Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

They ate with the ferocious and unburdened merriment of men who knew that tomorrow’s hunger might not be so easily sated. Sitting together as brothers under a roof they would soon depart to defend, the heavy oak table groaned under the weight of their last shared peace.

Alpheo watched them from the head of the table, a flicker of genuine warmth softening his tired features. Asag was systematically drowning a crust of thick bread in a bowl of lentil soup, his perennial favorite, savoring every spoonful as it was the first time he tasted it. Rykio, true to form, seemed to be treating the wine as his primary course and the food as a mere distraction, while Edric and Jarza were locked in a silent, high-stakes race to see who could devour the roasted quails faster.

Of the eight birds the servants had brought out, six vanished in a blur of grease and bone within the first two minutes. When Alpheo waved a hand to signal he had no appetite for the remaining two, Jarza moved quick pinning Edric’s reaching hand to the table with the flat of a fork and seizing both birds for himself.

They were all happy and laughing....it wasn’t so bad.

It was in moments like this that he recalled just for what he was fighting for.

”I’m becoming a wet dog over here”

Rykio complained, his face flushed. He rose unsteadily from his seat to shove open the heavy leaded window, letting the cooling breeze of the impending summer sweep into the room.

”That’s the wine talking, you old sot!” Edric barked with a grease-slicked laugh. ”You’re stumbling more than a merchant ship in a gale.”

”The dirt take you, Edric! I can carry my vintage better than you can carry a conversation,” Rykio countered, offering a tutorial by draining yet another cup in a single, defiant gulp.

Alpheo felt a surge of relief that none of them had tried to press a bottle into his hand. He was finished with alcohol. After what e walked through, he had sworn that for the rest of his life, his mind would remain sharp and unclouded. He would never touch the rot again. It was a silent pact, and he was grateful his commanders had not made any toa—

”A toast! To the newest father in the room!” Rykio shouted, breaking the Prince’s thankfulness.

He hoisted his goblet high, and the others followed suit, their voices boisterous and thick with camaraderie.

Alpheo mirrored the gesture with his glass of orange juice. Despite it all...if there was something to be thankful for, it was that they had waited this long.

As Jarza, the subject of the toast, brought his empty cup back to the table, he wiped his mouth with the back of a massive hand and looked toward the Prince. ”Where is the little scoundrel, anyway? I’d have loved to let the boy have a few sips of the good stuff. Steel the blood for what’s coming.”

”Don’t go putting those foul notions in his head, Jarza,” Alpheo warned, though there was a hint of a smile. ”He’s too young for wine. And besides, he is currently wrought with me.”

”Wrought? As in angry?” Asag asked, genuine surprise written across his face as he licked a stray lentil shell from his thumb. ”I find that hard to believe. That kid always follow you around like a shadow. I’ve never seen him without a smile when you were near.”

”He wanted to come to war with us,” Alpheo said, letting out a long, tired sigh that seemed to deflate his shoulders. ”I wonder if some idiot in the barracks put that stupid idea in his head.Dying for the state is well enough for footmen, but princes’ sons?” He chuckled darkly for a moment before his expression turned somber. ”I swear, what is it with boys? Why are they in such a hurry to grow old?”

”Growing is a lengthy process,” Edric noted, his voice uncharacteristically wise. ”Not many have the patience for the middle parts. They just want the end results, the sword, the horse, the glory.”

”I am lucky to have no such trouble,” Asag said, a soft, paternal glow lighting up his weathered face. ”My two beautiful little angels would never give me such worry. They’re content to stay by the hearth and wait for their father to come home.”

Rykio , which had rose again to take a breath of air, leaned against the window frame, the night air ruffling his hair. He looked back at Alpheo with a piercing, sober clarity that cut through his drunken haze. ”You can’t be surprised, Alpheo. The boy grew up among us. He grew up listening to the ring of steel and the talk of war. One cannot be surprised if he wants to be a soldier when all he sees are heroes in his hallway.”

He took a slow sip, his eyes distant. ”He probably feels like he’s being left behind. Like the world is moving and he’s stuck in a garden. I remember when I was but a pup, I spent every hunt in a foul mood because my father would always bring the eldest and leave me with the women and the chickens. Used to be the smallest of them, you know?”

Rykio gestured toward the garden. ”Basil is likely feeling the same. He prolly thinks that if he doesn’t march with the Fox, he isn’t really his son.Must be feeling needy to prove that wrong.”

”Well, he can prove his mettle when he’s older and the world isn’t quite so eager to devour him,” Alpheo replied, his voice firm, though his eyes remained fixed on the dancing candle flame.

”Not like there won’t be plenty of boys his age in the levies the provincial lords are dragging to the front,” Jarza noted, the crunch of a bird’s bone punctuating his words. He leaned back, wiping grease from his chin. ”You could say youngsters are the spare coins of war. Easy to spend, easy to lose, and there’s always more in the bag.”

Alpheo’s expression curdled. ”Well, I have no desire to pay that particular tax out of my own pocket. What’s the use of being a prince , clawing my way into power, if I can’t indulge in a little nepotism to keep my own blood out of the mud?”

”I suppose we have to agree on that,” Edric said with a weary nod, his usual boisterous energy replaced by a fleeting moment of introspection. ”Can’t really fault the boy for his fire, though. We all did shit we aren’t proud of, or shit that wasn’t exactly brilliant before we’d seen twenty winters.”

”Speak for yourself,” the Prince shot back, ”I always had my head screwed on straight, even when I was a pup.”

Rykio let out a sharp, mocking snort from the window. ”I think the boy just doesn’t realize how lucky he has it. To have a happy upbringing, to know where his next meal is coming from, to sleep in a bed that isn’t made of wet straw. Most lives are harsher than not. I can think of at least one person in this room who could have benefited from a bit of that softness.” He threw the Prince a knowing look.

”Yeah, you’re right,” Alpheo agreed, nodding solemnly. ”You truly had it rough, eh Rykio?Still that made you strong, didn’t it?”

The sound of a heavy palm connecting with the back of Alpheo’s head echoed through the room.

”He’s speaking about you, dumbass!”

”Me?” Alpheo rubbed the back of his neck, feigning a look of confused innocence to Jarza. He took a moment to let the thought settle.

In this life, the statement was supposed to be right. He thought of the years spent toiling in the sun , the desperate, bloody chaos of the slave rebellion he had ignited, and the long, cold nights as a mercenary before he had finally plunged his dirk onto the right guts, buying him his shot to power. However, thinking about his childhood, what came to mind wasn’t that of his world, but instead the mountain village where he had grown up a long time ago.

”Probably right,” Alpheo admitted, his voice softening. ”Still, what are you going to do about it? That’s life, she’s a bitch to most and a mother to a lucky few. I suppose I’m just trying to make sure she stays a mother to Basil for as long as possible.”

”A mother who coddles too long raises a son who can’t walk,” Rykio added, not letting the sentimentality linger. ”But a father who sends him out realizes he may come back a corpse...’’

”Is that your way of telling me I’m doing a good job?” Alpheo asked with a smirk.

”It’s my way of telling you to drink your juice and for the meantime to ignore you child’s grime” Rykio laughed, hoisting his cup again. ”Before Jarza decides to ’educate’ your other side with that fork.”

”Let him try,” Alpheo challenged, leaning back. ”I may be bad with a sword, but I’m still faster than a man who’s four cups deep.”

After that the group spurred Alpheo and Jarza for a match of wrestling, which quickly proved the prince’s boast wrong, as he ended up stomach down onto the ground with the older man grabbing onto his legs , arse on the prince’s back, as he pulled back the limbs with all the strenght he had.

Which truth be told, was a lot.

Still , It was all fun and game, a moment that they had not shared in an awfully long time, and one that, in the back of their minds the morning after, they would all come to wonder if they would have the chance to feel again.