Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

He was met with that old, unyielding gaze.

It was the very look he had received that terrible night in the dark, after leagues upon leagues of frantic riding through the briars, with the usurper’s huntsmen stalking close behind and the bloodhounds baying like demons in the mist. Merelao’s heart had thudded in his small chest the way a child’s does when confronted by a nightmare far too vast for his understanding.

He did not get why he was running, he was not getting why his father dead he had now to escape the capital.

”Why are we running?” he had wept then, his lungs burning with icy air, as his father’s knight shoved the boy’s head down behind a mossy boulder, peering out into the black woods. He had asked again, tugging at the man’s bloody sleeve. And still Varo had offered no answer. He had merely turned and looked upon the boy with that heavy, solemn stare.

It was the same look he was receiving now, though the face had aged nearly twenty winters. The flesh had grown loose along the jaw, and more silver dusted his beard than gold. One of the old knight’s eyes was clouding over, turning the pale, milky white of river ice, and Merelao was struck by how swiftly the years had drained them both. Then, he had been a trembling orphan clutching at a stranger’s mantle; now, he was a man grown, carrying the bill for his father’s murdered line.

It was a look laden with absolute duty, yet edged with a quiet sorrow that bordered on an apology. And beneath it all, an enduring, paternal love.

Faced with such an expression, the sharp words withered in Merelao’s throat. Luckily, the old knight spared him the silence.

”If you would permit me a frank word,” Varo murmured, his head dipping slightly.

Merelao gave a short nod, willing away the ghostly chill of those forgotten woods. ”Speak freely.”

”It is regarding... your preparations,” the knight said, weighing each syllable as though choosing the lesser of two poisons.

”The baggage train is being secured, the retainers are mounted, and the noble retinue is assembled,” Merelao answered smoothly, though he knew precisely what thorn pricked the old man’s flesh. It was not the journey Varo loathed, but the destination.

Varo drew a slow breath, his milky eye catching the torchlight. ”I am deeply troubled by this sudden urge to chance the high road, my prince, most especially at an hour so delicate as this. Our cause would be far better served were you to remain firmly upon your seat of power than venture out.”

”To sit upon cushions and gather dust?” Merelao scoffed with a dismissive wave of his hand.’’ I will have my whole life with that, sorrounded by sicophants and spittlelickers, my dominion is not ruleship , it is war. What care have I to remain here?While what people name the greastest tournament in the South is launched close by?

”To govern. To forge alliances. To cajole wavering lords and drag the hesitant to your banner. To muster riders, sellswords, and second sons for the host. But most of all to prepare for the storm,” Varo pressed, taking a step forward. ”You are no longer an exiled outcast playing at rebellion. You are the rightful heir to the seat of Kakunia, and if the gods are just, it is you who shall wear the mantle before the next snows fall.”

”I scarcely think the Fat Prince will be inclined to negotiate terms once I plant his bastard’s head on a spear,” Merelao replied, his voice dripping with venom. ”I shall occupy that chair only when I dislodge his bloated carcass and leave it bleeding upon the dais.If we fight , we do not do it to claim heirship, I do it to sit on the throne.”

”All the more reason to remain within your own walls, rather than riding off to court that newly minted king in Yarzat!”

”There is to be a grand tournament afterward as I said,” Merelao said coolly, turning to inspect the gilt on his scabbard. ”I can hardly be expected to miss the tilt.What will people say otherwhise?”

”My Lord!”

The sudden crack of thunder in Varo’s aged voice echoed through the hall, freezing Merelao in place.Even the lord and lordess of Epietoli seemed to stare down at the aged man.

”Forgive my insolence,” the old lord said, his breath rattling, ”but you are no longer a willful boy chasing tourney ribbons. You are a man grown as you said. It is high time you bore the weight of it! Galloping into lists to unseat knights and break painted lances is fine sport for peacetime, but on the eve of war, it makes you appear a flighty youth drifting off for merriment. How do you imagine the lords of the realm will look upon such vanity?”

”They will look upon a victor,” Merelao replied, his chin lifting with unyielding pride. ”And they will ride in my wake. Our absence in Yarzat would be shouted from every rampart as a slight to the Fox. King Alpheo takes his crown, and it would be remiss for Kakunian steel to be absent, since it was our iron, that put that on his head.’’

”My soon to be Prince and my lord,” Varo pressed, his voice taut with restrained exasperation, ”with the Usurper backed by the deep coffers of Habadia, I do not question the wisdom of clasping hands with the Fox. You share the same enemies, and whatever iron he lends to our banner will be put to good, bloody use. We may match the Usurper spear for spear within our own borders, but we cannot out-coin him, nor outlast him once the Habadian hordes cross the frontier.

Yet I fail to see why this critical hour is best spent riding north to stroke Alpheo’s vanity! We have already secured his steel; there is no need to travel leagues merely to watch him fulfill his grandest fantasies. We may have no choice but to swallow his coronation, but we need not demean ourselves by dancing at his feast when our own realm teeters on the brink of bloodshed.”

”Who spoke of demeaning ourselves?” Merelao countered ”And pray, Varo, the Fox proved himself worthy of a crown at the Ford. You were not there, of course, as you were wisely and bravely mustering our rear guard to defend my holdings, a service for which I remain eternally grateful. But I assure you, an iron hoop will not sit crooked upon Alpheo’s brow.

He possesses both the ruthless power and the unyielding spine to carry its weight.”

”My Lord, I fear your sheer fascination with the man clouds your reason!” Varo’s cloudy eye flared with sudden, sharp indignation. ”Must I remind you that his victory was bought by playing you for a fool? He withheld his reserves, broke faith, and used our vanguard as his anvil while cheating us of our comeuppance! I warned you of his deceit before you ever saddled your mount, yet you rode headlong into the slaughter for a cause that was never ours!”

Merelao met the old knight’s fury not with anger, but with a rich, delighted laugh.

”Oh, he bagged me neat as a fat hare in a wire snare, I grant you that!” Merelao chuckled, shaking his golden hair. ”I was blind with rage, of course. I meant to have his head on a pike before the sunset. Yet every drop of bile dissolved the moment our lines crashed in the red mud of the Ford. Curse my soul, Varo, but grudges turn to steam when the blood runs that hot!’’ He licked his lips with his pink tongue’’ We shared the same butchery, he and I. Do you know how long it had been since I felt truly alive? I can see the spectacle even now, staged with the brilliance of a master mummer! The battered Fox rising from the mire like the Warrior of Wrath spat straight out of the underworld. He had a shattered spear-shaft jutting out of his head-guard, Varo! A splintered ash pole through the iron visor! Have the bards not reached your ears with the ballad? The Two-Horned Princes, locked horn to iron. Gods, what a slaughter!”

Merelao’s grin was radiant, and fierce enough to split stone.

Opposite him, Varo stood utterly speechless, his mouth hanging so wide a sparrow could have nested in his beard.

”So when the battle was done,” Merelao continued smoothly, his voice dropping into cool, velvet confidence, ”and the man limped into my pavilion to offer his apologies, his silver for my cause, and his reasons for the betrayal... well, what choice did I have but to clasp his bloody forearm once more?Devlls find brothers in devils.

Say what you will of the Fox’s blackened honor, Varo, but the very men we both wish to see dead flock to his blade like flies to fresh feces. I intend to be standing right beside him when the swarm arrives.He might style himself as emperor of Yarzat or god of it otherwhise,as long as he does not claim dominion over my head and my rules, we shall gladly share the field.I am above being ruled by others, but not above fighting alonside those I deem worthy.

The blood of convenant is thicker than the water of the womb,and my own has betrayed me already , is that not the way of it then?”