Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”What’s happening? Why have they stopped?”

”Did they run out of iron?”

”The charge... the charge is coming now, isn’t it?”

The whispers rose from the ranks like a choking fog,choked with a desperate, fragile confusion. Insecurity found fertile ground in the sudden quiet; after the relentless, rhythmic whistling of javelins, the silence felt less like a reprieve and more like a held breath before a scream.

The air was finally devoid of the projectiles’ hiss and the Hounds’ mocking cheers, but the vacuum was filled by the wounded. The whimpering and low, bubbling moans of the dying damped any relief the survivors might have felt.

Every man there, Latio included, shared the same suffocating reality: Death had not left the field.

He looked at his remaining men. They were a ragged, hollowed-out remnant. A single, determined charge would shatter them like glass against stone. Earlier, a few footmen had tried to break for the tree line, only to be ridden down and butchered with such casual efficiency that the rest had been shocked into a catatonic discipline. They were holding a dam with their bare hands, and the pressure on the other side was mounting.

But the slighest pressure and they would crack no doubt.

Still as pleasing as the breathing room was, the same spoken question hung above their heads.

Why?Why the pause?

The answer emerged from the grey veil in the form of a single rider.

He moved without haste or hurry, above a black-and-white sorrel trotting with the calm of a beast heading toward a warm stable. But it was not the steed that made the copper taste of fear return to Latio’s mouth.

It was the armor.

The rider wore a breastplate of such striking, singular white that it seemed to glow against the dull, monochromatic mist of Oizen. It was a stark defiance of the monotonous black-and-white stripes worn by the common Legions.

Beneath the plate, a coat of fine silver draped to his upper thighs,that would have no doubt shimmered with every movement if only it weren’t for the mist. He wore a heavy gorget to guard the throat and broad, flared pauldrons, but it was the helm that froze the blood.

It was fashioned into the likeness of a snarling hound, its iron jaws frozen in a permanent, predatory bark. Atop the crest sat the pelt of a massive winter wolf, the fur trailing down his back like a morbid cape.

The Commander of the Hounds had appeared.

He exhaled a pure, concentrated arrogance that seemed to push back the very mist. As he rode along the Kakunian line, he tilted his head, his posture almost inquisitive. He leaned slightly in his saddle, stretching his neck toward the shield wall as if listening to the frantic heartbeats behind the wood and trying to peer at the face below them , a faint, satisfied tilt to his iron-snarling head. He looked like a gardener admiring a particularly ruined patch of weeds.

He was close. Infuriatingly close. He was well within the range of a thrown lance, a distance that practically invited a desperate strike.

But as Latio looked at the trembling, bloody hands of his remaining men, he realized the Hounds knew exactly what they were doing. There was no one left with the strength, or the spirit either, to throw a toothpick, let alone a spear. The Commander was taunting them with his own safety, basking in the absolute power of the moment.

Then the horse came to stop somewhere between the two lines. When he finally spoke, his voice didn’t roar; it was a conversational rasp, steady and devoid of anything.

”The wolf hunts the sheep, and the sheep hunts the grass,” he began, his voice carrying clearly across the blood-soaked mud. He nudged his horse with a silver-spurred heel, the beast beginning a slow, leisurely trot along the front of the Kakunian line. ”It is the natural order. One side takes, and the other side is consumed. I do not denounce you for your part in this, nor for the invasion of my home. You thought yourselves the strong and us the weak. You acted as your nature dictated.I have no qualms for that”

He pulled the reins, the horse’s hooves carving heavy crescents in the sodden earth. ”Just as you meant to steal from us with wicked and greedy delight, we shall now indulge in taking our just due. The road to greatness is paved with the body of the weaks, who lay among themselves forgotten in the mud under the steps of the strong.

But before the harvest begins, there is something I mean to take.”

He suddenly spurred his mount into a sudden, aggressive gallop, thundering from one end of the line to the other like a thunder come alive. As he passed, the snarling iron mouth of the helmet seemed to snap at every man in the square, ready to plunge their maws on the soft neck of the sheep, but it was on Latio that the gaze finally locked.

”Little Bull! Little Bull!” he sang out. The levity in his voice was that of a child in a spring meadow, but the gravelly texture made it sound like a death-knell.

”Where are you? Come out and play! It’s poor manners to keep your hosts waiting when we’ve prepared such a lavish welcome.You know how much we prepared for this?”

He unsheathed a heavy, black-headed axe from his belt.

”Come now. Enough with the games,” he called, his tone shifting from mocking to a flat, business-like coldness. ”You know there is no other road. Spare us the labor of cutting through these poor wretches to get to you. If you make us carve a path, the price will be paid in their blood and yours. But if you come forth now, I give you my word: you shall be treated with the dignity a prisoner of your station deserves.”

He pulled his horse to a halt, the silence returning like a physical weight. He waited, the wolf-pelt on his shoulders lightly fluttering in the damp breeze. When no answer came, he let out a shout that made the front rank flinch.

”Does the Little Bull have no tongue? Or is it shame that keeps your mouth shut? It matters not. One way or another, we shall have you. The only choice left to you is how much of this field we have to paint red to reach your saddle.”

He waited for ten agonizing seconds, the only sound being the rushing river and the heavy breathing of the dying. Finally, the Commander gave a weary, theatrical sigh and began to turn his horse around, the axe resting casually on his thigh.

”Wait!”

The voice that rang out was youthful, cracking with desperation. It came from behind the bundle of shields, from the heart of the men who were mere minutes from being sacks of meat

”If we strike our banners...” the voice called out, trembling but audible. ”If we lay down our steel... do you swear on your life to spare these men? Do they live if I come?”

Between the crushing weight of desperation and the paralysis of fear, a spark of hope flickered, clear, bright, and agonizingly fragile in the eyes of his men. It was the hope of a boy who still believed the world had rules. That in end even savagery had limits.

Rykio was quick to grind that spark into the ash.

”No,” he said, the word falling like a guillotine blade. He slowly turned his horse, the snarling iron dog of his helmet fixed on the center of the square. ”They will all die. For two months, you and your host have dined and wined on the labor of my people. You have burned our barns and bled our provinces.Raped our people and ate our grain.

Why is it that now, when the bill is presented, you whimper at the cost? You are invaders. The price for you presence is your life.”

He shifted his weight in the saddle, the silver chainmail clinking with its cold song.

”I can promise them a quick death a clean edge instead of a slow strangling or the river’s cold embrace. And for you, I offer the hospitality due to your rank, along with five men of your choosing to attend you. That is the limit of my mercy, Little Bull. Take it, or watch the harvest begin.”

”If death is all you offer, then why shouldn’t we fight to the last man?” Latio’s voice rose, unwilling to believe reason had no place in this conversation ”We will bring as many of you down as we can! Every drop of blood we spill will be on your hands! Is that the victory you want?”

Rykio’s laughter was a low, jagged sound behind the iron mask. ”You speak of a ’right’ to fight as if I would deny it to you.

Please, struggle. Bite.Fight. Cry. Roar.

It is your right to die with steel in your hand. Just as it will be our pleasure to put you down, to scalp your heads and sever your limbs, and to hang what is left as a lesson to any other fool who thinks to point a sword at Yarzat.Our prince gave us no limit for this war. We thank you for that, too long we had to restrain ourselves. No more.

So, I tell you this. If you choose the hard path, do not complain of the stones. We will enjoy the work either way.I was suggested to bring you alive, but no complaints will be raised if I carry only your head.

It’s not like we can bring you all as prisoners, you would slow us down and eat that few food that we have, and surely we can’t allow you to go, that would make us poor men in the eyes of our allies.Your cousin has been quite the loyal man, can’t have us be the only one to show treachery....

So indeed, fight to your heart’s content. It is your god-given right. Let us make a dance out of this forsaken place!”

With those words the last flicker of light died in Latio’s eyes. He looked at the men around him, the trembling , the wounded gasping in the mud, and the stoic figure of Ser Cleo that looked at him as if saying he would follow wherever he would go.

And indeed Latio would not take the cowardly way.

There was no deal. There was no escape. The world was a cold, iron cage, he understood that now.

On the opposite side Rykio watched the silence stretch, then gave a bloody smile, hidden by the shadow of the Hound’s snarl.

”The hard way it is, then.’’

He raised his mailed hand high, the heavy axe into the sky, ready to bathe it crimson red. He held little sport in this two moons, at last he would have his fun.

”Resume the hunt!Leave the Prince’s bastard for the end! Scythe the rest!Honor your prince.

For Yarzat!”

And then back came the shout of two hundred demons.

’’FOR YARZAT!’’