Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Deep laughter and a wheezing rumble, so loud it rivaled the cutting wind howling outside the hall, tore through the feast .

It belonged to one man, merely the Kakunian expressing his unfiltered feelings on the evening. He snatched an empty chair and dragged it toward the Prince caring not as it screeched all the way there, before plopping down with a heavy thud just beside him. His neck bent back, a drunk-like smile widening across his lips as his long blonde locks fell in waves upon his temples.

Alpheo watched him move a stubborn set of hair that had plastered itself to his mouth. It was hard to connect this sweating, silk-clad mess with the ”demon of the Ford” who had carved a path through the Oizenian ranks with just his sword.

He cracked his neck, sweat running down his face as his shirt clung to his chest like a second skin, puffing out like a peacock frame.

”Your legates and lords are most interesting, Alph,that let me grant you.” he said, gasping for air. ”Never have I seen a more audacious and funny band of devils.It is enough to make a man envious. I’ve been told your little wolf lord, killed ten knights at our last engagement and used their scalps as knee pads and pauldrons afterward. You’d hardly think the man capable of it, looking at him now.” He turned a pleased gaze toward Rykio, who was currently blanketed in a strange blue and yellow cloak. When the man turned at a lyric from the singers, clapping his hands and smashing cups upon the table, Alpheo realized the cloak bore a sun.

Where did he even find that? Alpheo wondered, his brow furrowing. I had my men scour the whole fucking place.

As the prince debated about the looting skill of one of his highest men, Merelao’s hand meanwhile returned from a brief mission into a bowl of olives, popping one into his mouth before his other hand caught Alpheo’s shoulder with a rhythmic shake.

”Oh. OH! There! That’s my favorite!” Merelao leaned down, cupping his ear toward the musicians, while his hand still lingered on the prince’s shoulder.

It was a staple of Yarzat taverns, a rowdy anthem that was bound to echo through any proper festivity. Alpheo said nothing and listened; the song was surprisingly pleasing to the ear, despite its subject matter.

”Shamelik was the first of them, he rode into the North,

With a mighty host of iron, he led his princedom forth!

To Aracina’s iron gates, he laid a heavy siege,

Vowing that the Fox himself would serve him as a liege!”

Rykio, meanwhile, had abandoned his seat to dance to the rhythm. He crashed a heavy boot down onto a plate of peas, smashing them into a green paste as he raised his leg and brought it down again in time with the drums, jelly of greens flying in the air like sparks from a fire.

The people surrounding him didn’t complain; they were the culprits, spinning him around with their hands and cheering him on as he made a mockery of the table manners.

”Oh, how sad the song is sung, how bitter was the cost,

For everything he hungered for was in the winter lost!

The land he craved, the gold he sought, the glory he did rule,

In Yarzat, they just laughed and said: ’Here comes the royal fool!’”

The lyrics turned cruder as the rhythm intensified, mocking the failed ambitions of every Oizenian man who had ever dared to look north.

Not like it was much different now.

”Of Aracina’s emerald grass, the prince was quite a fan,

But now the grass is painted red for every Oizenian man!

For when you land upon the field with a javelin in your cunt,

You find you’re just a common whore simply begging for more!

He tumbled from his stallion’s back, he fell into the fire,

Aracina he desired, but he drowned within the mire!”

”EH! EH! EH! EH!”

The crowd roared in syncopation. At each shout, Rykio spun like a top. Finally, he leapt away from the table, to the great relief of those who still wished to salvage their dinner from his boots, and began a wild, surprisingly graceful dance upon the marble floors, swaying either from the drinks or all that spinning. The servants scrambled to clear a path as the warrior moved with a fluidity that defied his rugged frame.Some did not and had their trays crash down upon the pavement.

The song continued, drifting from the ”Dog’s Banquet” to the more recent ”Dip of Apurvio.” As the verses unfolded, Alpheo leaned back against his silk pillows, realizing with a start that his own life had become the stuff of the very tavern songs sang throughout the whole of Yarzat.

He did not know how he felt about that.

”Will they add another sonnet to the poem about this, do you think?” Merelao suddenly asked, his eyes fixing on the Prince with a strange, flickering light.

”I’d say this war has earned the right to its own song,” Alpheo replied, a thin smile playing on his lips even as he mentally measured the weight of their temporary alliance. The ’Mad Bull’ was as dangerous as he was unpredictable, yet his ingenuity was a mechanical necessity for survival; without him, Alpheo knew he would never have survived the war’s double-edged blade.

He was the sort of man who could wake in a confusing hell with nothing but a broken sword and claim victory through sheer rhetoric and an inspiring figure,feats he had already performed at Epietoli and again at the Ford.

Alpheo wondered how many more times the man could cheat death, and more importantly, if he could keep such a devil at his side.

Merelao was a gracious ally but would be a terrifying enemy, possessing a presence that could bewitch a room and steer the tides of men to his whims.

He had, after all, convinced the Prince of Yarzat to take up the blade again even after a brush with death so close it had left Alpheo’s soul rattled. As a man used to giving the speeches himself, Alpheo found it strangely entertaining to be the one seduced by another’s words.

”And what would this poem be named? If you had a hand in it, of course,” the Kakunian muttered, his teeth grinding against a bitter olive seed. Merelao studied the Prince closely, likely evaluating Alpheo’s worth just as Alpheo was weighing his. Logically, Merelao needed the Prince; he was still on the backfoot against his uncle, especially with the support Habadia would inevitably provide.

But somehow that could hardly be enough to justify any future relation. That was the notch of the matter , however. What came after this?

”What was that thing you said? In the midst of the battle? The two something...” Alpheo prompted.

”The Two Horned Princes?” Merelao attempted after a brief pause.

”That would make a good name, wouldn’t it? Though greatly misleading at first,” Alpheo said, his voice dropping to a dry rasp. ”Speaking of that, you could have at least mentioned the lance sticking out of my head. I felt as if an anvil was resting on my brow for most of the battle. I thought I was simply nursing an incoming concussion.” It would have been a mercy to be prepared for such a sight rather than being hit by the realization like a sudden flood.

”Had I done that, you would have been struck by fear,” Merelao countered, leaning in with a wolfish grin, hand that was resting on the shoulder creeping closer to the neck , until his finger went ticking against his collarbone. ”Sometimes a man can walk a lot farther if he goes blindfolded. The expectations of others are heavy, but the ones you hold for yourself are shackles of iron.

How could you presume to fly if you never jumped?” He chuckled, finding the memory of the slaughter endearing. ”You did fly, didn’t you? And did you not wonder why so many fled in terror at the mere sight of you? Did you truly think your armor was that frightening?”

Alpheo could not find the same warmth in the memory. All he recalled was a blur of violence and a dread that rose in his belly like a black tide.He was deep in the battle fever, and time was as subjective at that moment as one’s emotion over a painting.

Still, he looked around at the music, the wine, and his friends feasting in a hall that now belonged to him.

The war was won, the enemy’s seat was his, yet as the drums gave way to the calmer trill of flutes and harps , he felt a new weight settling in his heart, shoulder and head.

He had jumped over a wall only to find a mountain waiting behind it. The road ahead was long, and it would be hard.

But one thing was different now, he would be the one on the attack, the real question was whetever he could consider the man with the hands hovering over him the one that he would the attack with or the one he would clash against.