Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 258

Chapter 258: From the English war-book Chapter 258: From the English war-book The village was a blazing inferno, its thatched roofs crackling and collapsing under roaring flames.

Smoke billowed into the sky, turning day into a choking twilight.

Villagers screamed as they fled, their cries piercing the air, a symphony of terror and despair.

Children clung to their mothers, while the old and frail stumbled, their attempts to escape thwarted by the chaos around them causing them to fall.

Riders thundered through the streets, their torches flaring as they set fire to every building in sight, sparing only the central warehouse.

The flames painted their armored figures in a hellish glow, their laughter echoing cruelly over the destruction.

“Run, little rats!” one rider shouted, his grin wide as he slapped the flat of his blade against the back of a fleeing villager, sending the man tumbling forward.

Another leaned from his saddle, grabbing a young woman by the arm and hoisting her onto his horse despite her struggles.

His comrades cheered and whooped, spurring their horses forward to continue the rampage.

Carts overturned, spilling their contents onto the muddy ground, where they were trampled under hooves.

Riders smashed barrels for sport, wine and grain spilling out like blood.

For the past several days, the army had swept through the lands under the prince’s domain, leaving behind a trail of ash and ruin.

Villages, granaries, and outposts fell like brittle reeds before a storm, their resistance either nonexistent or easily crushed.

The campaign was relentless, methodical, and without mercy-a scorched-earth strategy to cripple the prince’s northern reach.

Among the marauders, Egil had been given command of the forces tasked with scouring the northern lands.

It was a role he took to with zeal, and filled with glee, his reputation for brutal efficiency preceding him.  The northern villages, isolated and left to fend for themselves, had no chance.

If perhapse they were sworn to some lords, maybe a defense party could have been set up near them , yet they were not and the only man that could have protected them turtled himself behind high walls.

Egil’s men took to their raid with an eagerness born of long weeks in the field, finally free to vent their frustrations.

Livestock was driven off, and fields were burned to ensure they could not be used to feed the enemy’s forces.

Egil himself led from the front, his presence galvanizing his men.  It was a brutal campaign, one Egil carried out with a sense of personal satisfaction.

“They owes us blood,” he had declared to his men before the raiding began.

Now, he was collecting it with interest.

———- It was the third village sacked today, and the air was thick with the mingled scents of smoke, sweat, and terror. For most, it was a scene of horror and devastation, but for Egil, it felt oddly like home.

He rode leisurely at the center of the mayhem, reins loose in one hand, while the other held an apple, freshly plucked from a crate discovered in the last storehouse.

Taking a slow, deliberate bite, he savored the crisp crunch and the tart sweetness of the fruit .

Soldiers darted between buildings, their laughter and jeers punctuating the cries of the villagers.

Riders torched anything that would burn, their torches streaking flames across roofs and walls.

The only buildings spared were the warehouse and granaries, which would be emptied soon enough, and then whatever could not be brought with them burnt.

A farmer stumbled into the street, clutching his daughter’s arm and dragging her toward the woods.

The girl’s tear-streaked face twisted in fear as one of Egil’s riders cut them off, laughing as they played with the man, hitting him with non-lethal strike, giving him bruises and delivering pain.

“Burn it all!” one of his men shouted nearby, prompting a chorus of cheers.

Egil smirked, the corner of his mouth tugging upward as he took another bite.

If this was not home, it was the closest thing to it he could imagine.

As Egil savored the last bite of his apple, his eyes settled on the granary standing stubbornly amid the flames licking at the rest of the village.

Smoke billowed into the sky, a signal of ruin to anyone within miles.

He felt a small twinge of something like regret-not for the people, but for the food.

All that grain, those sacks of barley and wheat, even the dried meats they’d uncovered in some of the cottages, now either going up in flames or left behind.

It was wasteful, really, to destroy so much sustenance.

His men had already stuffed what they could into their saddlebags, but eighty riders couldn’t haul even a fraction of what the village held.

Egil tossed the apple core to the ground, its remnants trampled into the dirt as his horse trotted forward.

His sharp eyes caught sight of a man kneeling amid the chaos, hunched over with his face buried in his hands, unmoving even as flames devoured what once might have been his home.

The man’s frame shuddered in quiet despair, a contrast to the riders’ whoops and laughter echoing all around.

With a nudge of his reins, Egil guided his horse toward the figure.

Stopping just short of him, he leaned down and kicked the man lightly on the shoulder with his boot.

“Oi, get up,” Egil said lazily, as though addressing a stray dog.

“Run like the rest of your lot.” The man slowly raised his head, dirt streaking his face and eyes hollow with despair.

He stared up at Egil with a look devoid of fear, almost daring him to strike harder.

“Run?” the peasant croaked.

His voice was hoarse and cracked, trembling with exhaustion.

“Run where?

My house is gone.

My food’s gone.

The fields are ash.

What’s left to run to, eh?

Starvation?

Better I kneel here and burn with it.” “I’ve lived in that house since I was a boy,” the peasant continued, his voice cracking as he gestured toward the skeletal remains of his home, now engulfed in roaring flames.

“My father lived there.

And his father before him.

It was all we had, everything we built.

You’ve taken that, left us with nothing, not even scraps.” Egil said nothing at first, staring down at the man.

His grip on the reins tightened slightly.

Around them, the village burned, smoke and cries filling the air as the reality of ruin unfolded.

For the briefest of moments, Egil’s expression seemed to flicker, not of sympathy , just amusement.

Then he straightened, his face hardening once more.

“Life doesn’t care about what you had,” he said, his tone almost nonchalant.

“Best start walking.

At least that way, you’ve still got your legs.” Egil halted his horse once more, turning his gaze back to the peasant who remained firmly planted on the ground, his head bowed toward the scorched earth.

A long sigh escaped Egil’s lips, exasperation creeping into his tone as he asked again, “You’re really not going to run?” The man didn’t move, but a faint sound preceded his reply-a wet noise of disgust as he spat onto the ground near Egil’s horse.

Egil straightened in his saddle, his hand drifting lazily to the hilt of his sword.

“Suit yourself,” he muttered, drawing the blade with an easy grace.

The steel gleamed cruelly, reflecting the inferno consuming the village.

He tilted his head slightly, as if addressing the man one last time.

“If you’re not going to run, then you’re not much use to my prince, are you?” The peasant finally raised his head, his face twisted with rage and grief.

His voice, though cracked and raw, carried a venomous conviction as he spat, “To hell with you and your prince.

I curse you both, may the Mother take away all your children.” Egil blinked “Joke’s on you.

I’ve got none.” The peasant’s lips curled into a bitter snarl.

“Then I curse you never to have any.

May you die alone, with nothing to carry your name forward.” Egil shrugged, the motion casual, almost indifferent.

“Fine by me,” he replied as he raised his sword.

The swing was fluid and practiced, the blade cutting cleanly through the air-and the man’s neck.

His head toppled to the ground with a dull thud, rolling to a halt amidst the dirt and soot.

Egil wiped his blade on the peasant’s tattered shirt before sliding it back into its scabbard.

Without another word, he spurred his horse onward, leaving the lifeless body behind as the fires consumed the remnants of the village.

”I ain’t got that much of a name to let them carry anyway” Egil turned his horse, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of a group of his riders farther down the smoldering village road.

Several of them had women slung across their saddles, heads bowed, shoulders trembling as they clung to the horses’ sides.

The sight made his jaw tighten.

“What in the Gods’ name do you think you’re doing?” Egil bellowed, his voice cutting through the crackling fires and distant cries.

“Carrying women with you?

What’s the plan, then?

You think you’ll take them back to camp?The military law says no whore can be brought in the camp” The riders froze, exchanging nervous glances.

A few lowered their heads sheepishly before one of them, a wiry man with a weathered face, spoke up hesitantly, “We…

we thought, maybe…

to take them as wives, sir.

Back in the city, we’ve got no one.

Alone, sir.” Another rider chimed in, his voice pleading.

“Please, Commander, let us.

We mean no harm, we will give them our share of food until we are back home.” Egil sighed, dragging a hand through his unruly hair in frustration.

His gaze swept over the men, then the women, who still refused to raise their eyes.

His lips twisted into a scowl as he muttered a curse under his breath, they were his men after all .

“Fine,” he barked, pointing a finger at the riders.

“But listen here.

You want to keep them?

You better marry them, I won’t have people say that the prince make exceptions for us .

I’ll talk to the prince myself, see if I can get him to let you have it, after all he says no whore in camp, and technically they are not…” The men broke into relieved grins, their voices tumbling over each other in gratitude.

“Thank you, Commander!

Thank you, sir!” Egil snapped his hand in the air to silence them, his patience worn thin.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he growled.

With a sharp motion, he kicked one of the riders in the leg, nearly knocking him off his horse.

“Now move it!

Back to camp before I change my mind.” The chastised riders nodded hastily, tugging their reins and spurring their horses forward.

Egil watched them for a moment, shaking his head, before turning his own mount back to the road.

“Bloody fools”