Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

All eyes within the hall fixed upon the four figures with a mix of bafflement and budding dread. For the Oizenian newcomers, steeped in centuries of rigid hierarchy where a common soldier would sooner lose a tongue than speak to a sovereign, the sight was a baffling breach of protocol.

They did not know the tradition of the Legions, which was most progressive : every two years, each unit voted for a spokesperson.

Whether it was a grievance over often received rotting grain, a worry for a certain way of doing things , these men were the living voices of the rank and file. Each was granted a single iron ring bearing his legion’s emblem, a token that carried the heavy right to demand a personal audience with the Prince. It was a mechanism designed to bypass the legates, a safety valve for the frustrations of the common ranks that could be spoke as soon as it was shared by most in the legions. The soldiers cherished the tradition and yet, to their credit, they used it with extreme temperance.

To see one was rare. To see four standing together was an omen.

Alpheo’s eyes moved from one face to the next. Four of them indeed they were.

”Mutt!” a gravelly voice barked from the deep end of the banquet. A subcenturion of the Hounds, his wolf pelt draped over massive shoulders, rose from his bench. ”Did you lose your way to the latrine or just get too drunk to find your seat?”

Mutt, one of the four standing in the center of the marble floor, gave a slight, rhythmic sway before raising a calloused hand in greeting. ”Oi, Cap!” he croaked, his voice thick but determined. ”I’ve had a cup or two, I’ll grant you, but we’re here on Legion business now. So, thanks, but I ain’t drinking until the word is said.”

That seemed to satisfy the veteran, who settled back into his seat with a weary scoff and a grunt of approval. Around the hall, the officers of the White Army reacted with the casual indifference of men who lived in a permanent state of organized chaos. They gave small, tired shrugs, returning to their cups or munching on chicken legs as if five armed men interrupting a royal feast was as mundane as the morning mist.

To the Oizenian nobility, however, the display was inconceivable. They watched, faces pale and eyes wide, at the sheer vulgarity of the intrusion. But they remained silent, wisely observing the shifting power dynamics of their new masters.

The music remained dead as Alpheo leaned forward, his hands still ghosting the table where he had just made a pact with a demon that promised nothing but war, and looked at the men who held the rings.

”We hope we didn’t bring displeasure to Your Grace at this hour,” spoke the man bearing the Fire of the Fourth Legion upon his breastplate. A hollow white eye, devoid of any iris, stared blankly from a socket where the savage cleave of a blade had claimed both sight and brow. ”But we preferred to bring it early enough, before people were too drunk to understand what was happening.Unfortunately we were too late to extend the same condition to some of ours. We begets your forgiveness.”

”While unexpected, a son of Yarzat’s iron is always welcome in my hall,” Alpheo replied, his voice smoothing over the tension like oil on water. ”And besides, you are a Speaker of the Legions and this is a feast, can I blame my men if they do what men ought to do? I suppose you bring tidings? Of course, if you’d wish to take a morsel or a sip or two before that, you are welcome to do so. There is enough to go around.”

Mutt, swaying slightly as if the marble floor were the deck of a ship, brightened instantly. ”Your Grace is kind,” he chirped with a lopsided smile. ”We would certainly tak—”

The man to Mutt’s left didn’t waste words; he simply drove a heavy fist into Mutt’s shoulder, sending the smaller man tumbling back onto his rump with a dull thud. ”Your Grace is most kind,” the grim legionnaire corrected, ignoring Mutt’s indignant squawk. ”But we’d sooner have our interruption be reasoned. Food and drink may come after, if Your Grace is still of the same mind.”

”Then speak your tidings,” Alpheo replied. He allowed a kind smile to touch his lips, the sort of expression a father might give a wayward but beloved son. It was no mere affectation; people often whispered that Alpheo had two sons, but those who bled for him knew he had six.

”Your Grace. Our tidings are others’ tidings,” the Speaker of the First voiced out.

”Now that is queer, isn’t it? Marq, right?” Alpheo asked, his memory for names as sharp as his memory for slights.

The soldier bowed, a flash of genuine surprise breaking through his disciplined facade. ”I am honored Your Grace knows my name. But yes, it is queer. Your Grace had extended upon us the chance for a boon after the Ford.”

Alpheo leaned back, his fingers tracing the wood of his chair. He remembered. He had offered a boon. A boon for anything as long as it was not of coin, for he had no desire to birth a Praetorian guard that rose their salary after each sovereign.

Barred from bonuses and increases in salary, the legions could ask anything.

They could ask for a month’s leave, a legendary feast or new equipment.

Before this day, he had only granted such a request once, following the fall of Herculia, when the legions had asked for a month’s rest. He had granted them it after two, ensuring their victory tasted of leisure while having enough time to fill the gap they left in the security of the newly conquered led with seasonal recruits.

”I recall. You fought nobly, you fought bravely, and you have won. For that, I have extended royal favor for a request of yours,” Alpheo said, his hazel eyes narrowing. ”Is this the one you wish to use?”

Marq nodded solemnly. ”That it is.”

”Speak of it then.”

”Well, Your Grace... we are not here to speak of it either. It is not our place.” He said apologetically

Alpheo’s brow arched. ”I recall you were chosen for that task alone. If it is not yours, whose is it then?”

”We were made to ask Your Grace, and your lordships, to follow us outside the hall,” Marq replied, his voice echoing with a strange, formal gravity. ”If the request comes from the legions, it is their hope they may speak of it themselves.”

With a synchronized movement, Marq and the others bowed low. Mutt attempted the same, and to his credit he managed to do so after swaying a bit.

The Oizenian lords looked on with open-mouthed confusion. Lord Flynt, was already whispering frantically to Lord Cregan, his finger pointing at the four soldiers as if to point at the galls of them.

Lord Cleio of Helvium, a young man who had only recently inherited his title after his father’s, Ilbert, heroic death upon the walls of the Bastion rose slowly from his seat..

He peered toward the closed oak doors, his expression one of dawning realization, as if he already suspected what lay waiting in the cool night air beyond the marble walls.

It was Merelao, however, who peered most intently at the Prince’s face as Alpheo rose from his seat. There was a sharp, strange glint in the Kakunian’s eyes, as if he had glimpsed a flicker of something the others had missed, like a fox catching the scent of a white rabbit hiding in the deep snow, yet remaining uncertain of its own instincts. He remained uncharacteristically silent as he too stood, his gaze lingering on Alpheo with a newfound curiosity.

”As I have promised, your boon is accepted,” Alpheo announced ”Though it seems this will be more than a simple stroll. I give you my word: I shall hear whatever my soldiers ask of me.”

He gestured for Dorian, his young squire, who hurried forward with a heavy cloak and the Prince’s sword. The teen fidgeted with the scabbard for a moment, he clearly had his own cups of wine, his hands clumsy with nerves under the watchful eyes of the court, before finally securing the blade. The air in the hall was warm with wine and bodies, but outside, the late November chill was already waiting to bite through silk and skin.

With his sword at his hip and his cloak swirling behind him, the Prince of Yarzat stepped toward the exit. He did not wait for the servants; instead, he placed his palms against the massive wooden doors and pushed them open himself. As the heavy oak swung wide revealing what was outside waiting for him.

A rush of frigid night air came whistling past his ears, in that cold Alpheo stepped out crossing the threshold and lighting the fuse that would however one day see thousands upon thousands of his subject’s generation be swallowed by the rubbles.