Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 496

Chapter 496: Kindly given by a friend(2) Chapter 496: Kindly given by a friend(2) The march had grown dull.

A few hundred mercenaries, bored from the road, had begun talking in low voices, some about women, others about coin, and many about the sorry state of the war they found themselves in.

“Fucking lords don’t know how to keep their own mouth shut” one spat, kicking up dust as he walked.

“You hear that one earlier?

All that yelling-who does h-” Before his could pronounce the last words the sky darkened.

The first javelin took him through the throat with such force it lifted him bodily off the ground before slamming him down like a ragdoll.

He landed with a wet crunch, boots kicking spasmodically as arterial blood sprayed in rhythmic pulses across the dusty road.

His hands fluttered uselessly at the shaft protruding from his neck, fingers slick with his own lifeblood.

Then the storm broke in earnest.

The air came alive with the shrieking whistle of hundreds of javelins descending in a lethal rain.

Iron points glinted wickedly in the sunlight before finding their marks with sickening precision.

A mercenary captain took one through the chest, the impact spinning him halfway around before he collapsed face-first into the dirt, the javelin’s shaft quivering like a mocking flag planted in conquered territory.

Panic erupted instantly.

“AMBUSH!

TO AR-” The warning was cut short as a javelin punched through the caller’s open mouth, shearing off teeth and tongue before exploding out the back of his skull in a shower of bone fragments and brain matter.

The road became a slaughterhouse.

A young sellsword – barely more than a boy – screamed as a javelin pinned his thigh to the ground, the barbed head anchoring him in place.

His cries turned to wet gurgles when a second spear transfixed his abdomen, his hands instinctively clutching at the wound only to find it to be his death Nearby, a mercenary took a javelin through the groin.

The man’s scream reached an almost inhuman pitch as he staggered backward, the shaft protruding obscenely between his legs.

He collapsed onto his back, legs kicking wildly until a second projectile found his lung, cutting off his agony with merciful finality.

The lucky ones died instantly or at least in a matter of a minute or so.

Others weren’t so fortunate.

A veteran warrior roared in pain as a javelin sheared off his ear before embedding in his shoulder.

He snapped the shaft with one hand while drawing his sword with the other – just in time to watch his companion’s head cave from a direct hit, the javelin punching clean through the skull with enough force to send teeth and bone fragments spraying across the road.

The stench of blood and voided bowels filled the air as the wounded crawled through the muck, leaving smeared trails of crimson behind them.

One man, miraculously untouched, stood frozen in shock until a javelin took him through both feet, nailing him to the ground where he swayed like a macabre scarecrow before collapsing.

From the trees, the deadly rain continued unabated.

Each new volley found fresh targets among the scrambling mercenaries.

A fleeing man took three javelins in the back simultaneously, the force throwing him forward onto his face where he twitched like a speared fish.

Another tried to hide behind his shield, only to have a javelin punch straight through the wood and into his arm with a sickening pop.

And still, the javelins kept coming.

The stench of death clung thick to the air – blood and bile and voided bowels mixing with the earthy scent of churned soil.

Where moments before had stood an arrogant column of mercenaries now lay a writhing, screaming mass of the dying.

Then the forest answered their suffering with a sound that froze the blood in their veins, for those that still had it though.

The war cry began as a low rumble, like distant thunder rolling across the plains.

Then it swelled into a primal roar that shook the very leaves from the trees.

Not the disciplined battle chant of trained soldiers, but the frenzied howl of predators scenting blood.

Six hundred Voghondai warriors gave voice to their bloodlust in a cacophony of shrieking, ululating cries that bypassed reason and struck directly at the lizard brain’s most ancient fear – the certainty of being hunted.

From the tree line burst another nightmare made flesh.

The Black Stripes moved with terrifying synchronicity, their black-lacquered armor drinking in the sunlight as they crashed forward like a tidal wave of sharpened steel.  Where other armies relied on the orderly push of spear formations, the Black Stripes fought like a force of nature, their very doctrine written in broken bones and splintered shields.

Their weapons told the story – not the thrust of spears, but the brutal honesty of axes and maces.

A spear might kill cleanly, but an axe butchered.

A mace didn’t pierce – it crushed, reducing helmets to crumpled metal and the skulls beneath to pulp.

And before these instruments of close-quarters carnage ever tasted flesh, the javelins had done their work.

Two volleys.

That was their creed.

The first shattered formations, turning proud warriors into twitching heaps, their shields made useless by embedded shafts.

The second broke spirits, filling the air with the screams of the dying until even the bravest soul quailed.

Then, and only then, would the killing blow fall – the Black Stripes descending like wolves upon panicked sheep.

Beside them came the Voghondai, their tactics eerily similar despite never sharing a word of doctrine.

Their war cries rose to a fever pitch as they burst from cover, some still hurling javelins even as they charged, adding to the deadly rain.

Their bare chests were painted with ritual scars, their eyes wide with battle-madness.

Where the Black Stripes fought with cold precision, the Voghondai killed with the joyous abandon of predators finally unleashed.

Together they formed a perfect storm of violence – the hammer of civilization meeting the anvil of savagery.

The mercenaries, those few still standing, had only heartbeats to comprehend the horror bearing down upon them before the killing began in earnest.

The hunt had reached its crescendo.

The mercenaries had no time.

No time to think, no time to react, no time to even grasp what was happening before the jaws of the trap snapped shut around them.

They tried-some desperate, instinctive attempt to form a line, to rally, to bring their shields together in some semblance of order.

But it was already too late, the enemy was upon them.

From the right, the Voghondai came howling, their guttural war cries ripping through the din of battle like the screams of wild beasts.

They were fast-too fast.

Before the mercenaries could properly turn to face them, they were already among them, hacking and stabbing with curved blades and heavy axes, weaving through the disorganized ranks with a hunter’s grace.

From the left, the Black Stripes struck like a falling anvil.

No wild frenzy-just methodical, brutal efficiency.

A mace caved in a mercenary’s helmet with a dull clang, the face beneath reduced to pulp.

An axe sheared through a raised shield, biting deep into the arm beneath.

Men died where they stood, their formations collapsing inward as the two forces squeezed them like a vise.

The center became a slaughterhouse.

Mercenaries shoved against each other, weapons tangled, some swinging wildly, others dropping their blades to flee-only to be cut down from behind.

A veteran sellsword swung his sword in a desperate arc, opening a Voghondai’s cheek-but the warrior just laughed, licking blood from his teeth before burying his axe in the man’s ribs.

Another mercenary stabbed at a Black Stripe’s throat, only for the blade to just lightly pierce the throat being stopped by the mail, for which the soldiers thanked the Romelian blacksmith that had forged it.

Before the mercenary could react from the failure, a war-hammer smashed into his jaw, sending teeth skittering across the dirt.

The Voghondai meanwhile fought like beasts loosed upon a herd-wild, relentless, and utterly without mercy.

“AUKH-HURR!

RAGH-HUNH!” Their war cries were not words but guttural, animalistic sounds, more like the bellowing of enraged boars than the battle shouts of men.

To the mercenaries, it was terrifying-an unnatural cacophony that made their stomachs clench and their arms weak.

One mercenary, his hands shaking, thrust his spear forward, aiming for the throat of a charging Voghondai warrior.

The spearhead hower was aimed wrong, and instead of the throat it went further down onto the chest, meeting the chainmail on the way, however instead of flesh parting, there was only the dull, hollow thunk of metal resisting the blow.

The Voghondai halted for a split second, staring down at the undamaged links of his armor, his lips curling into a smile With a swift motion, he grabbed the shaft of the spear and yanked, pulling the terrified man off balance.

An axe swung in a brutal arc, biting deep into the mercenary’s exposed shoulder.

A sickening crunch followed-a wet, snapping sound as bone and tendon gave way.

The mercenary shrieked, his arm half-severed, blood jetting down his side in thick, pulsing waves.

He collapsed to his knees, his mouth open in a silent scream, before the Voghondai finished him with a second blow to the skull, splitting it like an overripe fruit.

To the side, another mercenary swung wildly with a sword, but his blade barely nicked the Voghondai before his opponent’s axe buried itself into his gut.

He gasped, blood frothing at his lips as the curved blade was ripped free, sending entrails spilling to the dirt.

His body folded forward, his trembling hands clutching at the ropes of his own intestines, eyes wide with horror.

” KHUR-HAH!” The sound of Voghondai warriors laughing was worse than their battle cries.

They were exhilarated, not just by the killing, but by the armor wrapped around their bodies-the fine chainmail gifted to them by the prince himself.

It had turned away thrust after thrust, proof of its strength, proof that they were now harder to kill than ever before.

One warrior, a massive man with a scarred face, let a mercenary stab him in the chest with a dagger, only to chuckle as the blade barely scratched the links of his mail.

The mercenary looked up in horror, realizing his mistake a moment too late.

The Voghondai seized him by the throat, lifting him from the ground with one hand.

The mercenary kicked and struggled, his free hand clawing desperately at the iron grip around his windpipe before being released by the man smashing him to the ground.

“Please!

I yield!

I-” The warrior’s axe then swung up-and then down, stopping the man from begging further in a language that his killed did not understand.

The mercenary’s head flopped to the side, his neck half-severed, a choked gurgle escaping his lips as his body went limp.  Useless to say, It wasn’t a battle.

It was butchery.