Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Hours of bloodshed had passed as quick and fast as a rushing river, accompanied by the ceaseless, deafening clash of steel and the ragged screams of dying men.

Arrows whistled through the peaceful blue sky, its rain whittling down levies and horsemen alike. Azanians died by the swaths like common flies, their flesh rended open just ahead of the ancient white walls of the city they had willed themselves to perish for.

Fools.

Though Blake would readily grant they were courageous fools, and exceptionally valorous at that. It had been three long winters since he had last overseen a proper battle, and though he favored the bloodshed well enough, he found himself misliking the still, stagnant land just as much as he always had. Only when sailing on the open water was his restless soul truly calm. No matter the blessings of this strange land’s sky-gods, he was a man of the sea at heart.

He found that thought strangely comforting.

He had spent far too much time recently land-dwelling, ruling from stone chairs and scheming in stuffy courts. That was not how a Free Man of the waves should pass his precious days; still, it was a passing pain that remained bearable so long as it meant keeping his crown secure.

The Butchery at Eshad’s Gates was however more of a pleasure than a pain.

Many of his seasoned captains had expressed loud, nervous worries about taking the field today, even though their combined host vastly outnumbered the enemy forces making their final, desperate stand ahead of the walls of Eshad.

One could accuse those defenders of absolute folly, though never of cravenry. They fought and they died well. Unfortunately for them, their frantic efforts bought them very little in the end; after all, the front-line troops they were so eagerly slaughtering were not Blake’s true Confederates, but foreign meat.

The brutal butchery outside the gates of Khairo had taught Blake everything he ever needed to know about how catastrophically costly battles on land truly were, especially when heavy cavalry came thundering down the grass, leaving the dirt red and muddy with the bursted heads of footmen.

Every single loss he bore among his own crew was one less leal hand answering his future call and one less to keep the peace in his new reign once he sailed for his crown. His true iron-born sailors were far too important to waste in the tedious grunt-work of conquering and subduing this minor lord or killing false sultans.

They had an endless supply of conquered Azanians for that dirty work.

Some of the native lords had already bent the knee, eagerly swearing service and offering their levies in exchange for a promise not to have their ancestral lands burnt to cinder, or their highborn women unsoiled. It had been an intensely grueling task to enforce that last condition on his wild crew whenever they successfully captured a castle. It stirred his men hot to lay their rough hands on such pristine, aristocratic novelty. Blake couldn’t entirely blame them for the urge; novelty always inspired a fierce liking and immediate interest in most men.

Still, in the grand strategy of empires, it was sometimes better to let a lamb live to become a sheep than to have it ruthlessly butchered while it was young. If he didn’t preserve the stock, who would make the next generation of lambs to bleed? And the Azanians were exactly that little lambs whose entire chance of growing up, or getting cut down into the grass, belonged entirely to the butcher.

To himself.

”Let the Sand-men pass to the front!” Blake roared above the din, his booming voice earning a raucous mixture of jeers and cheers from his hardened crews.

His sailors had bloodied their own knuckles very little today, yet they already prided themselves on claiming the lion’s share of the incoming loot. It had been a massive chore to convince them to set foot on dry land as a proper army. Of course, Blake always kept the grand fleet close by the coast; it made it exceptionally easy to slip entire regiments past the enemy’s blind scouts. All the proud ships the local lords could have used to patrol these waters were either rotting at the bottom of the sea, serving as tables for the Sea-God’s eternal banquets or had been forcibly baptized in Sand Blood to service a new ife for the overlords of the waves.

They had completely broken the Lord of Tarvia’s army using those exact naval tactics. It had been the defenders’ desperate hope to join their garrison with the incoming host marching from the Tarvian hills.

Did you die in utter confusion, my lord? Blake thought dryly, his fingers tightening around his trophy.

He grasped the severed skull of the Lord of Tarvia in his heavy hand, tilting the bone in the sunlight. It had been a beautifully quick, vicious ambush in the dark, and it had done absolute wonders to properly bloody the untested, younger men in his army that had sailed all the way from the Old isles. The Tarvians had fallen into total chaos in the dead of night, their tents given to fire and their king butchered like a dog in the high grass.

(Map of Confederate occupation in Azania and the two described battles)

From that bloody moment onward, it had been a remarkably simple matter to deal with Eshad. Left entirely alone, stripped of all outside support, the city had offered nothing but mismatched courage, providing just enough of an interesting battle for Blake to comfortably prove his supremacy once more.

But now the field was won, the crows were circling, and hard decisions had to be made.

Heeding his sharp commands, the massive timber doors of his makeshift command camp groaned open. It had been a nightmare teaching his sea-dogs how to construct a proper military encampment on dry land.

”All the home a Free Man ought to ever have is the deck of his ship,”

Old SaltBeard had grumbled hoarsely when Blake first made his royal wishes known. It had been so impossibly difficult to teach his captains the art of earthworks that, in the end, the King hadn’t bothered. For that task, too, he had made clever use of the Sand-lords, utilizing their levies and skilled engineers to dig the trenches and raise the palisades.

They were slow and meticulous to be sure, but Blake always ensured his camps stayed within sight of the breaking waves. If things ever turned catastrophic on the dirt, every single man knew exactly which direction to run to find his safety.

Still, as he looked out over the sprawling rows of tents, a grim realization settled in his gut. They were depending far too much on the Sand-men to prop up their conquests. That reliance had to change, and it had to change sooner rather than later.

The time for the final day was at hand. Soon, immutable lines were to be drawn for all men across the sea. None could claim ignorance; either they would stand fiercely with the Sea-King, or they would be crushed beneath his keel.

A chorus of raucous jeers rose from the drunken sailors as the Lord of Eshad was dragged forward in heavy iron chains. It was a profound stroke of fortune that the man had been captured alive. It was always better when they were brought to Blake breathing; it meant either a lucrative deal could be struck to secure the territory, or the stubborn fool could be given over to the men to serve as bloody entertainment for the camps.

They liked to have lords kill each other, promising life and food for those that provided good spectacle, sometimes they paraded their wives and daughters to prone them to fight better, making a prize of those belonging to the lord that died.

Will you be entertainment too, my lord? Blake wondered idly, leaning back in his high seat as his eyes scanned the proud captive.

The Lord of Eshad looked every bit the seasoned vanguard warrior Blake had imagined him to be. He possessed wide, powerful shoulders, a strong chin, and an ample chest, and he had been brought in still clad in his full plate armor. Deep, ragged gashes marred the expensive steel, clear evidence of where axes and broadswords had hacked ruthlessly in search of his weak points during the final melee. His left arm hung completely limp at his side, though Blake couldn’t spot any flowing blood through the joints.

Cracked bone beneath the iron.

A mace, perhaps?

The man may have been a bitter enemy, but he was undeniably worthy of respect. He was exceptionally tall, holding his head high even in absolute defeat. Even when outnumbered three to one outside his gates, he had possessed the rare bravery to stand fast while his peers fled like hens. If more of these soft Sand-lords were cut from the same cloth as this giant, the Free Men would never have managed to take Khairo in the first place.

Blake wanted him. He wanted that heavy sword in his service, and he wanted his fierce allegiance sworn to the fleet. Still, looking at the ice in the man’s eyes, he knew the horse would be incredibly hard to break.

”A dozen of our men perished just to take him alive, HardGut,” Tonitz clamored at his flank, his hand resting aggressively on the pommel of his weapon.

”A brave warrior,” Blake commented dryly.

Tonitz nodded, though his dark demeanor seemed to begrudge the captive even that small shred of praise. ”He seems to stand tall even now, admiral . A bit too tall for a man in chains,” he commented rather loudly, deliberately tempting a reaction.

With a swift attack, a guard brought the heavy ash butt of a spear down into the back of the lord’s knees. The armor cluttered and groaned as his legs buckled, forcing his knees to soften the grass beneath him.

Hit him with a stick, hit him with a stone, the only thing that budged was the physical frame of the man. His spirit remained unbroken and unbent.

If looks alone possessed the power to kill, Blake would already be four feet under the sod. His army had been utterly annihilated, a foreign host was currently preparing to sack his ancestral homes, yet the Lord of Eshad did not budge one single inch.

”Qad yakun ladayk far alnaharu. Lakina hadhih ’ard ’azanya. ’Ant warifaquk sturslwn ’iilaa alnaar qrybaan bima fih alkifayatu,” the lord rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.

The foreign words may have been entirely lost to the victor’s ears, but the thick, bloody spit that landed squarely upon Blake’s leather boots did not leave a single thing to interpretation.

Before the spit could even dry, the insult was paid back. Tonitz stepped forward and struck the lord directly across the chin with the heavy pommel of his carved sword,it cracked against the man’s jaw and sent a fresh spray of crimson into the dirt along with some teeth. In a flash, Tonitz drew the blade fully, pressing the razor-sharp edge directly against the lord’s exposed neck, drawing a thin line of red.

”We ought to water the sand red with this piece of shit’s blood, Captain!” Tonitz snarled, his eyes wide with lethal intent. ”Give me the word, and I’ll open him from ear to ear!Let’s avenge our men!”

Voices rose from the soldiers.

’’Put him under Tonitz and Quarter him like a pig!’’

’’Nay, gold. Let’s torture him for his gold!’’

’’Fuck gold, I want to fuck a lord’s daughter and make him watch!’’

Even with the cold steel biting into his throat and all the voices around him, the Lord of Eshad did nothing but spit another mouthful of blood onto the ground, staring up with a freezing, unblinking glare directed entirely at Blake. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t beg.

Every bit of wise counsel in Blake’s head shouted that he should grant his immediate leave to Tonitz. It was the safe choice, the standard choice, the choice that would assert absolute dominance before the watching host.

Yet, against all established wisdom and the low murmurs of his captains, Blake let the lord’s treasonous prattle slide.

”Let him speak,” Blake commanded, his voice rising above all others.”A man who spits at a king while a blade shaves his throat earned his breath. Let’s hear what the sand sounds like when it chokes.”

The Lord of Eshad did not look at Tonitz. He kept his freezing, unblinking glare fixed entirely on Blake, his jaw swelling where the pommel had struck him, yet his voice rose with the thunder of a man still standing atop his walls.

”You think you have conquered Eshad because our grass drinks the blood of our sons today?” the lord rumbled now speaking in the common tongue, so that all from the lowest of the soldiers could hear him. ”You are nothing but foam upon the shore,scum. A temporary plague blown in by a foul wind. You ride the wave of our fractured houses, but waves always break against the rock!”

He spat again, the iron chains rattling against his scarred breastplate as he threw his chest out, defying the steel at his neck.

”This is the soil of Azania! It has swallowed empires older than your entire wretched race of sea-rats. Drink our wine, hoard our gold, and defile our halls for now, but sleep with one eye to the dark,the sands shall swallow you all.

For every infant your butchers spared today will grow with a blade in their hand and your face burned into their minds. Our time will come as surely as the tide returns. We will choke your harbors with the wreckage of your wooden homes, and we will hunt your sons until the deep blue sea turns black with your rot!”

The lord’s eyes scanned the surrounding captains, his expression twisting into pure, unadulterated scorn.

”Look at you,” he hissed, his voice dripping with disdain. ”A glittering host of thieves and salt-stained mongrels. You dress yourselves in our stolen silks and call yourselves conquerors, yet you reek of bilge water and fear. You dare not march three leagues from the coast without your precious ships to run back to like weeping children fleeing the sun! You are not kings.

You are just a pack of desperate, mangy dogs who have managed to bite a lion while his back was turned. Kill me, then! Water your sand with my blood. It will only make the harvest of your skulls that much sweeter when my people rise to hunt you down!My son will avenge me!You’ll get naught from me but my skull!”

Tonitz’s blade trembled against the man’s throat, his knuckles white with rage, waiting for Blake’s signal to let the crimson flow.

But Blake’s signal never came. All that the feller of Khairo did, was rise out from his chair and under the eyes of all his army, raise his twin axes.

The army cheered, for that was all that they always wanted.

Crimson water to sate their thirst.