Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The day had been long, and the shadows of the soul threatened to make it longer still. The sun remained a prisoner behind its grey blanket, refusing to witness the lightless choice the Prince was forced to make.

Alpheo’s hand drifted to the notch in his breastplate where he kept the wooden rose. His gauntleted fingers, numbed by the cold and the vibration of the failed command he was making, traced the carved petals. There was no sweet fragrance to it, no softness to the touch; it was merely dead wood shaped by love.

Nothing organic was in there anymore.

And yet, as he grasped it, the token felt like the warmest thing he had ever held. To a stranger, it was a trinket, a simple sign of luck from a wife to her husband. To Alpheo, it was the key to a puzzle only he could solve.

Endure.

He could almost hear her voice rising over the screams of the dying.

He was no longer the hollow boy spurred by the flickering fires of empty ambition. That child had died along the road, somewhere behind some stone, replaced by a man who lived for more, fought for more, and dreamed for more.

Egil had already paid the ultimate price to buy Alpheo this moment. Many others of his friend were even now drowning in the red tide, waiting for the man they followed to find his footing.

Stillness is the enemy. Fear is the raging river that swallows the world.

He realized now that courage was not the absence of that river, but the willingness to swim through its deepest currents. Only when fear dominates can a man truly claim to be brave.

He let himself be swept away by the rivers , to fall to his whims for too long.

There would be no perfect command. There was no magical chord he could pluck to make the world deliver victory on a silver platter. There was only the hard truth of the moment. It was time to move past the paralysis of his own dread. It was time to make the call he had withdrawn from for far too long.

He turned. His heart, once a storm settled into the unnatural stillness of a frozen lake. His gaze found Asag.

As their eyes met, Alpheo saw the immediate spark of recognition.

He knew what he was to do.

There was a moment of profound, heavy silence between the two friends, silent bridge of respect where disagreement had no place.

The Legate gave a sharp, singular nod. The weight of the world seemed to settle into the lines of his face, but he did not argue.

”Take Basil,” Alpheo finally begun, the command ringing like a hammer on an anvil. ”Move south toward the swerves. Use the hay-bridges. Get him across the water.”

”Father!”

Basil’s voice was as damning as a widow’s wail, cutting through Alpheo’s resolve like a knife with silk. The boy stepped forward, he was the spitting image of his father in everything except his eyes, he had taken the best of parents.

But Alpheo refused to turn.

He dared not look at his son, fearing that if he saw the terror in those eyes, which in life always gave warmth to him, the ice in his own soul would shatter.

And that was not what he needed now.

He may always wished to be a father, but for today he needed to torn that mask away.

”Bring him to his mother,I trust him to you. Protect him with every means at your disposal. See him seated on his mother’s throne, or perish in the attempt.If we shall all face the dark times that are coming, make sure that light follows after that.”

”Will I see you after today?” Asag asked. His voice was deathly calm, but the tightness in his jaw betrayed the lie.

”I will do my best,” Alpheo replied. ”But that doesn’t matter now, does it?Never did eh?”

”It matters to me,” Asag growled his head almost headbutting his friend’s. ”Don’t go fucking dying here, you bastard. I’ll take care of the lad.” Basil opened his mouth to protest, but Asag clamped a heavy hand over the lad’s face, silencing him. ”Shush, boy. I’m speaking to your father.” His eyes locked back onto Alpheo’s. ”I have no desire to explain to your wife why her husband chose a muddy riverbank over his own home.You got people waiting for you, don’t dissapoint them.”

”I’ll see you back then,” Alpheo said.

Whetever that was a promise he could keep, no one knew.Much less those two.

He wheeled his horse and trotted away, refusing to spare even a fleeting glance for his child and the friend he had given his possible most hard order yet.

And then alone with the cold air of autumn, he saw all of his choices.

He had lived his entire life moving every other piece on the board, protecting the king at the expense of the pawns. But the game had changed. He had lied to Jarza; he had told his commanders he had nothing left.

He was wrong.He still had himself.

Only when he moved himself, could he truly play the game.

He pulled his stallion to a halt beside Vrosk. He thrust a finger into the air, and the eyes of the surrounding men, those few left in the reserve for his protection, snapped to him.

”The banner,” Alpheo commanded.

Vrosk hesitated, his brow furrowing. ”What are you going to do, Your Grace?”

”What a Prince must,” Alpheo replied, reaching out. Vrosk obeyed, handing over the heavy standard of the Legions. The silk felt strange in Alpheo’s grip; it was the first time he had carried it himself. Somehow though, It felt right.

Like the missing piece for the puzzle.

The Prince turned to his personal guard, the men in the pristine white cloaks who had stood watch over his safety while others bled.

”I think it is time to see those white cloaks soiled,” Alpheo said, his voice rising over the wind. He pushed the tremors down. ”The enemy is at our gates. What Prince would I be if I did not stand upon the threshold with you?And what good-for-nothing guards would you instead claim to be if you were not to follow?”

The guards, men who had spent the day suffocating in the boredom of the rear, felt happy enough for some violence. They didn’t cheer like green boys; they drew their steel with the grim, rhythmic clatter of professionals.

”Are you certain, Your Grace?” Vrosk asked, his voice low. ”The mud ahead is thick with our own caltrops. It’s a death trap for horses.”

”Then we shall fight on foot,” Alpheo answered.

”But the enemy still has a fresh wave of heavy horse to spare,” Vrosk pressed, ”and our pikes are all splintered and spent. If they charge us now...”

”That,” Alpheo said, with a stillness that surprised even him, the man who had spent a lifetime running from the dark, ”does not matter. This must be. This was the path laid out for us. It is time we took our steps. If you fear for your lives, go.’’ he nudged his head back’’ Join my son. See my orders obeyed from the safety of the south.No dishonor in that.”

Vrosk looked at the mud, then at the blood-stained horizon, and finally back at the man he had served for a decade. A slow grin spread across his face.

”We both know I’m not going to do that.”

”I suppose I always did,” Alpheo said. He allowed himself one final, warm smile, a flicker of the man he was leaving behind to join his soldiers in the mud, before it melted away like autumn leaves in a sudden frost.

He dismounted, his boots hitting the sodden earth with a heavy, final thud. He gripped the banner in one hand and his sword in the other.

”Forward,” the Prince whispered.

Then louder”To the center.”

Beside him, the white-cloaked guards moved like ghosts through the mist, their fine silk already splattered with the black slurry of the field. Making them look like blooming white petals in a sea of brown.

They neared the rear of the struggling line, and the royal banner of the Falcon snapped in the gale, flying defiantly alongside the golden standards of the Legions. The air here was different, thick with the metallic tang of blood and the desperate, ragged heat of dying men.

The prince’s boots skipped over the heaps of dead men and horses.Paying them as much mind as he would have to a pebble on the road.

From that sea of courages men,a lone voice, thin and cracked with exhaustion, then rose from the press.

”The Prince?”

Like hay on fire, the words spread and rippled through the ranks better than if he had been the one shouting his presence. ”Is that the Prince? ’’

’’Look! On foot!”

’’The prince!He is on the field!’’

Heads turned. Eyes wide with disbelief peered through gore-streaked visors. Men who had been hollowed out by hours of slaughter, who had felt the cold hand of despair tightening around their throats, suddenly stood straighter as if revitalised by a sudden breath of spring’s wind.

This was it.

He knew that.

No way back from that.

This was the precipice. This was the moment that would either be the foundation of a kingdom or the epitaph of a fool. He knew that words were no longer enough; the air was too heavy with the dead for speeches.

He gripped the heavy shaft of the Legion’s banner, the silk sodden. With a roar that felt as though it were tearing the very lungs from his chest, he sprinted past the shivering line of the rearguard. He pushed through the gap,which men unknowingly and unblinkingly made for him, his eyes locked on the space after it.

With a heave of his shoulders that strained every tendon, he hurled the banner.

The standard arched through the grey sky, a streak of gold against the leaden clouds, and landed with a defiant thud deep in the enemy ranks, its point hopefully hitting someone on the far side of the breach.

It was his moment.

”THE COLORS HAVE CROSSED!” Alpheo’s voice broke across the field, ”WILL YOU LET THEM STAND ALONE? FOLLOW YOUR PRINCE! FOLLOW YOUR FLAG!GLORY TO YARZAT”

In one fluid motion, he unsheathed his longsword. The steel sang as it met the air, a clean, silver sound in a world of muffled thuds. For thirteen years, he had hidden behind maps, walls, and other men’s lives. He had let the Fox survive so the Prince might rule.

But that young foolish boy was dead now, drowned in the Lampianis.

He did not wait for an answer.

As he plunged in the red world of his own making.