Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Two men sat across from one another, between them stood an oak table, both men gazed at one another, carrying their own ghosts and burdened by their own faults.

In Enkilae, Alpheo saw a shadow so similar to Egil, and yet so desperately different. It seemed the two brothers shared only their shared visage and their shock of unruly blonde hair. Egil had never truly been broken by the pens, that was an undeniable fact. He was the strongest of them, the wild spark that kept hope flickering in the pitch-black dark of their bondage.

Jarza, Clio, and Asag had all eventually confessed to the King that they had followed his uprising mostly to bring about a swift end to their misery. Alpheo could understand that well enough; a steel blade to the gut was far more merciful than a agonizing death that took twenty years to arrive and forty years worth of pain in it.

Egil was the only one who had genuinely looked into the dark, saw hope waiting on the other side, and fought like a rabid hound with the absolute conviction that it could work. Perhaps that was why the two of them had struck such a fierce, unbreakable bond back then. Deep down, despite all their differences , they understood the cloth the other was cut from, for it was their own.

”How have your people found their accommodations?” Alpheo asked, resting his forearms on the carved wood. It was rare that memories of Egil flashed back into his mind without the usual bitter sourness following close behind. He took it as a good sign.

”All is well, Your Majesty,” Enkilae replied softly.

Seems the man finally took his lesson on proper courtly address, Alpheo noted. Alpheo offered a soft, dry smile. ”I was egg and butter with your brother, Enkilae. Call me Alpheo.”

”I... I will,” the ex-slave said, though he looked entirely uncertain about taking such a liberty. ”My people have been sleeping in pig pens and muddy ditches for the best part of thirty years. I reckon none will complain about a dry mattress under their backs and hot food on their plates at morning, noon, and night. They go to sleep now knowing that soon they will have their own land, their own name, and a real future back. You are generosity itself... A... Alpheo.”

He bowed his head, the familiar name coming strange and clumsy off his lips.

I am guilt itself, Enkilae, the King thought silently, his dark eyes darkening. There is no generosity in this gift of mine. It was paid for in your brother’s blood.

Alpheo cleared his throat, shifting his posture. ”I have noticed my boy drifting close to you a great deal lately,” he said, his tone light, almost casual.

Enkilae’s weathered face instantly twisted, looking as if he had just bitten straight into a raw, sour lemon.

”Calm yourself,” Alpheo said, raising a gauntleted hand. ”I have no qualms about it. I am simply curious as to what the young prince is pestering you about.”

”Nothing of import, Your Grace,” Enkilae answered at once, his voice tight. ”He simply... he seemed interested in whatever simple stories I could tell him.”

”Stories? About Egil?”

Enkilae shook his head, looking down at his scarred palms. ”No. About my past. Honestly, there is not a single interesting bit to any of it...”

”And yet my boy seems to think the exact opposite?”

Enkilae offered a silent, hesitant nod.

Alpheo let out a soft snicker. ”The lad has always had a mind of his own, I dare say. But then, what father truly understands his brood?”

”I would not know,” Enkilae murmured. ”I am no father myself.”

”We will remedy that defect soon enough,” Alpheo declared, leaning back in his chair with a grand wave of his hand. ”You are Egil’s blood-brother, and in Yarzat, that name carries an immense weight, even from beyond the grave. The Crown’s hounds above all will treat you like one of their own. I can very easily find a fine small lord’s daughter for you to wed.”

At this grand royal honor, Enkilae’s face reacted as if he had just stepped barefoot onto a steaming pile of dog manure.

”Mh...Alpheo? I am not fit for any of that” Enkilae blurted out. This time, the name came off his tongue much faster, driven by sheer panic. ”I assure you, I wish for nothing more than a peaceful, quiet life. I want a green hill to sleep on, a stout ash crook, and a herd of goats to mind. That is all I want from this world. I fear my brother’s wild nature was never my own.He was of the plains , I am of the grass. I will be entirely content with whatever simple life you allow my people to carve out.”

”I would allow them honor,” the King replied firmly, his brow furrowing. ”Just as I would allow it to you.”

”Honor?” Enkilae repeated the word with a hollow, almost mocking tone, as if it were a foreign term he had never heard spoken aloud.

”Egil always spoke with immense pride of the Uthahia,” Alpheo insisted. ”He told me your riders were as swift as the mountain wind,that the plains had never seen braver warriors in the saddle. For two long years, your tribe brought fire, dust, and terror to the War Emperor’s vanguard.”

”And the Emperor answered us with blood and carnage” Enkilae replied ”All those brave, legendary warriors you speak of perished on the red fields of Romelia. Their bones were picked clean by crows thirty years ago, all that remained of the Uthahia were the weeping women and the small children, and now, the broken offspring of those children. We have young men who have never even laid eyes on a real horse save from afar through a cage fence.We have been paying the dividend of that war for a long time.Our opposition to the Romelian Emperor is not a tale of glory, but arrogance that ended with dust.”

Enkilae leaned over the table, his eyes burning grief. ”I fear you are far more Uthahia than most of us ever will be now. We have very little left to offer your grand crown, save for breaking our backs to work your dirt and paying your taxes.”

The words echoed off the stone walls of the solar, thick and heavy.

An instant later, as the silence stretched between them, the heat left Enkilae’s chest, replaced by a wave of icy terror.

What had he just done?

The king saw how the blood drained rapidly from Enkilae’s face, leaving him pale and shivering. Decades of slave-pen survival instincts surged back to the surface with violent force. He pulled his hands back, dropping his gaze to the floorboards, and hastily tried to soften the blow.

”Forgive me, Your Grace,” Enkilae stammered, his voice dropping into a desperate, trembling hurry as he forgot all the king had told him. ”I... I spoke out of turn. My tongue is crude. I meant no disrespect to your crown, nor to the memory of my brother. I am profoundly grateful for the bread on our table and the roof over our heads. Truly. If... if it pleases the King, we will willingly tend whatever fields you assign us, pay whatever taxes you demand, and bless your name for the mercy you have shown the survivors.”

”No, it would not please me. I do not do any of this for pleasure or satisfaction,” the King replied, his dark eyes locking onto Enkilae as the ex-slave’s face drained pale as winter snow.

Alpheo leaned forward, resting his heavy chin in a calloused palm. ”You say the Uthahia are dead and buried. They might as well be, for all I know. But what was once built, and then destroyed by steel, can be rebuilt again with enough blood and effort.”

The King let out a long, weary sigh, feeling old wounds tearing themselves open in his chest. ”I owe your brother that, at the very least. I owe Egil the attempt. I will make riders out of your people yet, Enkilae.”

Alpheo had never imagined that honoring his dead brother-in-arms would come cheap, but he felt no bitterness over what he was about to do. ”Your people will relearn the old ways of the horse. Under the protection of my banners, they will breed fine stock, multiply, and reform what was cut down on the plains. And once they are restored in numbers, they will ride for me, and reclaim the glory they lost.”

Alpheo watched as Enkilae sat frozen, thoroughly paralyzed by the sheer scope of the monarch’s ambition. Unsure of how to respond without risking his neck, the former slave opted for the safest route: he simply bowed his head, kept his mouth shut, and offered a mute nod of agreement.

He was clearly just nodding to keep the King appeased.

It did not appease Alpheo in the slightest, but the King let it drop.

”But enough of future armies,” Alpheo said, waving a hand dismissively. ”We will have decades to see your tribe restored. You have been at my court for a full week now, Enkilae. You have dined at my table alongside my councilors, my closest friends, and my family every morning and night. I trust everything has been to your liking?”

”Everything has been magnificent, Your Grace,” Enkilae replied instantly, his tone tightly controlled. ”I would not dare say, or even think, otherwise.”

”Good,” Alpheo said, his voice dropping into a quieter, far more serious register. He rested both gauntleted hands flat on the oak table. ”Then I suppose it is finally time to speak of the matter we have been kicking down the road ever since you crossed the border isn’t it?”

Enkilae swallowed hard, his hands clenching into tight knots beneath the table as a fresh wave of uncertainty washed over him. ”I... I suppose it is. You might ask anything of me....and I will see it answered.Whatever way it may be, I will answer in truth, that I do owe you.’’

There was something in the way he said that bothered the king. Still, why would it be?