Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 302

Chapter 302: Hell on hearth(1) Chapter 302: Hell on hearth(1) For the past three months, the once-prosperous lands of Herculia had descended into a maelstrom of chaos.

Half the region, rich with sprawling farmlands and quiet villages, now swarmed with disorder.

Bands of brigands and rebelling peasants roamed unchecked, raiding granaries, torching manors, and seizing whatever they could to sustain their uprisings.

The roads, before the war once bustling with merchants and travelers, were now death traps, as convoys fell prey to ambushes and supply lines were severed.

Villagers fled to the forests, leaving behind ghost towns haunted by the specter of starvation and destruction.  This wave of anarchy was the bitter harvest sown by Alpheo, Yarzat’s little fox , during the war just months prior.

As his forces swept through Herculia, he had left a trail of scorched villages and desolation, burning crops and driving thousands from their homes.  Now, Herculia’s ruling court scrambled to quell the uprising, struggling to muster enough forces to contain the spreading violence.

But even that in the midst of widespread anarchy was an uphill battle for the prince.

His principality, already weakened by the devastation inflicted during the war with Yarzat, found just how hard it was to rally troops when your enemy is everywhere Lachlian’s call to arms was met with simple and pure disarray.

Minor lords, that resided near the Crown Lands and tasked with rallying their banners, struggled to even reach the capital.

The countryside was infested with bandits and rebels who had grown increasingly bold.

These factions, driven by hunger and rage, ambushed the small retinues of soldiers marching under the banners of the lords.

Outnumbered and unprepared for such ferocious assaults, the forces of these lesser nobles were frequently overrun.

The rebels, emboldened by the low numbers and scattered defenses of the minor lords, struck with reckless abandon.

Along winding forest roads and narrow passes, they hurled themselves at their prey, descending upon the soldiers like a swarm.

Weapons, armor, and provisions-all intended for the prince’s war effort-were seized in brutal raids.

Entire caravans were looted, leaving Lachlian’s already struggling lords humiliated and defenseless.

Reports of the rebellion’s scale painted a grim picture.

By the latest count, there were nearly 6,500 rebels in open defiance of the prince’s authority.

The only silver lining for Lachlian in the chaos consuming Herculia was that the rebellion lacked any true coordination.

Despite their numbers swelling to nearly 4,500, the rebels were not a unified force but rather a scattered collection of ragtag bands, each operating independently.

These groups had no singular leader, no overarching strategy, and no shared vision beyond survival.

This disorganization provided Lachlian with a glimmer of hope.

The rebels, for all their ferocity, were fragmented and lacked the capacity to unite their strength into a single, devastating blow.

Their focus was on raiding and pillaging, scavenging whatever supplies they could find to sustain themselves, rather than mounting a concerted effort to seize strongholds or claim political power.

Lachlian understood that if he could somehow muster a proper army, he would have the advantage.

A trained and disciplined force could crush these bands piecemeal, isolating and annihilating them one by one before they could consolidate.

Unlike an organized rebellion with central leadership, these groups would struggle to respond to a coordinated counteroffensive.

The prince clung to this reality as he planned his next moves.

The challenge, however, remained formidable: raising such an army amidst rebellion and chaos.

Among the scattered bands of rebellion that plagued Herculia, one of the these forces was led by Inor, a peasant whose story commenced with the larger turmoil gripping the land.

Inor had been among the first to rise from the refugee camps that seeded the rebellion.

He had managed to be the head of one of these band, not by charisma but mostly by experience.

Inor hailed from a small village near the borderlands, and unlike most of his kin, he had seen battle.

During the recent invasion by the forces of Yarzat, he had been conscripted into the Herculeian army.

He had fought valiantly at the Battle of the Bleeding Plains, and once defeated, in the chaos of retreat, he slipped away, returning to his village.

When the rebellion began to stir, it was only natural that Inor’s name came to the forefront by his acquaintances.  Inor’s current force numbered around 700 people, though calling it an “army” would have been a gross overstatement.

Only 300 of them were actual fighting men, and even they were poorly armed and not even trained.

The remaining 400 were women and children,mostly families of the men Unlike other bands, where the strongest men had broken away to form purely martial groups, Inor’s force was primarily composed of people from his own village.

Accepting men who could not desert their families to join the more ruthless rebel groups, who viewed women and children as nothing but mouths to feed-an unsustainable liability in times of scarce resources.

As a result, Inor found himself leading not just fighters but also a vulnerable population that slowed his movements and limited his options.

Still, he held fast to his role.

Leading them one way or another in a bid to survive, as the moved west from their position.

—————– Inor sat on a makeshift stool in the shade of a crumbling cottage, the faint smell of smoke still lingering in the air from the fires his band had used to chase the villagers away.

Around him, the remnants of a small Herculeian village sprawled in disarray.

The original inhabitants were long gone, scattered into the surrounding forests or down the winding roads, fleeing before his band arrived.

Their homes now stood hollow, their belongings ransacked or discarded, leaving only ghostly traces of their lives behind.

The rebels moved through the village like locusts, stripping it of anything remotely edible.

Livestock pens stood empty, the bleating of goats and the clucking of chickens replaced by silence; whatever could walk or be carried was gone.

Inor’s men had raided the orchards and gardens, pulling fruit straight from the trees and tearing roots from the ground, whether ripe or not.

Even the wild herbs growing between the cobblestones had not been spared.

A woman dragged a sack filled with foraged goods toward a central pile that was being sorted.

The bag sagged under the weight of scavenged potatoes, wild onions, and mushrooms.

Children darted between the adults, their faces smeared with dirt as they gnawed on stolen apples.

Inor himself leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, watching his people work with a weariness that came from more than just physical exhaustion.

Nearby, a group of his fighters were roasting a freshly slaughtered pig over a low fire, the fat sizzling and dripping into the flames.

The smell should have been inviting, but to Inor, it was a reminder of the precariousness of their situation.

The food would last only a few weeks , even with rationing, and then they would have to move on.

One of his men approached, “Inor,” he said, voice low.

“We’ve taken all we can from the fields and homes.

There’s nothing left worth the trouble.” Inor nodded, running a hand through his unkempt hair.

“Then we’ll rest tonight and move at first light,” he said, his voice steady despite the turmoil inside.

The man hesitated.

“And the villagers?

Some are hiding in the woods.

They might come back.” Inor’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Let them,” he said finally.

“What we’ve left won’t be worth fighting over.” He glanced toward the distant hills, where he imagined Lachlian’s soldiers were gathering.

“We’ll have bigger problems soon enough.” He nodded and stepped away, leaving Inor to his thoughts.  The peasant leader’s stomach churned-not with hunger, for once, but with the gnawing realization of what lay ahead.

This can’t last.

Not like this.

The food’s already going too quickly, and every day it’ll only get worse.

How many villages can we raid before there’s nothing left?

Before we start tearing at each other like starving dogs?

He clenched his fists, the thought bitter as bile in his throat.

His gaze shifted to the villagers’ homes, now nothing more than hollow shells of what they had once been.

There weren’t many villages left nearby that hadn’t already been stripped bare by other bands.

And what happens then?

He thought grimly.

How long before we turn on each other instead of waiting forthe prince’s soldiers to finish us off?

Or worse, until another band of rebels decides we’ve got something worth stealing?

The idea churned in his head, sharp and unavoidable.

Inor had seen it before-desperate men fighting over scraps, alliances shattered in the blink of an eye.

He imagined the chaos that would erupt when the first blade was drawn, when the first hungry man turned on his neighbor.

This can’t be the way.

This can’t be how it ends.

Either we die of hunger, hunted like animals by the prince’s men, or we get torn apart by other rebels trying to survive just like us.

His hand instinctively moved to the hilt of his sword, fingers brushing the worn leather grip.  Perhapse we could search for refuge in another lord’s land, we should be close to Yarzat’s border.If I am not mistaken it was further west from here , perhapse with some luck they could enter unmolested and then separate into smaller groups looking for help village from village, until someone accepted us…

 He knew the odds were slim-slimmer than he dared admit-but compared to the alternatives, it was the least dire of their options.

At least this plan gave them a chance, however faint, to avoid starvation or slaughter.

Because deep down, Inor understood the truth: they were living on borrowed time.

Every day they lingered in this wasteland brought them closer to their end.

What he didn’t know, however, was that another path-a fourth, unforeseen option-was already making its way toward them.