm came on the horizon”

Alpheo’s gaze lingered on the city, tracing the defiant line of its walls against the sky. ”We stand here with more than three thousand at our back, and the prince who should be their shield is broken,scattered like leaves in a storm. They know no relief will come to aid them from us.

I’m hopeful the lord will see reason and understand that opposing us is foolish.

But if he does not...” He exhaled slowly, as if weighing the words. ”Then we’ll pray steel favors us. Sieges can be as treacherous and changeable as the sea.”

He straightened in the saddle. ”I’ll have the engineers begin laying out the camp at once. We’ll also start assembling the equipment for a storm. Without laborers, we’ll have to fill the ditches ourselves.

I’ll order carts built with timbered walls to shield the workers; it will be slow, but better than losing men before the fight even begins. It is unfortunate that we cannot enlist those from the surrounding villages, but that’s just the way it is. In the meantime, we can send Egil farther afield. Perhaps he can turn up more hands or resources to hasten the work, they will be on the ride for days , but it isn’t like they will be of much use except for patrolling our sorroundings.

I have yet to see a horse able to jump over walls”

Jarza studied him for a moment not laughing at the jest. ”You don’t sound hopeful that the lord will see reason.”

A faint, humorless smile crossed Alpheo’s lips. ”I suppose it shows. I’ve never been fond of offensive sieges, too much waste, too many variables. But if the city is to fall, we’ll all have to make our sacrifices. Pity we don’t have the catapults we used at Herculia. They would have spared us time and lives.”

Jarza’s deep chuckle broke the moment, surprising the prince. He reached over to tap Alpheo’s shoulder. ”Perhaps we won’t need them after all.”

Alpheo turned, following the direction of Jarza’s pointing finger toward the city gates.

They were yawning open, the heavy timbers groaning on their hinges. From within emerged a lone rider, a white flag of truce fluttering in the breeze and being waved into the open air.

A slow breath escaped Alpheo as he adjusted his grip on the reins. ”If fortune smiles on us,” he murmured, ”we may yet settle this without bloodshed.”