Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”Those are but noise,” Asag said, his voice dropping into a register so serious that the League’s party couldn’t tell if he was pulling their leg or if he’d finally lost his mind.But that was how he was made.

He liked to break expectations, you never knew how a man would respond when taken away from familiar field.

”A fart is a hollow thing. It has no weight, no substance. It’s just air moving to fill a space.

My suggestion to change our colors was exactly the same, a move made because I thought it was expected of us, not because I actually cared. To change our banners then would have been an act of insecurity, a signal to every soldier in the Legions that their captains were embarrassed of where they came from.”

He adjusted his weight in the saddle, his granite face settling into a look of cold pride. ”But what is there to be ashamed of? We carved our place out of the dirt with our own hands. The very fact that you’ve all gathered here like a pack of starving wolves just to see our heads roll is the only proof of our effort I’ll ever need. And yet, after two months of failing to break us, you come here talking about ’terms’ as if you’re the ones holding the sword and us bearing the neck.”

Nibadur jerked upward in his saddle, his face flushing with an uncharacteristic flash of heat, now that he realised his terms would not be taken.

”There will be no mercy if you refuse this! None! Valor does not win wars against numbers, Legate, you will fall. Can you not see that your liege has deserted you? Two moons have you been battered and bled, and the man you so stubbornly defend is nowhere to be found. Hidden in the safety of high grass, far from the fighting you are suffering. Are you truly that blind?”

”I’ll tell you what I see, Your Grace,” Asag rasped, leaning forward until the cave-in on his helm caught the light. ”I see a man who doesn’t trust his own strength, posturing for a victory he can’t win with his own might. I see thousands of your men feeding the crows. I see the charred skeletons of your siege towers. I see the iron in my men’s souls, and I see the honor in a fight that matters.”

He looked down the line of glittering lords, his gaze lingering on Sorza until the prince shifted uncomfortably.

”You are fighting for ephemeral things, titles, ego, a bit of extra dirt on a map. We are fighting with the knowledge that if we fall, our homes burn with us.

I see that you’ve allied yourselves with beggars who can’t even defend their own property,” he said, and Sorza jolted as if he’d been stung. ”I don’t see this ’ineluctable defeat’ you keep braying about. I don’t see the belief a man should have in his own power. I see a flock of sheep trying to convince me they’re wolves.A man’s mettle is found in his actions, not on his blood.I hope by war’s end when you shall see it flow, you’ll realize the truth in my words, and know at last , the mistakes you have made in coming here.

But if you wish to get the tongue, you must put your hands in the mouth.And yet you linger at the sight of teeth.

For two moons, all I’ve heard behind these walls is the roar of lions and the dying of sheep.”

Asag gave a low, jagged chuckle that sounded like stones rubbing together. ”And as for the Prince? Please, don’t worry your pretty heads about him. You’ll get headaches.

He has a knack for turning up at the worst possible moment, in the worst possible place for you. It’s his favorite pastime.

I’d suggest you check your sheet before going to sleep. You never know when one of these days you’ll get a sweet sleep that never ends.”

The lords of the League bristled at that.

”Be glad this is a parlay or I would have your tongue for that!” Sorza snarled, his hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt.

”And what would you do with it, Crownless one?” Asag shot back, his voice choked with a weary contempt.Even hating was getting tiring at times.

”Cast it away as easily as you did your crown? I know where my tongue is well enough. Can you say the same for your dignity? Or did you leave that in the mud at Aracina too, along with a father?”

Sorza’s face went from crimson to a sickly, mottled purple. He leaned in close to Nibadur, his voice a frantic, jagged whisper that carried on the wind. ”He’s a ruin, Nibadur. Look at him, can’t even be on his own feet I wager. He can barely stay in the saddle. We could cut him down right here or better yet, take him. The defenders would open the gates in an hour if we held his head for ransom. We finish this today, only one word from you. and the castle is ours”

For a moment the Habadian prince thought of that, but then before he could answer, the legate beat him to it.

”Whatever you two are whispering about I’d suggest you look up at the gatehouse.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Perched on the battlements were two small, ugly engines: scatter-shot catapults, packed with river stones held together by hemp netting. The League’s party knew those machines well; they had seen them shred ranks of men into red mist. The machines were cranked to the breaking point, pointed directly at the spot where the princes stood.

Nibadur, who had been half-tempted by Sorza’s suggestion, felt the blood leave his face.

It was the first time he was faced with sure-death.

”You’re a madman,” he whispered. ”If they fire, you’d die with us.”

Asag’s laughter was as much dry as unhinged. ”You think I fear death? Well I may actually do, but my hate is stronger than my fear.

This castle has enough captains to hold without me. I doubt your army can say the same if both its golden boys are turned into mincemeat in the mud. Besides, look at me. I’m one leg and one arm out of the world already. I’d sooner trade my last few breaths to take two princes to the hells’ halls with me. That’s just easy math.”

”Are you truly this witless?” demanded the Lord of Argustonaven, who had an hand for the start of this war. The lord’s voice was high and thin with genuine alarm. ”Can you not see that this is your only door to a long life? What kind of beast disregards his own skin so carelessly? You have no wife? No children? Nothing to live for but a prince that is nowhere to aid you?”

”What good is a life,if I have to live it knowing I failed my friend? I couldn’t live with the taste of myself. I’d have to look in the mirror every morning and see a man who traded his soul for a few more years of breathing. No, thank you. I’d much rather die here with a shred of dignity than see myself debased by your ’mercy.’”

He leaned back in his stirrups, his broken body silhouetted against the dark stone of the Bastion.

”I am a soldier of the Legions. We don’t negotiate for our lives; we sell them at a price you can’t afford. Now, if you’re done trying to buy what isn’t for sale, I’ve got walls to mend.”

Silence fell over the golden party at that. For the first time, the lords of the South realized they weren’t dealing with a man they could bribe, break, or even understand. They were staring at a wall that didn’t know how to crumble.

But that did not mean they couldn’t attempt it.

The legate did not wait for a dismissal as he nudged his sorrel stallion with his good heel, the beast turning with a slow, heavy grace that signaled the end of the conversation. He didn’t look back; he simply offered the princes the sight of his undented and shining clean back.

”Wait!” Nibadur shouted, his voice cracking, the polished mask of the High Prince finally shattering. He spurred his horse forward a few paces, his hands outstretched as if he could physically grab the air and pull the Legate back. ”What does he have? What could Alpheo possibly have given a man like you to earn this kind of madness?”

Asag didn’t stop. The steady clop-clop of his horse’s hooves was the only answer.

”I can give you more!” Nibadur cried, his words coming out in a frantic, undignified rush. The grace was gone, replaced by the desperate braying of a man who realized his army was starving and his glory was slipping into the mud. ”I can give you lands, Asag! Great estates in Habadia, with orchards and mines! I’ll make you a great lord ! I’ll give you a title that will make the men who birthed you weep with envy!”

”Gold!” Nibadur screamed,when yet again the legate gave not a reply. ”I have chests of it! More than you could dream of in ten lifetimes! And women, the finest, most beautiful daughters of the South shall be yours to command! A royal marriage ? You may have that! And do what you want! Whatever you desire, it is yours! Just give me the castle and walk away as a richer and stronger man that you were before!”

The Legate pulled his horse to a halt at that and for a heartbeat, Nibadur let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a tired, triumphant smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He had done it. That was what he thought. He imagined the castle finally falling to his hand. Him pressing forward and giving birth to that dream of his.

A south unified under one rein.How sweet a dream that would have been

But that hope died a cold, sudden death when Asag turned his head.

Like the end of spring’s dreams cometh summer.

It wasn’t the look of a man considering a bribe or the way out. It was a slow rotation, like a wolf scenting a wound in the dark belonging to a sheep. A smile spread across Asag’s scarred face, not a smirk of greed, but an ecstatic, terrifying grin that reached his eyes and stayed there.

It was the look of a man who had just caught his opponent holding a losing hand and realized the game was over.

Nibadur felt his stomach drop, a stone dropping further than fear ever had.

He realised only too late the mistake he had done.

’’Is that desperation I hear?’’