Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The feast roared on and on into the small hours, wine and ale flowing in rivers while the collective laughter of the hall crashed down like a deafening avalanche.

Somewhere during the height of the revelry, a small token of Harlon’s appreciation had been extended to the guests. Dancers from the lands of sand were brought out to exhibit themselves. They swayed first on the polished floor of Harlon’s personal mansion, before being made to swat second , while being subtly directed toward the guest chambers under the dim, flickering light of a few prepared candles.

There was more than one girl for each man present, including the neutrals. After all, if cold politics could not successfully sway a man’s allegiance, perhaps a bit of warm, exotic pleasure could grease the wheels.

Publius had been happy enough to accept it, and he was the one with the widest smile as he was led to his bedroom by two of them, one with hay-blonde hair and another with raven-black hair.

He could perhaps also give them away as a gift, it wasn’t like he had many uses for them.

It wasn’t as if the girls had cost Harlon any great price to pay; his brother’s close friend, Blake, had been kind enough to provide an entire ship filled with them the moment Harlon whispered what he had in mind.

With the crucial vote for the ownership of Harmway fast approaching, their faction had been more than forthcoming with any coin or exotic luxury required for the political war raging behind the real one. On that front, Harlon could not dare to fault either his brother or Blake; neither man had spared a single copper when it came to fortifying their position.

Following the performance, the feast quieted down easily enough. Men began slinking away from the tables, staggered hand in hand with the foreign women in their revealing, translucent silks.

The lords practically skipped up the stairs, as giddy and breathless as a sixteenth-year lad finally crossing the threshold into adulthood. Exception was given, of course, to the pathetic few who had already drunk themselves into a stupor directly onto the tabletops, snoring into pools of spilled ale, men who would undoubtedly come to rue the morning sun.

As for the host, Harlon had long since retired himself from the suffocating heat of the hall in the company of Karlin. He had drifted much deeper into the cups than he initially intended, finding it an absolute trial to keep his boots in a straight line. Thankfully, his companion was kind enough to lend a sturdy shoulder for Harlon to lean his weight against, keeping him steady with a firm grip on his side.

The Call was a well-ordered isle, boasting wide, cleanly cobbled streets that made navigating the dark a far easier task than in the squalid mainland ports. Along the thoroughfares, iron-held torches were lit, casting long, flickering shadows over the stone. Karlin held a blazing torch of his own aloft in his free hand, as the island laws made it strictly illegal to walk the streets at night without a flame, for obvious reasons.

The crisp night air smelled heavily of salt and open sea, a sharp, bracing scent that every soul born to the harsh, unforgiving Salt Isles of the Confederation was intimately familiar with.

Harlon paused, throwing his head back to look up at the sky. It was truly beautiful. Countless stars burned like diamonds against the absolute blackness of the night canvas.

A gorgeous night for a thoroughly un-gorgeous day, he reflected grimly, his wandering eyes settling on the brilliant constellation known as the Weaver’s Needle. As he gazed up at the shifting stars, a sudden, violent wave of nausea hit him, his saliva instantly turning sour and watering his mouth.

Knowing precisely what was about to happen, Harlon violently lurched to the side of the cobbled path and retched into the gutter.

Karlin stood perfectly still beside him, holding the torch high, watching the miserable display with a look of profound amusement. ”I distinctly recall telling you to watch your pace with the ale, Harlon.”

Harlon spat a mouthful of bitter, yellow bile, his tongue scraping against a rubbery, half-chewed piece of roasted pig’s liver that had stubbornly lodged itself at the back of his throat. ”Could drinking less than the fucking half-Romelia. Still....’’ he retched and paused ’’Ought to... ought to have listened,” he wheezed, wiping his chin.

After a few agonizing minutes, the ground stopped spinning, and he felt decent enough to hoist himself upright without howling for assistance.

Nonetheless, Karlin caught him firmly by the crook of the arm. ”Come on, let’s move.”

”Where?” Harlon muttered, his throat burning.

”To get that putrid puke smell out of your mouth. I know a quiet, secluded shelf near the rocks. You can wash the muck off your face and get yourself properly cleaned up.”

Karlin led the way down a sloping alley, and Harlon followed closely behind, the countless stars above shining silently down upon their retreat. They walked through the torch-bathed roads for what felt like a long quarter of an hour, Harlon’s bleary eyes fixated entirely on the back of Karlin’s head as he allowed himself to be led by the hand like a stray hound.

Gradually, the rhythmic, thunderous crashing of the waves grew louder, echoing off the stone walls, and Harlon could no longer contain the alcohol-fueled curiosity burning in his chest.

”Hey, Karlin?”

Karlin let out a low hum of consent, not breaking his stride.

”Could you not have tried at least one of them tonight? Perhaps the exotic southern flavor might actually be to your hidden tastes?” Harlon asked, a lazy smirk returning to his face. ”It certainly did the trick for me.”

Karlin let out a long, thoroughly exhausted sigh. ”Bloody unlikely.”

”Come now, you could have at least made the attempt,” Harlon pressed, nudging him with a heavy shoulder. ”Who knows? You might have actually enjoyed yourself for once.”

”When I was nothing but a boy, I made the attempt,” Karlin said, his voice flat as he guided them down a set of steep, slick stone steps. ”My elder brother, Orl, dragged me by the collar into a high-end brothel the moment I turned fifteen winters. I took one look at the girl, smelled the cheap perfume and as she went down on me , I almost puked right across her bare teats. I only managed to spare her skin by wrenching onto the expensive Romelian carpet instead. My brother had to leave the madam a catastrophic tip just to cover the cleaning. It’s simply not for me, Harlon... Why the sudden interest? Getting wet feet regarding your own choices?” He raised a sharp, mocking eyebrow in the torchlight.

Harlon shook his head, looking away.

”Good,” Karlin muttered. ”Because I already get a bellyful of that exact same nagging from my mother every single turn of the moon. Speaking how I should marry and have children. I don’t need your chiming in to match her tune.”

”And she nags you with exceptionally good reason, Karlin. You aren’t the first man alive to harbor such a disposition, nor will you be the last. Others have made it work for the sake of the bloodline. I am certain you could find a suitable girl, and put a brood inside her if you truly tried. Just get yourself sufficiently drunk enough to do the grim deed and be done with it.”

It was Karlin’s turn to violently shake his head, throwing a sharp, genuinely annoyed glare over his shoulder at him. ”That is thoroughly demeaning. And I refuse to do it, I am no breeding stallion. Besides, I am merely the spare of my house. I am entirely certain Orl has enough lust in his bones to manufacture enough progeny for the both of us. No man alive can say I am not doing my civic duty to the faction; what goes on beneath the furs of my own bed is absolutely none of their goddamn business.”

Before Harlon could offer another drunken counter-argument, the steep stone steps leveled out, and the cool, salt-laden spray of the sea misted over their faces. They had reached the secluded cove Karlin had spoken of,a dark, craggy shelf of black rock where the tide pooled cleanly away from the crashing surf.

Harlon stumbled forward, dropping clumsily to his knees at the edge of the sandy beach. He scooped up a massive double-handful of the freezing sea water and slammed it against his face, gasping as the icy shock instantly blasted the lingering cobwebs from his brain. He swished a mouthful of the bitter salt water around his teeth, spitting it out repeatedly until the foul taste of bile and pig’s liver was entirely washed away into the dark sea.

He sat back on his haunches, wiping his wet face with his sleeve. He cupped a hand to his mouth, exhaled deeply into his palm, and took a cautious sniff. He let out a slow nod of half-hearted satisfaction.

It would have to do.

”Do you recall this place?” Karlin asked, his voice dropping into a softer, rhythmic cadence as he laid flat on his back against the smooth stones of the rocky beach. The ocean wind caught his black hair, making the locks wave gently against the dark fabric of his jerkin.

He looked beautiful in the starlight.

Harlon forced his heavy eyelids open, casting his eyes away to scan the surrounding cliffs and crags, but his alcohol-soaked mind failed to make any immediate connection. ”I am entirely too drunk to use both my eyes and my brain simultaneously,” he muttered, letting out a rough sigh as he collapsed onto the smooth pebbles beside his friend. ”Would you be so exceptionally kind as to just tell me?”

”This was our first,” Karlin whispered, his gaze fixed on the endless sky above. ”Do you truly not recall it?”

Perhaps it was yours, Harlon thought cynically, though he was still of sound enough mind not to utter the blunt words aloud and ruin the moment.

Instead, he let his head sink back against the stones. ”Perhaps when I am not entirely out of my boots, the memory will return to me. For now, how about we just watch the stars for a bit? I desperately need to relax, Karlin. I have already pushed myself to the brink dealing with those Shore-Fuckers today. Traitors, the literal lot of them.”

”Hey, we agreed , no politics.” Karlin chided gently, turning his head on the stones to look at him. ”Do you truly intend to stay sour and angry even now?” He reached up, casually running a hand through his blonde hair before pointing a finger at the orehead. ”You ought to really get a cut, you know. It’s getting unruly.”

”Why should I?” Harlon snorted, a lazy smirk returning to his face. ”The ladies in the hall seemed to love it well enough.”

”Well, I don’t,” Karlin countered smoothly, a playful glint in his eye. ”And right now, I am entirely certain those ladies you speak of will be far more forthcoming with their praise tonight than I am.”

They shared a quiet, genuine chuckle, the rich sound swallowed up by the rhythmic crashing of the surf against the shore.

As the laughter faded, the space between them filled with a sudden, heavy stillness. Harlon turned his head, his bleary eyes meeting Karlin’s. They gazed into each other’s eyes in absolute silence for a long, stretching moment, the previous bravado of the feast completely melting away under the vast, uncaring watch of the Weaver’s Needle.It was calm , eerily so.

Harlon’s smirk softened into something a bit more nostalgic. ”You know...” he murmured, his voice slightly slurred but entirely earnest. ”I may be thoroughly drunk, Karlin, but I can recall one thing about our very first time out here on these rocks.”

”Oh? And what’s that?”

”We were completely alone,” Harlon said, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips as he lazily lifted his arm and pointed a calloused finger down the coastline, toward a cluster of dark, jagged rocks some dozens of meters away. ”But that doesn’t exactly seem to be the case tonight.”

At the end of his finger, a tiny, fragile flicker of yellow light danced against the black silhouette of the cliffs, the unmistakable glow of a single, hidden lantern. Their own torch had long since been cast away, thrown carelessly into the dark waters of the pool to drown when they arrived.

Karlin’s eyes followed the line of Harlon’s finger, squinting into the darkness. The moment his gaze locked onto the distant, flickering flame, the easy, relaxed smile vanished from his face, souring instantly. The playful warmth in his posture froze into a rigid, military stiffness.

Slowly, Karlin turned his head back to face Harlon. The starlight caught the sudden, somber gravity masking his features.

”Harlon,” he said.

There was something wrong with his tone. It was a low, hollow whisper, stripped entirely of its usual casual affection. The sheer weight of it made Harlon shift uncomfortably against the pebbles, his knuckles instinctively tensing.

Before Harlon could even open his mouth to ask what sort of madness was gripping him. he felt every single remaining cobweb of alcohol instantly evaporate from his brain at Karlin’s very next words.

”That’s Barbut.”