Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The emerald grass swayed, dancing as a cold wind howled through the day, plucking at the long green stalks as if they were the strings of a harp and the gale was the player’s fingers.

Alpheo looked up at the sky. It was a cementing of cracked grey clouds, seemingly angry at the world below, choking out the sun and denying the men who were about to die a final glimpse of its light before darkness would take hold for many among them.

No rays broke through, no beauty, and certainly no blessing. If the sky offered anything this day, it would be rain to wash the blood into the mud for those foolish enough to shed blood against common man.

Across the great expand, the two armies extended like rival leviathans fighting for a sea of grass soon to be turned red. They stood one another down, the Black Falcon of Yarzat on one side going hoove to wing with the Bull of Kakunia, and on the other, the Golden Sun of Oizen, the only sun that would show its face this day.

The field was a honest thing. There were no hills to anchor a defense, no thumbs to mask a hidden reserve that might spring forth when the fighting was fiercest to decide the fate of the war. It was a plain, flat and pitiless.

No crowds circled yet, but they were there, huddled in the trees on the distant horizon, ruffling their black feathers in anticipation of the banquet soon to be laid.

Prince Alpheo rode out onto the green, his horse’s hooves muffled by the damp earth. Above him flapped the banners of his wife’s house and the iron standards of his Legions. At his side rode the Lord of Epietoli, his armor polished to a mirror sheen and those blade-sharp horns curving forward from his helm like a challenge to the sky.

Behind them came the Wolf of Bracum, his plate still bearing the deep dents and scars of the Bastion, followed by the legates of the First and Fourth, both men whose cold steel had already brought half the Southern army to its knees.

Missing from the line was the legate of the Third; he remained behind with the reserves, his own scars a testament to the siege as he kept vigil over the princely’s future.

On the opposite side stood the man who had called for this parlay. Flanking him were the banners of Apurvio and Nonium. Lord Cregan and Lord Mastro watched the Fox of Yarzat with a mistrust that lived in every fiber of their beings. The list of their grievances was so long it would have been a waste of breath to echo even a single one.

Alpheo’s eyes searched the Oizenian line for the griffin of Argustaven, but he found naught but cold air. An heartbeat later as a goat settling on an interesting piece of grass, his gaze finally settled on the Prince of Oizen.

It had been nearly four years since they had last stood face-to-face at the Princely Conference, signing a treaty they were all too eager to rip apart at the first convenience. There was little to be said for the man. He had no specialties, no particular spark that marked him for greatness. He was the same coward who had fallen into the night at Aracina, leaving his own father to rot in the mud, and the same who had bolted from Apurvio at the mere sound of a Yarzat howl.

The Crownless Prince was the first to speak, his voice thin against the wind.

”We come here in peace. We lower our arms until our truce is done. The gods bid us truth; we abide by it.”

Alpheo’s voice was like stone grinding on stone as he gave the ritual reply.

”We come here in peace. We lower our arms until our truce is done. The gods bid us truth; we abide by it.”

The silence returned, heavier than before now without the imperative pleasantries. The cold wind howled across the flats, plucking at the black mane of the Prince of Yarzat, making the strands flap like the very feathers of the falcon he bore.

”You were the one who called for this parlay,” Alpheo said, his voice cutting through the gale. ”If you have something to say, speak it now. Or keep it to yourself as you go to the worms.”

Sorza’s face twisted, as if he had sucked on a sour lemon. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped, but he stilled his expression with a visible effort.

”I think you know why I called for this.” Sorza waved a hand toward the horizon behind him, where his host stood like a wall of gold and iron. ”You see my army, and you can certainly see your own. I do not know what madness tool hold of you to make such a gamble. You have the river at your back, and my scouts tell me you burned the only bridge that offered a retreat. I would say you’ve grown tired of living and planned this field to be your grave.”

”A grave it shall be,” the Fox spat back. ”That I can promise you.”

”Madness notwithstanding, Alpheo, I called you here to offer terms,” Sorza continued, his tone shifting to something silkier, more patronizing. ”There is no need for the bloodshed that must follow. There is no reason to needlessly feed your own men to the crowds. You have fought well, I’ll grant you that. Some of those sworn to you, led a spirited defense at the Bastion, though some might call it a coward’s work to hide in the tall grass while your troops perished on the walls.”

He leaned forward in his saddle, his eyes narrowing. ”I have no wish to—”

”Winter is close.”

The voice interrupted him like a sudden frost. It was smooth, bored, and only unimpressed.

”The day’s light is getting shorter with every breath we waste on these pleasantries,” the voice continued.

All eyes turned towards the Lord of Epietoli. The kakunia sat atop his horse with the detached air of a man witnessing ants fighting in the dirt and finding the spectacle mildly ending. He didn’t look at Sorza; he looked at the grey, cracked sky, his blade-sharp horns catching the dull light whenever it passed.

”If there is a point to this mummer’s show, Prince of Oizen, pray reach it,” Merelao said, finally dropping his gauge to Sorza. ”My men are cold, and I find I have a sudden, pressing desire to see this field turned the color of a sunset.I have not led my forces across a princedom to exchange empty words with you.”

”You must be the Lord of Epietoli,” Sorza said, his voice dripping with a forced, royal pity. ”The one who turned his back on his own blood and rebelled against His Grace of Kakunia.”

Merelao offered a shrug, the movement so languid and detached it was almost an insult in itself. ”It is a rebellion, I suppose. Or perhaps it is not. Is it truly unjust for a man to bar his door when thumbs are scratching at the wood? My uncle conspires to hand my inheritance to a baseborn whelp. That is a rot that cannot be allowed to stand, you may put your arm on a tiger’s beyon bars, are you to be surprise if a piece of flesh come missing?”

”So you joined hands with peasants instead?” Sorza’s lip curled. ”You would stand with mud-plucked men against your own kind? Against your peers?”

”Have you ever seen your own blood, oh Peer of mine?” Merelao asked softly. ”I don’t mean a nick from a shaving razor. I mean the deep, hot flow of it. I have. I’ve seen it many a time in the thick of the fray, and I can attest, it wasn’t blue, nor was it purple. It was as red as the blood of the basest slave.Nor are our bones any different.”

He leaned forward, his blade-sharp horns catching the dull grey light of the dying sun.

”War is the great equalizer, Prince. It is the only place where a king and a beggar have the same chance of being chosen for the sleep that never ends. While I do not deny the ’baseness’ of the man beside me,” he cast a sideways glance at Alpheo that was impossible to read, ”I find he has more in common with me than you ever will. He is a creature of war. I admit, he hasn’t always been the most pleasant of allies, but something interesting always happens when the Fox is out of his hole.”

Merelao gestured with a gauntleted hand toward the Oizenian lines.

”I have allied with peasants, and you with princes. And yet, I see not their banners here today. No Habadians. No Ezvanians. Only yours, Oizen, how come?’’

Sorza flinched but kept his eyes locked on the Lord of Epietoli. ”Leave,” he commanded. ”I will grant you safe passage. This is not your fight, Kakunian. Return to your hills and bicker over whatever scrap of dirt you feel you were denied. Stay here, and dirt is all you will receive.”

”That I do not deny. Dirt and crowds , and of course crows for the latter, most likely,” Merelao replied”This is not my fight. But it would not serve my interests to see the candles of Yarzat blown out by a draft from Oizen. And truly, would you have me turn my back on such a jolly time? I have acquired a taste for the dance. When else will I have the chance to let my blade taste so many different Southern pedigrees in a single afternoon?”

”You are as mad as the stories say,” Sorza spat, his patience fraying like an old rope.

The detail vanished from Merelao’s face. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a hiss that carried over the howling wind.

”And you are as craven as the songs make you out to be,” Merelao spat back. The word ’mad’ had struck a nerve, a raw and sensitive chord he usually kept buried under his bored facade. ”I may be mad, Sorza, but I am here. You? You are just a man hiding behind a golden sun, praying that the moon never rises.Others did the fighting for you, and they fought poorly, so now here we are.

Just that fact should be insult enough for your ways of war. But you may choose to stand in the shadows of other man as much as you wish, that is your prerogative, but who are you that presume to derogate me?

I’ll see you on the field, and if we cross eyes then, I shall put you under.”