Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The man wheezed, his head sagging against the scarred wood of the table, as the steady, drip-drip-drip of something splashing onto the stone floor echoed in the quiet cellar.

Hypathio’s hand, which had been gripping the merchant’s left arm like an iron vice, let go at Laedio’s brief nod. The prisoner’s wet, tear-streaked eyes rose to meet the commander’s own. He trembled violently as Laedio’s fingers idly drifted over to touch the merchant’s manicured hand.

”You have beautiful hands, master Lorthio. Has anyone ever told you that?” Laedio remarked softly, entirely ignoring the dark, wet stain currently spreading down the front of the prisoner’s expensive silk breeches. ”Not a single callous on either of your palms.” He flipped the hand over, examining it with the practiced eye of a livestock trader, or better yet of a livestock traded. ”Nails long and glassy... how nice. Not a single day of real labor in this hand’s entire existence.The heaviest thing you ever held was a pair of tits , no doubt.”

You certainly can’t work the iron mines with such pretty nails, Laedio thought.

”I envy you, you know?” Laedio continued with a light sigh. ”Mine are so ugly, so rough and dirty from a lifetime of work, the kind of work you don’t know a damn thing about, of course.”

He gave a casual, mocking flick to the iron cleaver, which had embedded itself in the table just inches away from the merchant’s pinky finger.

He gave Hypathio another sharp nod. The large soldier instantly stepped forward, pinning the prisoner’s right arm to the side of the chair while forcing the left flat against the table, spreading Lorthio’s plump fingers out one by one.

The man’s struggling amounted to little more than a rabbit wailing before he got his twisted.

”You know exactly what I want, and we both know that we know what you have done,” Laedio said, his voice dropping all pretense of warmth. ”Don’t continue with this pathetic act you’re playing. It’s not entertaining, it’s not smart, it’s just thoroughly irritating. Many of my brave boys are lying dead in the brush of your account, you know.”

He picked up the heavy blade, letting the cold edge gently caress the merchant’s middle fingernail, leaving a faint white trail from the friction.

”We know you possess the information we care about. So, the only real question remaining is how many of these pretty fingers you’ll still have left before you finally choose to sing like a canary.”

The merchant swallowed hard, his breath hitching. ”I am not the man you think I am, I swear it! I just deliver food inside the city gates! For your King! I am only here because his administration offered good coin for the supply lines, I swear it on the five gods!”

”I smell a foul lie, Captain,” Hypathio said, his lips curling. ”I think losing one thumb right at the start should set the proper tone for the morning.” He leaned down, blowing a cold breath directly into the merchant’s ear.

Lorthio winced as if he had been touched by a white-hot pincer. ”I am loyal to your King! I swear it! I am merely delivering bread to be paid, that’s all!” he cried out, squirming frantically in his bonds as Laedio’s index finger trailed a slow, trail of red along the back of his hand.

”Courtesy that is shown should only be answered with courtesy,” Laedio chided gently. ”But you have been lying to me from the moment you sat down, Master Lorthio.”

”I was n—”

”Shhhhh.” Laedio pressed a finger to his own lips. ”The next words I want to hear from your mouth are to be the truth and only the truth. In the King’s name, you could say.” He smiled, a distant, fond look briefly crossing his rugged features. ”You know, he wasn’t always so grand... the King. Still feel strange calling him that. The only king in the south.Eh’’ he chuckled as outside the sound of steel rolling on echoed in the air ’’I knew him back when he was but a little better than a common peasant. Starved, young, and ambitious. Madly so.”

Laedio leaned in closer, his eyes locking onto the merchant’s. ”I know most people tend to get worse as they get older, money and power get straight to their heads, but Alpheo only improved instead.

Once, he was so utterly callous, so cruel, so ruthlessly determined. You could look into his eyes back then and see a man who wouldn’t move an inch out of his way if there was a weeping woman or a starving old man blocking his path.Flesh that was all they were for him, he was a little monster with a nice smile and a pretty face.

Crowns sit badly on some people, but not on him. He is a far better man now than he was before. Old age and the heavy responsibilities of the crown mellowed him out, you could say.For the good luck of the millions he now rules over.”

He scratched his jaw with the blunt hilt of the cleaver. ”Not that I don’t understand the feeling. I’ve got a little brat waiting for me back at the capital, you know.You get soft when you have a little brat waiting on you.”

Laedio’s expression went flat. ”And all of this tedious business of cutting off fingers is wasting my valuable time.Time I could better use to hunt my enemies and hang them.

I wish to make it back to see my king coronated, and that feathered monster with his little band of vermins is the only thing standing between me and my rest.

We both know you are going to talk eventually.If the fingers aren’t enough, the worm between your thigh will suffice. You are not a hard man, Lorthio; hell, I do not consider you even a man at all. You’re little better than a bloated leech that happened to learn how to talk. You are a criminal, Master Lorthio, a common criminal and a liar.”

He blew a heavy breath out of his nose. ”Tell me what I want to know. Last chance.”

”I don—”

Bang! The heavy cleaver came down severing the very tip of the merchant’s middle finger. The small piece of flesh flew across the table like a slab of pork being carved by a butcher.

Dark, hot blood instantly bubbled out.

He had promised him that. He did.

Last chance, he had told him. A man had to make good on his threat...

Hypathio smiled broadly, looking as if he had been starving for this exact entertainment all morning.

Lorthio’s jaw dropped wide open his eyes staring blankly at the stump.

Laedio had done this enough times, the pain would be late-coming.He first had to register what had happened.

”Confess!”

Bang!

The heavy iron edge came down again, claiming another inch of the middle finger. The merchant’s fine golden signet ring was sheared clean off, sending it skittering across the scarred oak like a swinging top.

”Confess! Confess! Confess!”

Finger after finger flew from the hand like chips of a wooden shield, tumbling across the tabletop like dice thrown by a desperate gambler.

One severed digit bounced so wildly off the wood that it actually jumped up into the air, flying all the way past Laedio’s ear before landing where he could not see.

The merchant stared down at his mangled left hand, his breathing turning into a high, wheezing rattle. Of the five digits he had been born with, only two stumped remnants remained. His eyes rolled in his head, struggling to comprehend to whom this butchered piece of meat even belonged.

The realization then came when a fresh gush of dark crimson sputtered out from the raw wounds.

It pumped like a tiny fountain.

”Aaagh! AAAAAGH!”

He thrashed violently against Hypathio’s grip, his wobbly gut shaking as he choked on his own spit.

Late-coming it was, but it still came.

”Who are your contacts in the upper markets?!” Laedio shouted over the screaming, his voice commanding and cold as ice. He hated wasting time. And he knew how long these things could go.

He had once cut a man’s man piece by piece, and stopped only after he reached well past the wrist, on the account of the man’s death.

He recalled the other had sang pretty fast next instead, unfortunately they only had one now.

He doubted the merchant would last long, he was not a brave man and had no attitude with pain.

He was in for the coin.....brave boys of his had died so this fat fuck could get more gold on his fat fingers.

The thought of so much death on the account of this roll of fat, angered him more than Laedio thought it could have.

Death may find them so depressingly often in their line of job, but he wasn’t yet at the point of looking past them.

”Who are your smugglers at the southern gate?! How many swords do the Vulture Lord command?Where are they?How many camps?Who provides you with the food and the steel?”

The man only screamed.

He pinned the remaining edge of the hand, lining the cleaver up with the pinky.

Perhaps I should just take the whole fucking hand...

”Confess!”

Just where he was about to, the merchant revealed himself to be the man he was.

”I’ll confess!’’ he shrieked saving both men from making a deep grievous mistake’’By the gods, stop! I’ll confess everything!”

’’Excellent’’ Laedio muttered.

’’Excellent’’ Hypathio agreed.

The merchant wept.

At long last they were all making some progress.