Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Basil shifted uncomfortably, the pungent, eye-watering stench of the warehouse drifting around him like a heavy fog. To distract himself, he started counting the crates stacked along the timber walls, but there were so many rows disappearing into the gloom that his mind grew sluggish, and he abandoned the effort. He was certain there had to be a dozen of a dozen or so, hundreds of the bloody things.

How long would a hoard like this even last? His father had mentioned that scattering this fertilizer over the earth while it lay fallow would miraculously multiply the harvest once the seeds were sown. But what was the proper measure? Did a field require a casual handful? A heavy shovelful? Or an entire wagon?

They always said coin didn’t smell, but this particular fortune reeked to high heaven.

’’How much do we have father?’’

”As of this moment? Very little, I fear,” the King admitted, aggressively dusting the last remnants of the gray powder from his palms. He gave a sharp wave of his fingers, signaling for Basil to follow, and by the mercy of the five gods, he turned and strode out of the building.

The instant they stepped beyond the threshold, a crisp, sharp winter breeze swept across the grass, catching the long white cloaks of the royal house guards and causing them to flop dramatically against their dark gray armor.

Even the four winds were welcoming him in their embrace.

Basil had never imagined he could feel such profound, desperate gratitude for something as utterly worthless as cold air. He stood there for a moment, taking massive mouthfuls of it, like a starving beggar who had suddenly been presented with a five-course feast. The chill immediately reinvigorated his senses, clearing the sulfurous rot from his throat.

”How fast...” Basil panted between mouthfuls of clean air, hurrying to keep pace with his father’s long strides. ”How fast can we speed up the production then?”

”Have you not listened to a single word I’ve said, boy? It takes next to nothing to actually mix the substance, just a surplus of goats and stable sweepings, for the most part,” the King barked over his shoulder. ”The true complication lies in the sheer volume of the enterprise and finding a well-hidden ground to harbor it. We are currently in the middle of a massive relocation effort, moving our core industries out to the isle of Corna. I could very well expand the mills out there. Or, I suppose, I can simply copy our previous modus operandi, raise four high wooden walls in the middle of nowhere and set the men to work. Each choice carries its own unique gifts and its own unique poisons.”

The King let out a short, cynical snort through his nose. ”Of course, there will be the logistical nightmare of hauling the bulk materials in. Corna is a barren rock with very few trees, which means I would have to transport the timber for the crates and the mixing myself. Still, those are mere details. What is the use of worrying about a little mud when the river is already overflowing, eh, boy?”

But his boy’s mind was already wandering down a far darker, more baffling path. Basil stopped in his tracks on the grass. ”How long have you known about this, Father?”

The King shrugged his massive shoulders casually. ”Since the start, I suppose.Even before you were born.”

The start!

Basil stood frozen, taking a few agonizing seconds to make peace with the sheer weight of that statement. The King had possessed this miracle since the very beginning of his reign?

”Why haven’t you used it before then?!” Basil burst out, his voice laced with absolute bewilderment. ”If you had deployed this years ago, you could have raised far greater, healthier armies against the League! You could have campaigned all the way through the winter while our enemies were too busy counting the final withered seeds in their granaries! You could have fed our warhorses without ever worrying about pasture when the cold hit and the mud rose!”

Gods be good, it made no sense! The crown was currently buying foreign grain at exorbitant, ruinous prices from the Romelians just to feed the massive graveyard of starving smallfolk to their south. Where was the strategic sense in withholding a miracle while the realm bled?

Basil looked into his father’s eyes, desperately searching for an answer. He was utterly surprised to find a heavy shadow of... disappointment clouding the King’s face. It wasn’t anger; it was the look of a tutor whose star pupil had just failed a remarkably simple test.

Before Basil could dwell on that look, the King spoke. ”Do you have any coin on your person, Basil?”

”What?” Basil spluttered, thrown completely off balance.

”Coin. Silver. Gold. Hell, I’d even take a handful of common bronzii,” the King demanded, stepping closer. ”Do you have any tucked away in your pockets right now?”

”N-No, I don’t,” Basil stammered, gesturing vaguely to his attire. ”I was taken straight from the castle gardens, Father... should I have brought a purse?”

”Well, I do. I always carry coin with me. A man never knows what madness might transpire on the road,” the King said, detaching a small, greasy leather sack hanging from his sword-belt. He held it up, shaking it so the metal jingled loudly. ”Look at how many pieces I possess. And you, the Prince , have absolutely nothing.”

Alpheo plunged his thick fingers into the sack and pulled out a single, gleaming silveri. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger for Basil to inspect. It was a fine foreign coin, minted in the northern empire, bearing the stern, stamped profile of the old War Emperor Gratios.

With a practiced flick of his thumb, the King launched the silver coin high into the air. It spun rapidly against the winter wind, catching the midday light, before dropping back down into Alpheo’s waiting palm with a sharp snap.

”I have so many of these damn things that I can do whatever I want with them. Even this!”

With a heave of his arm, the King threw the silver coin as far as he could, sending it sailing over the grass and into the dense brush. The king’s guard didn’t even flinch; the only reaction was a slight, deeply confused frown on their faces.

Basil shared that exact sentiment. He stared at his father as if the man had gone entirely mad.

”You have absolutely nothing, and I have so much that I don’t even know what to do with it!” the King roared, turning abruptly toward the line of armored sentries. ”Ser Rodry!”

A cloak fluttered from the middle of the guard line. The veteran knight broke into a hurried, skipping jog across the grass, halting a pace away from his sovereign. ”Your Majesty?”

”Do you have any coin on you, Ser Rodry?”

”No, Sire. I do not,” the knight replied, thoroughly as baffled as the prince.

”Well, I do! So many that I don’t know what to do with them! So many that I can just throw them into the weeds for my own amusement!” Alpheo yelled grandly. He turned his head toward the next man in line. ”Ser Xoffo! You got any coin in your kit?!”

Ser Xoffo, shook his bald head with a grin. ”No, Sire. Not a copper to my name. But I have got a fresh skin of ale! Brewed it myself in the barracks vat, I did!” He proudly raised a battered leather canteen, a distinct note of in his booming voice. He always loved any excuse to speak of his ale-making skills. Rodry always complained about the salts he put in them.

The King ignored the offer of spirits, turning slowly back to face his son. The bravado drained from his expression as he leaned down to look Basil dead in the face.

”Do you get it now, boy?” Alpheo whispered.

Basil stood perfectly still on the grass, the frantic gears of his mind finally clicking into place as he looked from the empty fields, to the penniless knights, and back to the warehouse full of secret wealth. Basil nodded slowly, his voice dropping to a humbled whisper. ”I get it, Father.”

If he had indeed made use of it since the start, it would have been war.

Not a simple border skirmish or a seasonal campaign, but a total, catastrophic war against every other prince in the South. A internal war against his own squabbling nobles, who would have revolted the second their grain trade were threatened. And an inevitable war against the high might of Romelia, who never would have allowed a burgeoning power to hold a miracle on their border.

This fertilizer was indeed too mighty a weapon to reveal so carelessly. It had to be hoarded, nurtured, and hidden until the foundations of the realm were solid enough to withstand the shockwaves of its existence.

But now? With Romelia and Kakunia safely bound to their side by treaty ,shed blood and common interest? And with open hostility against the rest of the southern princes already an assured reality, what was it that still held his father back? What was he waiting for?

Nothing.There was nothing stopping him.

Before Basil could voice the sudden, racing thoughts, his father’s heavy woolen cloak brushed against his side.

”Let us go back to the carriage,” Alpheo said, turning his back on the timber palisade. ”I have shown you everything I needed to show you today. One day, it will be your sole task to make sure our industries remain a secret from the rest of the world. Still, a wise ruler always prepares for the day his secrets are dragged into the light.”

Basil fell into step beside his father, his boots crunching on the gravelly earth. A sudden realization flickered in his mind, connecting a dozen seemingly unrelated decrees the King had signed over the last winter.

”Is that the true reason why you have set up so many strange legal reforms for foreign merchants?” Basil asked, looking up at his father’s grim profile. ”The ones setting up massive wineries and large-scale oileries in our cities and farms?”

The King stopped just outside the carriage door, a genuine, sharp smile cutting through his weathered features. He nodded with a look of quiet pride. ”Smart boy. One day our dear monopolies will come missing, it’s not a matter of if, just when.

And when that happen we will need other form of incomes not to fall by our own weight. If we lost soap or cider or any of them, we would already be in deep shit. Imagine now, losing all of them?”

He clapped a heavy hand on Basil’s shoulder, shoving him gently toward the open door of the wooden box. ”Now, off into the carriage. If the drivers push the horses, mayhaps we can still make it back to the keep in time for dinner. You haven’t spoken to me much about what you’ve actually been doing with your days lately, I know I have been most busy recently, but hey! We can take full advantage of the long travel back for that, a father ought to find time for his son.”

Basil liked that notion very much.

He climbed back inside the dim, cramped interior, the soft leather bench offering little comfort against the heavy thoughts settling in his chest. His father climbed in after him, slamming the heavy wooden door shut and shutting out the crisp winter air once more.

With a violent jolt and the sharp crack of a driver’s whip, the carriage rattled back onto the muddy highway, leaving behind them a hidden fire whose full and terrifying consequences that Basil and not even Alpheo yet, could not entirely comprehend. For a miracle of abundance was a dangerous thing to hold, for fire left in the hands of desperate men, ambitious lords, and fools would always come back to burn the house down in a grand catastrophe.