Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”Come on, Marle, move it!”

”Fuck, I’ve got a rock in my boot!”

”Then skip, you idiot! Move your ass!’’

’’Soldiers! Get in formation!”

The world outside Alpheo’s tent had dissolved into pure chaos. Men shouted over each other, the air heavy with the smell of sweat, oil kindly provided by the Romelians splattered on armor , and burning fires. Armor clattered, horses screamed, and priests whispered blessings that vanished beneath the thunder of drums. On every patch of ground there was movement, men tightening straps, sharpening blades, gulping down water, or sinking to their knees for what could be their last prayer.

Alpheo stood still for a heartbeat, just watching it all, mesmorized by the sight. Two thousand and a half men wearing the black and white of Yarzat moved like a great tide around him. The banners rippled in the rising wind, snapping against a gray sky that smelled of dust and blood. For a moment just a fleeting one, he felt comfort, as he realised he belonged somewhere.

His men were ready.

Then he made the mistake of looking east.

Beyond the ridgeline, the enemy was coming. A brown wall of dust rolled up toward the heavens, swallowing the morning sun.

Alpheo’s throat went dry. He tore his eyes away and turned sharply.

”Legate!” he called, spotting his friend already armored and astride his charger.

The man’s helm gleamed in the dull light, the scarlet plumes dancing in the wind, his hair this time combed back to his neck, as the helmet already covered his scar.

”Make sure you stay close to the Emperor,” Alpheo ordered ”If there’s a gap in the line, you fill it. If you see something wrong, fix it , even if it means ignoring the Emperor’s command. I trust your eyes more than his crown.”

Asag gave a stiff nod, then dismounted long enough to clasp Alpheo’s forearm in both hands.

”From Arlania to Yarzat, brother!We shall toast by the day’s end”

”From Arlania to Yarzat,” Alpheo returned, gripping him hard. Their foreheads almost touched, and for an instant, it felt like they stood back in their old days again. ’’Stay close to your wits, brother!I nearly lost you once already.’’

When Asag pulled back, he looked lighter somehow, as if the words had made armor of his fear.

Alpheo turned next to the man he dreaded parting from and yet warm at the fact he was there with them all.

Egil was tightening the straps on his saddle, his hound-faced helmet tucked beneath one arm. When he noticed Alpheo’s gaze, he grinned that wolfish grin of his.

”What, no kiss for luck for old Egil?” he said as he slipped the helmet over his head, his voice echoing hollowly through the metal snout that made him look like a hound.

Alpheo said nothing,just smiled, weary but warm, and held out his arm. Egil took it, and the grip was strong enough to hurt.

”I hoped we wouldn’t get sentimental,never been good with heart’s words” Egil muttered, though his voice betrayed the tremor of something softer beneath the jest. ”Know this, Alph, whatever happens today, meeting you halfway on that road to death was the best thing that’s happened to me all my life.”

”Likewise,” Alpheo said, his voice rough. ”We’ll see each other at the end of it. As you have asked we shall make a ride throughout all of Yarzat, you and I together.”

Egil mounted with a smile wider than the horizon, the leather creaking under him. His javelins rattled against his back, his lance secured between saddle and thigh.

”I will finally show you the way of my people then! Wherever that end lay, brother,I am sure we will make a mess of it” he said over his shoulder. Then, with a short laugh that was almost a roar, he spurred his horse forward and rode to join his unit.

The men of Yarzat parted for him like waves for a ship.

Alpheo watched him go until the sight of him disappeared, swallowed by the army’s shifting mass.

When he turned toward his tent again, Dorian was already there, steady as ever, fitting a new strap around Alpheo’s white charger. The animal’s breath came out in steaming bursts, hooves pawing the dirt as if it too could sense what was coming and it excited him.

The horizon rumbled. The wind carried the first faint notes of enemy horns as they reached closer and closer.

Alpheo took a deep breath, feeling the weight of his sword at his side and the steady tremor of the earth beneath his boots.

----------------------

”Bloody day for history,” he said under his breath, his hand brushing the horse’s mane

”I think they’re waiting for a speech,” Jarza muttered, nudging Alpheo’s thigh with the tip of his foot.

Alpheo didn’t look up. His eyes were still fixed on the distant haze,the enemy lines swelling like a living tide, dust rising above them in a choking curtain. The sight had frozen him for a heartbeat. It wasn’t fear, not quite. It was the understanding that this field, this moment, might well mark the death of everything he’d fought for.

”I don’t think I have any to give,” he said finally, his voice low and dry.

Jarza gave a sharp, breathy chuckle. ”Then I think it would be best for all of us if you make up something.”

Alpheo’s mouth twitched-

Jarza gave one last meaningful look and turned back to the ranks.

Alpheo exhaled and slowly turned his horse, the black stallion stamping the earth as though feeling its rider’s unrest.

He looked over his men.

Of the 2,500 he had brought from Yarzat, 1,650 stood behind him now,all of them scarred veterans , and fighters of nearly half a dozen battles. Around them, 900 Romelians had joined their flank,half-trained and mostly given to fill the ranks.

Eight thousand three hundred souls in total, facing twelve thousands across the plain. They’d had to spread their strength thin, like butter on dry bread. Each flank held about 2,500 men.

Tyros commanded the right. The right had been given to Croxiatus, the Emperor’s father-in-law, and finally Alpheo the left.

The rear was the Emperor’s, shadowed by the Third Legion under Asag and six hundred of the Voghondai led by Torghan. Those auxiliary were a sight: broad-chested, wrapped in chainmail and breastplates, their helms crowned with three white feathers or streaked in blood-red paint. Every one of them carried a two-handed axe, and every one of them looked like they could cleave a man in half.

Alpheo had played a lot on intimidation and tried to reconstruct them to be similar to the heavy infantry of the Varangians.

Alpheo’s eyes drifted back to his own line.

Of the three flanks, his would take the hardest beating,that much was certain. The enemy commander wasn’t a fool. He’d come straight for Alpheo, given that was the only flank that could be overwhelmed with numbers.

And yet... that was exactly what Alpheo wanted.

He had no illusions about the day’s odds. But if there was any chance, any, of victory, it hinged on him. On his men. They were the hammer meant to break the rebel flank and roll the line inward like a crushed serpent.

If they broke through, the battle could be theirs.If they failed, well, there wouldn’t be enough left to bury.

Alpheo raised his head again. From here he could see faces, men he’d marched beside for years. Faces pale under their helmets, eyes too wide, knuckles white around javelins’ shafts. Some muttered prayers, others simply stared into the distance as if waiting for the gods to answer them.

And all of them were waiting for him.

He straightened in the saddle, the wind tugging at his cloak. His heartbeat slowed. The noise of the camp, the clanking, the distant horns, all of it faded.

He took a deep breath as he peered down the lines.

”I see a thousand reasons in this field,” he said at last, voice low at first, then gathering like thunder. ”Honor. Gold. Revenge. The roofs you will lose if you do nothing. The shame you will be given if you turn and run. All good reasons. All honest reasons. But none of them matters to me this morning.”

He let that sit for a few seconds.

”What matters is that you stand. That you are here. Some of you follow me because you were born to follow my banner.

Some of you will for your duty.

Some of you claim this soil as your own. You wear different colors, you argue over different debts and yet here you are, shoulder to shoulder. That alone binds you more tightly than any oath on parchment.”

He pointed toward the far ridge where the enemy massed, a rising bruise on the horizon. The men followed his finger; dust bloomed like smoke.

”They come to take what that banner protects. They will burn the friend who sheltered you, and then they will look to your fields. From those who have followed me you may say: ’That is not my fight.’ Fine. Tell me then when their steel glitters at your child’s door, who will lift a blade for you? Who will stand between your home and those who take it?

If you choose to turn your back today, you do worse than run from a man with a sword. You will break the vows you swore when you donned those colors. You will betray every hand that fed you, every hearth you warmed, every child who learned to sleep because finally someone stood watch. You will betray the future you say you fight for.”

He slammed his fist down on his breastplate; the sound rang like a blacksmith’s hammer.

”Ahead of gods and men, I swear this: I will leave this field triumphant, or I will leave it in planks.” He drew his blade in a single, clean motion; the metal caught the morning and threw it back like a promise. ”If it is my fate to die here, so be it , I am a soldier before a prince, if it is so than I know how to face death without cowering, but I will not go home bearing the shame of having let our world slide back into the gutter. For I will not be the one to undo what we have built. I will have either victory here or my grave!”

He held the flat of the blade up for all to see , a bright, narrow verdict of his intentions.

”For gold, for honor, for glory, for love, for hope , I don’t care which of those fires burns in your heart. I care only for this: fight. Stand. Do not turn. Fight.”

The shout that answered him rose like a wall of sound, all of them fierce, terrible and proud. Men pounded shields, banners snapped.

He let that old roar wash over him and, for a single breath, felt the world tilt toward what came next.