Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

He watched the secondary road weave through the valley like a silver thread, eventually bleeding into the great artery of the Magna Strata.

It looked like a small river flowing into a vast, dark sea. Between that road and the grey stone where he stood lay a carpet of trampled green grass and the endless, bristling ranks of an army that wanted his head.

That road was the dividing line between the home he had built and the hell he was currently inhabiting to defend it.

And it, indeed, was hell.

The air was a thick, clotted soup of iron and rot, the only air they had breathed for three months now.

Asag slowly curled his fingers into a fist, a white-hot throb of agony lashing through his wrist. The physician,whose hands were permanently stained with the rust of old blood given Asag always passed his way after his turn in the medical tent , insisted the wound was healing. Asag knew better. It felt as though his bones were grinding into glass. But he would not take oppium, only some willow-bark grinded into some drinks.

He needed his wits, much more than comfort.

His wrist was only the start of the chorus. His thigh, where a blade had found a temporary scabbard in his meat, pulsed with every heartbeat. Each step was a labor, forcing him into a wobble, a limping gait that he tried to mask with every ounce of his crumbling will. A commander who hobbled was a commander who whispered of defeat, and Asag refused to let that poison reach his men.

Three times the moon had hung full and heavy in the sky since the first horn had sounded. There was a pride to be found in that. Many spoke of Manor the Stalwart, who had held against Aeron the Misfooted for two years, but that had been a siege of patience and empty bellies. Manor had faced a mere detachment while the Romelian Emperor pressed elsewhere.

Here he was doing more than him.

Asag’s three months had been a song of continuous steel.

The defense was a grinding machine. While the assaults had thinned in number, hinting at some unseen chaos or exhaustion among the League’s princes, the enemy ranks still looked like an ocean from the height of the walls. Asag knew they were bleeding the League dry, but what a man knows in his mind and what he sees with his eyes are two very different ghosts.

It did not help that the bastards outside could easily scour the countryside for some meat to send their way.

Standing amidst the stench of the dead and the sight of his battered, bloodshot garrison, the man whose name would now be etched into history however that went , found himself desperately missing the warmth of a hearth he might never see again.

He had never truly expected to find love. Not after the world had taken so much from him, and certainly not with the scars he bore. He was not blind; he knew what he was.

And yet... he had found a family.

As the wind whistled through the arrow slits, he closed his eyes and summoned the memory of his wife’s naked form bathed in the soft, flickering amber of candlelight. He could almost taste the roof of her mouth as they kissed, a sweetness that seemed impossible in this world of ash.

He remembered the high, bell-like giggles of his two daughters, and the way they would charge across the court to embrace his legs whenever he returned. That was enough to make like him cries, especially now that instead of their warm bodies he could only embrace the cold stones.

He had once feared such love would be his undoing, a soft spot in his armor. Instead, it was the only thing keeping him upright. Whenever the coward’s voice inside him, that low, seductive whisper that promised the rot of sleep, began its work, he thought of them.

No one will blame you, the voice would say. You have done more than any ten men. You have earned a few hours in the dark. Just close your eyes.

He almost caved every night. But he was forged of harder stuff. He knew that inside every man lived a coward who feared discomfort, and there was only one way to dispel him: to keep moving.

So, Asag walked. Or rather, he wobbled and limped along the cobblestones of the Bastion, his heavy boots ringing against stone that had absorbed the lifeblood of hundreds. He breathed shallowly through his mouth, trying to bypass the cloying scent of lingering death that had made a permanent home in the nostrils of every man on the wall.

He was too shattered to take his place in the breach anymore. He couldn’t swing a halberd with the meat-cleaving grace that had earned him his reputation. Now, he threw stones down from the upper gates or helped haul boiling pitch, small, desperate acts of defense. It wasn’t as uplifting as seeing him make mincemeat of the enemy, but he found a different way to lead.

After the endless hours of strategy and making decision, he spent his nights and days wandering the ranks. He moved through the huddled, shivering groups of soldiers, exchanging a few quiet words.

To a general, it felt like a meager thing, but to a man who had spent twelve hours holding a shield against a tide of steel, a well-placed compliment from their general was a miracle. He offered comfort where there was very little of , and in doing so, he saw the light return to their haunted eyes.

He turned his gaze toward the survivors huddled along the inner bailey, and for a moment, he had to steel his eyes to keep the grief from showing.

For every ten men standing, three wore blood-crusted linen around a limb or a brow. Among them, there were the levies the lords had scraped from the bottom of their lands, old men with trembling hands and boys whose voices had yet to break.

The only thing that bound them together was the desperate, white-knuckled grip they kept on their spears and maces. They didn’t wield them well, but they could wield them.

There are no more reinforcements coming, Asag told himself, the thought a cold stone in his belly. We are the wall. We are all that remains.

He felt a sudden pang of guilt for the way he appraised them, as if they were livestock rather than men who had bled for him. They were worthy of every ounce of respect he possessed. They were at least well-armored now; the Bastion had become a scavenger’s paradise.

After every assault, they had the embarassed of the choice from the League’s dead. If a man squinted his eyes through the morning mist, the garrison looked like a true army of iron.

”How’s the piss?” Asag called out, his voice a low rumble that carried over the wind.

He was addressing a red-haired soldier who was currently leaning over the crenelations, a steaming yellow stream arching down into the darkness below. The man was a boisterous soul who claimed his red hair was a beacon of luck from the gods.

”I try my best to stay hydrated, Legate!” the soldier shouted back, grinning as he cinched his britches. ”But it seems there’s never enough to sate the thirst of the bastards below. There are just so many of them, standing there with open mouths, begging to be filled.”

A ripple of dark, rough laughter broke out among the nearby men. It was a soldier’s joke, crude, bitter, and exactly what they needed to hear.

”Well, keep at it, soldier,” Asag said with a rare, ghost of a smile. ”Constance does wonders for the soul... and the bladder.”

As he moved down the line, his limp heavy on the stone, he stopped beside a man built like a siege tower.

He knew that one’s name.

”I have some jerky, Owen. Want a piece? It’s hard as a cavalry boot, but it’s meat.”

”Yes, sir. Please,” Big Oaf Owen replied. His voice was thick and slow, the words tumbling out as if they were too heavy for his tongue, but if you listened with patience, you could hear the gentle spirit behind them.

”Oh, yes! Thank you, sir!” Owen said, taking the strip of dried beef with a hand that could have crushed a man’s skull. He remembered to bow his head slightly. ”Mama always said to thank a man for his kindness.You a knight, no, sir?”

’’More a lord...’’

’’Eh’’ he chuckled ’’ you have a knight’s soul. Mama would agree where she here’’

Owen talked about his mother constantly. He was particularly fond of telling the story of how he’d been dropped on his head as a child, a tale he relayed with a peculiar sort of pride, as if it explained his lot in life to everyone’s satisfaction.

He was hard of head but soft of heart, and Asag made a deliberate effort to speak with him every day. Owen was the soul of the battlements; the other soldiers followed the Legate’s lead, always making room for the big man in their circles and shielding him from the harshest truths of the siege.

Gods knew how hard it was already, having something to protect did wonder for the troops sometimes.It made them look better in the eyes instead of simple murderers. For the line between that and being a hero, was that of a simple soul worth protecting.

”Next time they attack, Prince Alpheo will come, yes? To save us?” Owen asked, his eyes wide and hopeful. ”He’s a mighty man. Mama used to say that when the lords gave me mail. She cried with happiness when I told her I would meet a Prince. He’s coming, right? Gils said he would. Gils sent a pigeon. Must have reached the Prince. They fly high and fast, you know? Isn’t that right, Rod?”

”Indeed, Owen,” replied the soldier to his right, a grizzled veteran named Rod who reached up to pat the giant on his massive shoulder. ”They fly faster than the wind itself.”

Owen bobbed his head, a look of pure, childlike joy spreading across his face. ”Yes! High and fast! They do!”

Asag felt a hollow ache in his chest.

He offered a silent prayer to the gods to protect this innocent soul, even as he forced the lie to his lips.

”He will come, Owen,” Asag said, his voice firm and certain. ”The Prince is a mighty warrior, and he knows we are holding the door for him. Your mama will be proud when you come home with silver and loot in your pack.”

”Oh, yes,” Owen whispered, his eyes distant. ”I’m going to buy nuts and butters. Mama always said she craved them when Old Shana milked the cows. Her cows make good meat, you know, sir?”

”I am sure they do,” Asag replied, his hand resting briefly on Owen’s cold iron spaulder.

”Are we going home soon, sir?”

Asag looked out over the sea of enemy fires, the thousands of lights that looked like stars fallen into the mud. He looked at the boys and the old men, the broken and the brave.Yes they were brave all of them.

”Faster than you know, soldier,” Asag promised. ”Now, stand fast. Make your Prince and your mama proud.You gonna buy her the fattest cow there is.”

He turned away before Owen could see his eyes, his limp more pronounced as he moved back into the shadows of the command tower.

Away from one of the fire that reminded him of his family, back into the hell he was going through to feel it again.

He had expected this day to pass without great fanfare. There had been after all an attack yesterday, and they hadn’t attacked twice so closely for weeks.

And yet , nonetheless ,a horn still echoed in the night cold air of the Bastion.

AOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Slapping ever the whimsiest of wish to sleep that night.