Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Merelao watched in a heavy, contemplative silence, his interest sharpened to a point. He resembled a cat tracking the flight of a bird, still, patient, yet vibrating with the potential for a sudden, lethal spring.

He waited for Alpheo to make his point.

”My Lord,” Alpheo began, steering the conversation back to arguments he had made a long ago in his mind, which luckily had turned out could be used.

”The coalition may be clamoring at my gates today, but once they have razed my towers, whose walls do you imagine they will look upon next? Between Yarzat and you, there is only the order of our executions, I fear.

If I fall, what hope does your valor have against the tide? I do not slight your courage one bit , but we both know the truth of it. You would face thousands alone, and when the dust settles over your grave, history will not sing of your bravery, it will mock the beautiful foolishness of a struggle that could never have been won.”

Merelao offered a sharp, dismissive snort, his face a mask of bored indifference. Yet, for a fleeting heartbeat, his brows furrowed. He gingerly brushed a finger along the rim of his silver cup, a subtle gesture to mask the discomfort Alpheo had expertly provoked.

”We face the same predator and the same oblivion if we do not rise to the challenge,” Alpheo pressed, sensing the opening. ”They will swarm us with sheer weight of numbers until our names are nothing but echoes in a scorched valley. What better logic exists than to clasp hands and find our strength in the wreckage of their expectations?”

He shifted back into his seat, not realising he was leaning forward and waited for the other player to make his move.

Finally a response was given ”A compelling sermon, no doubt.You would have made a fine lawyer I believe? But who, truly, is the enemy? Your foes are whatever hounds Habadia and Ozenia can unleash. My only opponent is my own family.It would seem I would gaine more enemy if I joined you.”

”With Habadia, the lines are already drawn,” Alpheo countered. ”The betrothal of Nibadur’s daughter to your cousin was a declaration of war against your line. It signaled Kakunia’s alignment with the very forces that seek my head, and Habadia’s alignment with those who desire yours.

I have provided you with undeniable proof that peace is a phantom. Unless, of course, you are prepared to renounce your birthright? Will you watch from the dirt as your glory is stolen by a man that has no claim to it?Will you lower yourself to kiss the feet of your cousin everytime it is demanded of you?”

Merelao tilted his head, they of course both knew the answer to that. ”Perhaps. But consider the wager from where I sit. By throwing my banner beside yours, I make an absolute enemy of Ozenia, Kakunia, and Habadia in a single breath. Your gain is transparent: you keep your throne and your skin. But what sits on the table for me? Why should I invite a storm when I am already skipping across the mud? Do I have your solemn word that when the earth eventually swallows me for the crime of aiding you, you will raise your host to pull me out?That is a weak enough prize, don’t you think?”

Alpheo allowed a small, knowing smile to touch his lips. ”It is not as if the road between us is long, Merelao. Our borders are practically intertwined.”

The golden-haired lord remained unimpressed, his gaze flat.

”Still you are right... it would not be a fair exchange if I asked you to bleed for nothing,” Alpheo declared, leaning forward and thrusting a finger toward Merelao’s chest. ”What I offer you is what the stars intended for you: the Throne of Kakunia. I will see your uncle’s head in the dust and your hand on the scepter.”

Merelao leaned back, the silk of his tunic catching the dying light as he let out a low, melodic sound, a hum that vibrated in the back of his throat like a mournful note from a cello.

”Is that truly the substance of your promise, Alpheo? Does the Fox really think me so enamored with the shine of a crown that I cannot smell the rot in the delivery?They say not to look the gift’s horse in the mouth, except that the horse is a pig slobbering all over the gift.” He tilted his head, his sapphire eyes narrowing into slits of icy blue, as if somehow the prince had insulted him, the earliest admiration he claimed for the man nowhere to be seen in the blue of his eyes.

”Am I to believe you will march your entire host across the world to conquer a princedom for a man whose name was a stranger to you a month ago? I find the logistics... song-worth, but utterly improbable. If you were to mount such a gargantuan expedition, my dear uncle, bolstered no doubt by the heavy coffers of Habadian gold, would simply lean in and whisper a sweet poison into the ear of the Prince of Oizen.

A small army would soon be marching upon your iron mines. A hefty prize, wouldn’t you say? Your treasury, your lifeblood, the very teeth of your nation.

I doubt you would leave your own heart beating and undefended for the sake of my coronation. We are allies by circumstance, but we are not yet lovers bound by the madness of sacrifice.”

It was etched into the lord’s gaze plain for Alpheo to read; he did not trust him one bit.

”What reassurance do I have that after I have bled for your borders, you will pay the debt you owe me? We are not discussing the petty clearing of a bandits’ den or the suppression of a peasant riot. We are speaking of a full-fledged invasion of a sovereign nation!

Raising soldiers from their hearths, convincing your stubborn, penny-pinching nobles to march for a cause they have zero interest in, the ruinous costs of maintaining a campaign in a foreign land... do I truly need to enumerate the agonies of such a venture?”

Merelao swept a hand through the air, dismissing the notion with a flourish.

”The costs would be abnormal, monstrous. So unbelievable, in fact, that I find the offer to be a farce. A beautiful, shimmering ploy designed merely to lure me into a ’Yes.’ You are waving a succulent piece of meat in front of my eyes,while completely disregarding the fact that the ground between us is a field of traps. I find it insulting, truthfully. I thought you had a more sophisticated brand to deceive me.”

Alpheo took a deep, steadying breath. He took in the air that in a moment became icy.

”I have spent my life building a name that stands for the stone, I have never broken my word, not even once, be they promises or threats,” Alpheo said, his voice flat as a plain. ’’I do not find being called a liar particularly refreshing.”

Merelao smirked, though there was no humor in it. ”You must admit how unconvincing the music sounds, however. Note how heavily the scales favor me in this bargain. Considering the aid I would give you, valuable, yes, but mortal, how can it possibly compare to the sheer, impossible magnitude of what you claim you can give me? The math does not resolve. The song is eerily out of tune.”

”Perhaps the flaw lies not in the melody then but in the ears that receive it. Or perhaps,” Alpheo said, his voice dropping into the same resonant hum Merelao had given him, ”it is the hands that attempt to play the instruments before the music is even written.”

He watched Merelao’s eyes, noting the flicker of pride there, and then Alpheo did something rare: he chuckled.He reached up, pressing two fingers against his vocal cords, and his voice shifted into a rough, gravelly caricature of a low-born grifter.

”’Listen close, friend! Spare me ten bronzii today, and I swear by the gods you’ll walk out of this alley with five silverii in your purse tomorrow!’”

Slowly, Alpheo let the mask drop. The amusement drained from his face ’’That must be how it sounds to you, doesn’t it? Like the common ploy one could hear in any tavern that would work only on the common drunkard wasting his live on the bottom of a cup.

You are wandering off the path on both sides of the road. For you underestimate the sheer, staggering magnitude of the help I require from you, just as you underestimate the value of the prize I have placed upon your table. But most of all, you have failed to grasp the mechanism by which I see my what I am offering done, I am not a merchant of air.

I do not trade in ’somedays’ and ’perhapses.’”

Alpheo leaned forward, his shadow stretching across the table until it touched Merelao’s silks. The fire seemed to pull back, leaving the two men in a circle of cold, concentrated intent.

”I want you to understand, with every fiber of that suspicious mind of yours, which just accused me of being a liar and swindler, that what I am speaking of contains not a single grain of falsehood. What I say I will do shall be done.

There is no ’ploy’ here, no succulent meat hiding a trap. I am laying out a blueprint of what our cooperation would entail. If we finish this evening with our hands clasped together, I shall bind myself to the promises I am about to make with everything I am, my name, my house, and the very breath in my lungs. I will, I swear.”

He chuckled again, though this time the sound was completely devoid of mirth

”Words of a Fox, you could say.’’ He winked.