Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”The only only thing worth doing in the face of death is smiling.’’

Alpheo turned those words over in his mind, feeling the hollowness of them. He didn’t believe it, not for a heartbeat.

It was the natural prerogative of a man to tremble before the void. Yet, he found himself contemplating that man’s end nearly every morning when the grey light hit his chamber walls.

”I once knew a man who died for a noble cause,” Alpheo began, his voice dropping into a somber, gravelly cadence that seemed to pull the warmth from the very fire. ”A sacrifice, they called it. He was a creature of boundless energy, a care-free spirit who wore the world like a loose-fitting garment.

I envied him for it. I envied his ability to live without the leaden weight of consequence. He died with a joke and a smile at the expense of his executioners. People called it a ’good death.’ If such a thing exists, perhaps that was it, one life bartered to purchase the survival of many.”

Alpheo looked at his reflection in the water of his cup, his features distorted by the ripples.

”But I held his head in those final moments. And all I saw in the end were his tears. All I heard were the fragments of his terror. If men braver than I falter when the Black Lady reaches for them, what hope do I have for a performance of courage? Years ago, I wagered my life in a battle that mattered to no one but the crows.

I had a dagger pressing so close to my eye that I could smell the oil on the steel. My legate, Asag, pulled me from the mud that day, but not before I heard my own heart drumming against my ribs threatening to burst from my chest like a trapped bird.”

He looked up, his eyes weary and stripped of the ’Fox’s’ legendary cunning.

”That day, I discovered the true depth of my cowardice. You could ask a thousand soldiers in my legions, and they would swear I am the bravest man to ever wear a breastplate. They are wrong. I have never properly acquainted myself with the art of dying. It isn’t the void itself that haunts me, nor is it the pain. It is the unfinished business of the living.”

He leaned forward, the shadows of the hall deepening in the hollows of his cheeks.

”To die for a friend, to fall by a foe’s hand, to wither in a bed of silk or to drown in the filth of a trench, the circumstances are mere decorations. What terrifies me, is that my final conscious thought in this world will be one of worry. I do not want the last spark of my mind to be a frantic question: Will they be safe? I do not want to choke on my own blood, gasping for air, while wondering if my failure has signed the death warrants of my wife and children.

I do not want to watch everything I have built, every stone I have laid and every peace I have brokered, melt away like spring snow under the heat of my own defeat.”

His hand tightened around the cup until his knuckles turned white.

”I want to die knowing that my house is in order. I want to close my eyes and think, Yes. It is done. I need not worry.

But I know the world better than that. If I fell tonight, I would die with the bitter taste of failure on my tongue, knowing the wolves would be at my family’s throats by dawn.

And because I know that, I will crawl along the edge of their fucking blades. I will take a bite out of their jugulars with my bare teeth before I allow them that victory.Honest truth by me if there was always any.”

He took a slow breath, calming the fire that had suddenly flared in his chest.

”Of course, that is wishful thinking. Men like us are not granted the luxury of peace. I will likely perish by a drop of poison in my wine or a cold inch of steel in my back while I sleep. There isn’t much variety in the exits designed for men of war, is there?”

He looked directly at Merelao, searching the proud lord’s face.

”Does my answer disappoint you, my lord? Did you expect me to laugh and proclaim that any death is a grand one so long as the hand holds iron? Did you want the ballad, or did you want the man?”

He scoffed, a dry, self-deprecating sound. ”Forgive me, for I never learned how to be so...”

Stupid.

”...brave.”

Silence encompassed all.

For a long, very long, moment, Merelao remained a statue . Alpheo watched him with a hawk’s intensity, searching the man’s features for the inevitable bloom of disappointment. He expected a sneer, a witty dismissal of his prosaic fears, or perhaps the cold withdrawal of a man who had realized his peer was made of common clay.

To his profound surprise, the disappointment never came. Instead, a faint, shimmering veil of disillusionment settled over Merelao’s face, not the anger of a man cheated, but the quiet melancholy of a dreamer realizing the world was a much heavier place than he had imagined, not as beautiful as he thought and neither as happy.

”I suppose,” Merelao sighed, the sound echoing softly against the stone, ”that is a sufficient answer. In truth, it is infinitely better than if you had shamelessly lied and spouted wasted air merely to satisfy my vanity. I can feel the marrow of honesty in your words, that must be worth something. I wager the truth, however bitter, is a better foundation than a beautiful lie.”

He leaned back, his sapphire eyes losing their manic edge, replaced by a somber clarity.

”Had you attempted to play the hero for me, had you donned the mask of the fearless martyr, I would have dropped the pretense of this alliance on its feet. I could never share a battlefield with a man who lies about something as sacred as his own end.

I admit, I feel a flicker of the fool; I thought perhaps I had found in you a perfect companion for me. But I see now you are anchored to the earth by the weight of your house. It is... passable?

I remain curious to see your men in the mire at the very least, you might say the prospect of witnessing the Fox’s discipline is half the reason for my decision.”

Suddenly, he clapped his hands together, the sound cracking through the empty hall like a thunder sweeping away the heavy shroud that loomed with all that talk of death and regret.

”I have spent these last two weeks in your care, Prince. I have peered into your shadows and tasted your salt. I have seen the good, the bad, and the weary, and I can say with a clear heart that I am not abject to the notion of standing beside you.” He paused, a wicked, wishful expression dancing across his face. ”Does it not make your blood boil, even a little? The thought of half the princes of the earth marching for your head? To think that we shall lead our hosts into the red mud to decide the very soul of the South?”

He stood and swept his arms wide, his silhouette encompassing the darkened room as if he were embracing the world itself and claiming dominion over it.

”You must recognize the gravity of the stone we are casting! This is a war that will not be settled with a single charge or a clever parley in a year’s time. What we hold in our hands tonight will define the South for decades to come.

It will be total war, a grinding, absolute struggle that shall end only when one side is beaten into the dust of submission or the silence of death. I know you dread this moment; you see the cost in every ledger. I, however? I am starving for the chance of that struggle. This war is what shall define the devils and the angels of this age, an age of strife, of pure war.”

He leaned over the table, his face inches from Alpheo’s; the ”Bull” and the ”Fox” finally locked in the same gaze, with the same aim.

”But let us dally no more with the ghosts of the future. There has always been a magnificent madness in my blood, Prince. You may have all your legions and all your cunning; of mine, you shall only have the boiling craving of blood and a man who will go through all the five hells to get the head of that enemy.

Let us speak now of the iron that shall unite us. Let us forge the alliance that shall make our enemies regret the day they learned our names, and see how we might both benefit from the other’s particular brand of ruin.I know very well how much you will gain from me sharing battle with you, the question is however, what I can gain from it. As far as I can see it is not in my lands that the entirety of the South will wreak ruin with their armies... so do you tricks and entertain me dear friend.”