Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Basil broke his fast with an orange. After a night where the darkness had felt thick enough to swallow him whole, he had craved some sweetness.

Since there was no honeyed cake to be found in a fortress recovering from a siege, the sharp, bright spray of citrus would have to suffice.

He peeled it with trembling fingers, trying to pry away the segments without letting the juice erupt. It was a futile effort. A stray bead of zest stung his eye, and he cursed under his breath, wiping at the irritation with anger.

He didn’t savor the rest; he ate the wedges whole, swallowing the pulp as if he were trying to bury the memory of the dream under the weight of the fruit.

Even the sweetness could not settle the hollow ache in his gut.

He sat atop a grassy rise, his back to the burgeoning chaos of his father’s host. The sun, which had risen as a bruised sliver of orange hours ago, was now climbing into a vaulted sky of slate-grey and pale blue. Behind him, the camp hummed with the organized thrum of a victory in transition.

With the League’s main force routed and the roads finally cleared, the supply wagons had begun to roll in, bringing the first real flour, potatoes, and eggs they had seen in months.

He had been invited to share eggs with his father that morning, a small tradition they both cherished, but Basil had declined.

He didn’t think he could look into Alpheo’s eyes without seeing the ”nothingness” that had stood behind the chair in his dream.

I am nearly a man grown, he thought, the vexation stinging worse than the orange juice, yet I am rattled by a ghost of the mind. It was a dream. Only a dream.

He had whispered the mantra a hundred times since waking, but the terror remained anchored in his marrow. There were things happening to him.

Was he sliding into madness? Was it a demon? He imagined sitting before a priest of the All-Knower, trying to find the words: I feel the fire speaking to me, and I dream of my mother pinning a crown of ice into my brain until my eyes turn to iron

Madness seemed the kinder explanation.Even possession wasn’t any better.

He couldn’t stop the dream from rewinding behind his lids. The sight of his mother was the worst of them all, the way she had looked starved and hollow, her silver laurel crooked and tarnished.

It did little to choke the fear down.

Basil wrote to her whenever he could, but postal runners were a rare luxury when one was hiding in the deep thickets of the south. The few letters that had managed to bridge the gap told a grim story: his mother was still incandescent with fury over his refusal to stay behind the safety of the palace walls.

In her last missive, her words were particularly firey: ’Nine months I carried you within me, and great was the pain of the ninth. Yet this slight you have dealt me burns more fiercely than the day I gave you life.’

He remembered showing that letter to his father. Alpheo had taken a slow, heavy breath, his lips pouting in that way they did when he was aware it was a lost cause to fight. ’Perhaps you should resign yourself to the sixth hell when we return to court,’ his father had muttered, ’I suspect I’ll be there to keep you company.’

After all, the prince was the one who had allowed the boy to stay. Mother would likely have them both in chains before the first victory feast was served.

A dull, throbbing ache began to pulse behind Basil’s eyes. The world felt too loud, too heavy.

Basil rested his head on his crossed arms, attempting to manufacture a small, private darkness where the world couldn’t reach him. It was a futile effort.

Perhaps the whole thing had been a mistake. The excitement of the march and the thrill of the scouts’ tales hadn’t been worth the toll he was paying now. He had no one to confide in.

”And here I thought Xanthios gave me the title of ’The Mountain That Broods’ out of merit,” a voice rasped from behind him.

Basil lifted his head, squinting against the grey morning light.

It was the legate of the third, picking his way up the incline, leaning heavily on a wooden cane.

He moved with a rhythmic, painful wobble, his thigh still thick with bandages even after two weeks of supposed rest. He had eschewed the heavy plate of a Legate, wearing only a shirt of fine-linked chainmail that caught the dull light. No helmet, no greaves, no breastplate, strictly against the regulations for an officer on active duty, but Basil doubted anyone in the Third would dare cite the man who had held the Bastion for so long.

With a grunt of immense effort and a hiss of indrawn breath, Asag lowered himself onto the damp earth beside the boy.

”Won’t that hurt when you have to get back up?” Basil asked, watching the awkward angle of Asag’s wounded leg.

”Like a total bitch,” Asag replied, offering a strained smile as he finally settled.

He had seen the camp physician, Agalanthios, the moment the gates had been cleared. The report had been a mixed blessing: the leg was knitting well enough, but the arm, the one Asag had refused to keep still during the final breach, was a disaster. The healer had prescribed six months of absolute stillness for both. Asag had taken the news with the grace of a kicked mule, though even he knew that brooding wouldn’t stitch muscle back together any faster.

”So,” Asag said, his grey eyes, shot through with those strange, familiar streaks of Yarzat green like grass, settling on the boy. ”Are you going to tell me what’s eating at you? I remember a nephew with a warm smile, not one sitting on a hill counting his thumbs like a mourner.”

Basil opened his mouth, the words of the nightmare scratching at the back of his throat. He wanted to tell him everything, the way the fire hummed in his ears, the way his mother’s hollow eyes had looked in the dark, and the sensation of the gold teeth sinking into his brain while the crowds screamed his name.

But how could he? If he spoke of it, Asag would either think him mad or, worse, possessed.

Uncle, I dreamed of you and Father vanishing into the air. I dreamed of a crown made of ice that turned my blood to molten gold.

The thought made Basil shiver. His father was said to have the blood of the Weaver and the Warrior in his veins, a divine lineage. Was it possible for that blood to sour in the next generation? Could a son of gods be tarnished by the touch of a demon?

Or perhaps it was just madness....

”I understand, lad,” Asag said abruptly, reaching out with his unwounded arm to ruffle Basil’s hair. ”It’s normal to have the tremors. Fear is as inherent to a man as his breath, you know? Everyone carries it. Jarza, Edric... even me. Probably me most of all.”

Basil looked up, skeptical. To him, Asag was the iron of the Bastion, unyielding and cold.

”What?Don’t believe me?’’ He huffed ’’I was terrified,truth on that. Scared as a wet mouse in a snake’s pit. How could I not be? Every time I looked over the ramparts, I saw a literal wall of spears. I’d blow out my candle at night and think, ’I’ve got a family waiting for me, and here I am, trying to fight half the South.’ Sometimes, I’d wake up screaming from the nightmares of the earlier day’s fighting.”

Basil’s eyes locked onto Asag’s at the mention of the dreams. He knew, deep down, that his own nightmares were a different breed of horror than the Legate’s, but the common ground felt like a nice thing to share.

”How did you keep going?” Basil asked, his voice small.

”Because I had no other choice,” Asag replied with a shrug that winced into a grimace. ”I wasn’t so obtuse as to think everything was fine.’’ his eyes followed the sun and the sorrounding clouds ’’You know how many men woke up howling like madmen in the dark? It was the fault of those bastards outside, they’d smash iron pans together along the length of the wall just to mimic an attack and steal our rest.

I only wish I’d skewered more of the cunts before they dipped away. They murdered the only few hours of sleep I had left for months.”

It was a grounding thought. Basil wasn’t the only one trembling in the dark. They were at war, and death was a guest who never knocked. Yet, Basil’s fear was a constant, buzzing anxiety that no amount of logic could douse.

Death was something one could understand.His dream?Not so much.

”What about Father?” Basil asked, his voice hesitant. ”Is he scared, too?”

At those words Asag’s eyes sharpened instantly, his mouth tightening into a hard, straight line. For a heartbeat, Basil feared he had crossed an invisible boundary. Then, to his utter shock, a low, rasping chuckle oozed out from Asag’s cracked lips.

”Your father?” Asag said through a fit of dry laughter. ”Oh, Basil, he is perhaps the most terrified of us all.You think this war was easy on him?Knowing it all landed on his shoulder to set wrong to rights?Eh. I’ll tell you a secret all right?” He leaned in closer, a mischievous glint in his grey eyes. ” I saw your father piss himself once’’