Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

At the veiled accusation, Sorza’s self-control snapped like a bowstring. His chair screeched against the floorboards as he lurched forward, face red.

”I will not sit here and be insulted by the likes of you!” he thundered, his voice carrying through the tent like a whip crack.

Alpheo, unshaken, merely leaned the weight of his gaze upon him he didn’t even blink. When he spoke, it was in a tone so even it only made Sorza’s anger more conspicuous.

”Then you will be taking them standing up, I suppose...not really sure I am seeing the point here, Your Grace.” he said dryly, his lips quirking into the faintest ghost of a smile.

The jab landed as surely as an arrow, and the veins in Sorza’s neck corded. He looked one breath away from lunging across the benches, but before he could make a greater fool of himself, the heavy iron-capped staff of Shaza came crashing against the ground.

BANG.

The sound reverberated, startling even the envoys in the back rows into silence.

”Your Grace,” Shaza said, his voice hard as hammered steel, turning his sharp gaze on Sorza. ”You are not to interrupt while the other is speaking. This is not a brawl in a marketplace. If you could resume your seat, we may continue.”

Sorza wheeled on him, indignant. ”Am I to stay silent when insults are hurled my way? When slander is spat in the faces of princes, by someone barely above a commoner at that?”

Shaza did not flinch. His stick rapped once more, lighter this time, but commanding still. ”No insult was given, Your Grace. He merely stated that your words were... selective in their truths. He accused you of omissions not falsehoods. Nothing more.”

He let the silence hang for a breath before turning toward Alpheo. His expression was controlled, his voice calm but edged. ”But accusations of lies are dangerous in such company. Proof must anchor them, else they are no better than insults. And so, Prince of Yarzat, I must strongly urge you to temper your words, this isn’t a jesting match.... ”

Alpheo inclined his head slightly . ”If my words have come across as discourteous, I beg pardon. It was not my intention to cast shadows upon the honor of my counterpart.”

Shaza’s eyes narrowed faintly. ”And yet...” he pressed, his tone careful, deliberate, ”you have denied his claims outright. You called them lies. So I ask again, before these witnesses , have you proof of such an accusation?”

”I do,” Alpheo said at last, his tone dry and measured, the faintest edge of steel in it. His gaze swept the tent once, letting the silence settle before continuing. ”Still, I believe that before parading proof, it would be wiser to first untangle the truth of the matter. Proof without clarity is wasted breath. Allow me to first lay bare the foundation of the dispute, and only then bring forth the evidence that supports it.

The first charge leveled against me is that I—I—am the instigator of this war. That is not merely false, it is laughable. I did not start this war; I inherited it. The wheel of conflict has been grinding for more than a decade, and by the time my wife took her seat as princess and me as her consort, we inherited it , it was already spinning, blood already spilled, cities already scarred. What came to me was no fresh war of my making, but an old feud, punctuated by uneasy truces that never held.”

”Do you deny refusing my peace offerings?” Sorza suddenly barked, unable to hold his tongue.

Shaza’s staff cracked against the ground like thunder. ”Your Grace, I warned you. If you wish to reply, you will ask for the floor. You will not shout across it like a drunken carter.”

Sorza’s jaw worked furiously, his hands gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles whitened. After a long breath, he ground out, ”May I retort?”

”You may,” Shaza said curtly, gesturing.

Sorza rose half a hand’s breadth from his seat, eyes boring into Alpheo. ”Very well. Then answer me plainly, in the sight of these lords and their gods. Do you deny refusing my peace offerings?”

”I do not” Alpheo replied, his voice unshaken.

Sorza’s face split into a grin of triumph, and he wheeled toward the envoys. ”You all heard it! He admits it! He admits rejecting peace!” He jabbed a finger toward Alpheo like an accuser in the courts, his head snapping from side to side to see if any would confirm his cry.

Alpheo did not flinch. Instead, he inclined his head slightly, the faintest smile ghosting his lips. ”As I have admitted it, then it is my turn, I think, to pose a question equally plain. Do you deny, before these same witnesses, that it was your realm that first raised sword against mine?”

The tent fell into sudden stillness. Sorza’s mouth opened, then closed again. His face twitched, his eyes narrowing, and when at last he spoke, his voice faltered against the weight of the truth.

”That... that was my father,” he said, his jaw tightening. ”It was not I who first declared war.”

Alpheo’s brows lifted slightly, his tone smooth as silk. ”Then I will take that as a confirmation that you misspoke. For a moment ago, you declared I began this war. Yet by your own lips, it was not me, but your father. That is one falsehood dispelled.”

Sorza’s fists clenched. ”By refusing peace, you may as well have lit the fire anew! You could have ended it, but you chose instead to keep it alive!”

”And you would have me believe,” Alpheo countered swiftly, his words sharp yet even, ”that I refused peace without cause? That I, who inherited this war already ablaze, had no reason to mistrust the hand extended from the very side that first spilled blood?” He leaned slightly forward, voice quiet but cutting. ”You accuse me of rejecting peace,then I accuse you of offering it without honesty.”

”I do not!” Sorza roared, slamming his palm against the bench. His voice rose above decorum, raw with fury. ”You speak only excuses! You wrap tyranny in pretty words, but your refusal was nothing more than naked ambition of a common bl—!”

BANG!

Shaza’s staff struck the floor so hard that the vibration hummed through the benches. His voice, when it came, rolled like thunder over mountains.

”ENOUGH!”

The tent fell into instant silence, the echoes of his word ringing in the canvas above. His face was carved stone, his glare fierce as a storm.

”This is no tavern dispute, no back-alley squabble! This is a council for peace, convened under my roof and under the gods’ eyes. I will not have it degraded by shouting, slander, and vulgarity. You are princes, not squabbling children, and if you cannot speak as princes then you will be silenced as children. Do I make myself clear?”

Neither Sorza nor Alpheo dared to answer first. At last, both gave stiff nods.

Shaza’s grip tightened on his staff. ”Good. Then let us continue, without this folly. Alpheo, you may finish your statement. But mark me well: one more outburst from either of you, and I will end this session myself to take it on the next day.”

”Very well,” Alpheo began again, ”What I mean to say is that I did indeed reject Sorza’s so-called peace offerings. And I did so for one reason only, because every dealing I have ever had with the Oizenian crown has been steeped in treachery, and dishonor.

The offers of peace they sent were not the olive branch of reconciliation, but simply a reprieve from an invasion that I squashed.”

He let the words hang in the air for a breath before continuing, turning slightly so his voice carried evenly across the chamber.

”I would remind all present that those ’offers of peace’ arrived barely days after the Crown of Oizen had clasped hands with Herculia, and together moved to sow insurrection among my lords. Clear open attempts to fracture Yarzat from within, raising against me the very nobles who owed their lands, and oaths to the crown. And not nobles alone! A peasant rabble as well, stirred to rebellion under the banner of a fallen priest.”

Mesha’s brows arched slightly; another envoy shifted in his seat.

”And when those rebel lords, realizing the madness of their scheme, sought to draw back from it, what was the response of Oizen’s crown? Did he counsel peace then? No. He threatened them with exposure. Threatened to reveal their treason to the world, to drag their names through the mud, unless they pressed forward with their betrayal. ”

Sorza tried to speak up, but he was quickly silenced by Shaza who allowed Alpheo to continue

The tent returned to silence again , every word digging deeper into the air.

”So I ask you, my lords, my noble witnesses: who among you would trust an offer of peace from the very hand that had, only a moment before, held the leash of your rebels and pressed the knife to your throat? Where, I ask, is the ’genuineness’ of which the Prince of Oizen speaks so freely, when his own actions betray every oath of honor and every respect owed to Yarzat’s sovereignty?”

He paused deliberately, letting his gaze sweep across the gathered envoys.

At the mumurs of disbelief coming from the envoy and the clear snort of irritation that passed through the Habadian among them.

Still, It was the silence, more than the words themselves, that condemned Sorza now.