Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”Look who’s awake! You gave us quite the scare, you bastard!”

Jarza bellowed, his deep voice nearly shaking the tent as he ducked under the flap, taking no mind of the resting man. The heavy canvas shuddered with his entrance.

In two long strides, he was across the room and practically falling onto the cot, his arms wrapping around Egil with a bear’s ferocity.

The smell of blood and antiseptic filled the air, clinging to every breath. The other made way slowly behind the giant’s frame.

For a heartbeat, Egil said nothing. He just leaned back into the mountain of a man embracing him, a pale smile cutting through his tired face.”It’s good to see you,” he murmured hoarsely, eyes glinting faintly in the lamplight. ”Thought I was a goner this time...”

”We brought you a gift!” came the excited voice of Edric ,the youngest of the legates, who, after the battle, had somehow shat the last turd that clogged up his arse, and finally got his bloodthirst out of his system.

He half-skipped, half-tripped across the tent like a colt on parade, clutching something tightly wrapped in stained cloth.

He stopped at the foot of Egil’s bed, grinning from ear to ear. ”One of my men found this on a bannerman,” he said proudly, and began to unwrap it layer by layer, building the suspense with all the grace of a street magician.

There it was , the Imperial Eagle, torn but unmistakable. Its golden wings that once encompassed nearly the whole continent were now limp in the hands of the victors.

”I figured this belongs to you,you know given how you won us the battle and all” Edric said, grinning as he handed it over.

Egil didn’t speak. He simply looked at his prize as Edric let it sit at the base of his friend’s foot.

”Good healing, you stubborn bastard,” came Asag’s turn. He leaned down, kissed Egil squarely on the forehead, and dropped two bottles of apple cider under his arm like a nurse tucking in a child. ”Medicine, straight from the orchard. Doctor’s orders.”

After the gift, he stayed there for a moment, pressing his forehead to his. Then he turned and left, muttering something about stealing some wine from the Imperator’s own stock.

Now all eyes turned to Alpheo.

Even Egil, who’d been quietly admiring his new collection of spoils , the eagle at his feet, the cider by his side, seemed to wait only for him.

Alpheo didn’t keep any of them waiting. He stepped forward with exaggerated pomp, pulling from his belt a small, gleaming object and holding it up like a relic.

”Guess what the troops found in the camp of that masked bastard?” he said, grinning wide enough to show teeth. He let the golden object out for all to see, a stirrup.

”You guessed it! His damned golden stirrup!” Alpheo declared, shaking it triumphantly. ”Probably worth more than his whole army.I wonder if he got a gold hole where he shits...”

He waited for the laughter, for Egil’s usual biting remark , something about polishing it and giving it to the Empress herself when they visit her home , but none came.

Egil’s gaze hadn’t moved from the other gift.

He was still staring, wide-eyed and smiling faintly, at the banner resting against his feet ,and clutching on the bottle given him from Asag.

”Come on, I know those are nice gifts. But look at this!” Alpheo said, forcing a laugh, his voice cracking slightly as he half-shoved the gleaming stirrup into Egil’s chest.

Still, Egil didn’t move.

His fingers hung limp over the folded banner.

Alpheo forced another laugh, the sound thin this time.

”Come on, take a look at the very least! I’ll make it up to you, I swear...” he went on, shaking his head with mock exasperation. ”That’s twice now you’ve saved my hide. I owe you, don’t I?”

His voice was still bright.

A bead of sweat slid down his spine, cold and sticky. Strange.

The summer heat should have been suffocating, and yet he felt cold.

He straightened, voice rising, words tumbling out like desperate offerings.”Egil, you did the impossible. You saved our home!” His smile widened, forced, trembling at the edges. ”You’ll be sung from castle to castle; every soldier’s already chanting your name. We’ve got the world ahead of us now, you hear me? The whole godsdamned world!”

That had to work. Egil loved that kind of things, the songs, the glory, the tales by the fire.

Alpheo leaned forward, grin fixed to his face, as Egil’s eyes slowly fond his.

The prince’s chest loosened. There it was. That spark. That smile that always came right before the jest. He could already hear the words forming, the laugh, the mockery.

But none came.

He just stared.

The color had drained from his face, leaving only the faintest blush of blue at the lips.

When Egil’s lips parted, every inch of warmth he had in his life disappeared.

”I really would have liked meeting you on this side.”

A hand touched his back. He didn’t know whose it was. Maybe Jarza’s. Maybe nobody’s. The world shifted beneath him like sand. The tent blurred. The noise of breathing, of boots, of the fluttering canvas,all faded into a distant hum.

He blinked, and suddenly the light was different. Dimmer. Colder.

He was standing beside the same cot, but everything was still. The laughter that once filled the space had been wrung out of it, leaving only the faint rustle of fabric and the soft creak of ropes.

Whispers echoed behind him, too distant to make out.

’’They are waiting....Come on, the others need to give their goodbyes’’

A small voice murmured, though he didn’t recognize it as his own until the words came out from his own lips.

He nodded to himself at his own statement. Of course they were waiting. He had to hurry.

He reached forward, trembling, and placed the golden stirrup on Egil’s chest. It clinked softly against the cooled flesh, as a bell in the dead quiet.

For a moment, he stared at it,at the gleam of victory resting on a body gone still. His breath hitched. He tried to sniff, to hold it back, but his throat burned.

When his eyes fell on Egil’s lids, shut and peaceful, the tears broke free anyway.

He bowed his head, his hand still on the stirrup.

That was it.

The last time he would ever see him and it would be like this.

There was no grand farewell, no words to the gods, no promise of meeting again.He did not believe in the afterlife,he did not believe in such comforts, even though he should have been the last to do so.

The dead were the dead. The living kept walking.

That was all there was.

Alpheo gave a quick glance around the tent. No one spoke. No one dared.

Jarza’s great hands were trembling in his lap, Asag’s eyes were red and raw, and even Edric sat with his head bowed, shoulders shaking as silent tears ran down his cheeks.

He was loved.

Every man there was crying, or trying not to. Tears traced thin lines through grime and soot, clinging to the corners of their eyes before dropping to the earth.

Everyone but him.

Why was he fighting it?Why wasn’t he bawling?

Oh yes. Because he didn’t deserve it.

It was his fault. His fault they had been thrown into this madness. His fault Egil was here, pale and still, his chest unmoving beneath the white sheet.His jests and words unsaid, dead and unspread in his mouth.

His fault that the laughter had stopped. His fault that the camp smelled of blood instead of wine, of death instead of glory.

He had killed him , him alone.The sword might have been Romelian, but the hands sure as hell were his.

Alpheo’s jaw clenched until his teeth ached. What right did he have to cry? The others wept because they had lost a friend. But he..... he had sent one to die.

He made his bed, and it was only right he slept in it, no matter how cold it was, no matter how much it cut into his skin.

Should I say something? he wondered. A eulogy, a word, a prayer, anything.

But no.

He had already been given Egil’s final words, hadn’t he? That last breath, that faint whisper.

And not even that had been meant for him.

Enkilae....who was he?

He swallowed hard, his chest tightening, the sting in his throat unbearable. His eyes burned, but still he forced the tears back down. They weren’t his to shed.

A touch broke him from his trance , a hand, light and yet heavy, resting on his shoulder. Asag.

”It’s time,” he just murmured.

Alpheo nodded, though the motion felt like a crack running down his spine. His gaze drifted one last time toward his dead friend.

He looked almost peaceful now. The feverish lines in his face had softened; his mouth, once so quick to laugh or bark an order, rested in stillness. The golden stirrup still gleamed faintly on his chest, catching the light as if refusing to let the world forget what had been lost.

Alpheo reached out, brushing a thumb under his eye to wipe away the wetness that had finally escaped. He straightened, drawing a deep, shuddering breath.

Then he stepped back.

From the far end of the tent, four soldiers entered, Egil’s men. The same ones who had followed him through the worst of the charge, through mud and flame and madness. They moved slowly, solemnly, each lowering their heads as they approached the cot.

Without a word, they took their places around their fallen commander, hands trembling as they began to prepare him for his last rites.

Alpheo watched in silence, the sounds of the camp fading into a distant hum , the wind against canvas, the faint beat of hooves, the murmur of men.

He turned away only when the first shadow began to fall over Egil’s face.

And realized only then the severity of what he had just done.

He had killed one of his only friends...how long until he led the others to such an end?