Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 499

Chapter 499: Old friends Chapter 499: Old friends Robert’s arms ached as two soldiers dragged him forward, his boots scraping against the dirt.

His head throbbed, his vision swimming in and out of focus, but he forced himself to stay aware, to listen, to see.

The battle had been over after barely less than ten minutes of fighting , and already the field looked more like a hunting ground than a battlefield-one where the prey had scattered before the predator even sank its teeth in.

The dead were surprisingly few, their bodies strewn in patches where men had been too slow or too stubborn to flee.

The rest had thrown down their weapons the moment they saw the lines collapse.

The mercenaries had never been real soldiers; they fought for coin, not for cause.

And men who fought for coin knew when to cut their losses.

Robert let out a slow, painful breath.

His lips curled into a humorless smirk.

He knew Alpheo well enough to know that wouldn’t last.

That Nomad Lord of his was a hunter, and a damned good one.

If Robert closed his eyes, he could almost see it already-the fleeing mercenaries, thinking they had escaped, only for the hounds to close in, cutting them down in the woods, in the fields, wherever they thought they might find safety.

Egil didn’t let prey escape.

He was the Crown’s hound, trained to track, to kill, to tear the throat out of whatever poor bastard his master pointed at.

They wouldn’t get far, and the thought brought him some solace.

He hated mercenaries with all of himself, and it did not help that he was being brought to one in defeat.

He can style himself as emperor of the world, but at his bare, he will always be the same fucking sell-sword, he was then.

Robert suddendly stumbled as the men hauling him along jostled him forward, his boots dragging furrows in the blood-soaked dirt.

Around him, the victors moved with methodical ease-looting the dead, stripping the corpses of anything of value while others dragged the prisoners aside.

Some of the captured mercenaries knelt, hands behind their heads, their faces pale and hollow with shock.

Others sat slumped, staring at nothing, their minds still trying to catch up with the swiftness of their defeat.

Robert, however, barely looked at them.

His eyes were on the soldiers.

No matter how many times he saw them, they always sent a shudder through his bones.

Their movements were efficient, almost unnatural in their discipline-every action swift, controlled, done without hesitation.

It wasn’t just their training that unsettled him.

It was what they had done.

He had seen one of those javelins sail through the air, cutting across the battlefield in a perfect arc before finding its mark-nailing the prince,through the chest.

Robert could still see it as if it had happened only seconds ago-the way the body jerked back, how the hands, so full of life a moment before, had suddenly lost all purpose.

A shiver crawled down his spine, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself to keep moving.

They were dragging him toward the man he least wanted to see-except if he had a dagger in his hand.

The Prince-Consort of Yarzat.

He had been given many names-the War-Prince, Yarzat’s Little Fox, the Low Prince, the Mud Prince.

Robert had never cared which name was used, because they all meant the same thing.

They same man who ruined his life.

Robert barely had the strength to keep himself upright, but the soldiers hauling him forward didn’t care.

Their hands gripped his arms tightly, forcing him to stand straight as they approached the man standing while observing the battlefield, perhaps pleased by another victory.

The Prince-Consort of Yarzat observed him in silence, his lips curved in the barest hint of a smirk.

Robert could feel the weight of that gaze, not one of anger or triumph-no, something worse.

Amusement.

Like a cat watching a mouse that had wandered straight into its paws.

One of the footmen holding Robert’s arm pressed harder into his bruised flesh and muttered, “Behave yourself, cur.You may be a lord, but he is a prince” Alpheo barely turned his head but lifted a hand lazily.

“Now, now, there’s no need for that.

He’s an old friend.

Ain’t that right?” Robert scoffed.

He doubted Alpheo even understood what the word friend meant.

The smirk on the war-prince’s lips widened.

“How long has it been?” Robert let out a sharp breath through his nose.

“Not long enough.” Alpheo shook his head slowly .

“Ah, still holding a grudge, I see.

I should’ve known you were the sentimental type.” He leaned slightly forward “I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you still breathing.

I always thought you’d end up rotting in some back alley, belly up with more cider than blood in your veins.

That would have been the poetic end, don’t you think?” Robert didn’t answer.

He refused to give the bastard the satisfaction.

Alpheo sighed, tilting his head.

“No witty retort?

No clever jab?No curse launched at me and those that will follow?

You’re not making this as fun as I’d hoped.

Come on, Robert, indulge me.

It’s been too long.I know you resent me, after all I found your swords among those laid bare at my feet” Still, Robert said nothing.

“Alright, let’s try a different game.” Alpheo straightened, resting one hand on the pommel of his saddle.

“What made you throw your lot in with these so-called rebel lords?

I mean, really, this?” He gestured loosely at the battlefield, at the corpses strewn across the ground.

“I thought you had better taste than this, if you were to dig your own graves you could have used a shovel.” Robert let out a bitter laugh.

“You already know the answer.” Alpheo clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

“Oh, Robert.

You’re two years too late for that.

I thought you’d have gotten over it by now.I mean you had the chance to avenge him but you did not go ahead with it ” He paused, then gave a small chuckle.

“Especially considering the gifts I sent your way.” Robert’s jaw clenched.

He already knew where this was going.

Alpheo continued, voice light and teasing, as if they were discussing the weather.

“I mean, it’s not every day a man gets a castle just handed to him.

And yet, you left it behind, just like that.

Ungrateful, really.

How long did you serve Jasmine’s father?

Ten years?

More?

And what did you have to show for it?

Certainly not a keep of your own.” He sighed, shaking his head dramatically.

“You wound me, Robert.

I go out of my way to set you up so nicely, and this is how you repay me?” Robert clenched his jaw and spat onto the ground between them.

A sharp crack filled the air as one of the soldiers backhanded him across the face.

His head snapped to the side, pain bursting through his skull, with the taste of blood filling his tongue.

The prince’s smirk never wavered, even as Robert spat blood onto the ground.

If anything, the bastard looked amused.

“Come now,must we always be at each other’s throats?

” He leaned forward in his saddle, one gloved hand resting on his knee.

“Please, indulge me this evening.

A dinner between old acquaintances.

We have so much to catch up on, don’t we?” His dark eyes glinted.

“And perhaps, over a fine meal and some even finer wine, you can enlighten me-what notions made you throw your lot in with a failed cause?” The old knight or better yet lord felt his hands twitch.

He had hated that gaze since the first day he laid eyes on him outside the gates of Yarzat.

Back when he was still a mercenary, before the war, before the whore-Princess, before everything.

Back then, it was the look of a man who had already measured the weight of his life and found it insignificant.

That same gaze bore down on him now, like a cat watching a cornered rat, waiting to see what it might do.

He could not harm this man with soldiers.

So he would do it with words.

Robert turned his head and looked at the soldiers standing around them-bloodied men of the Black Stripes, the remnants of the Voghondai, the prince’s elite footmen, all watching in disciplined silence.

He drew in a deep breath, then let his voice ring out over the battlefield.

“Yours is the failed cause!” A few of the footmen stiffened.

Others simply stared.

Robert laughed, shaking his head, his voice rising toward the soldier.

“Look around you!

You follow a man doomed to defeat!

Your War-Prince, your little fox, fights like a mad dog, tearing at the heels of a princedom that has already doomed him!” He turned his gaze back to Alpheo.

“You are surrounded!

The lords, the Herculieans the Oizenian -three armies moving to squeeze the breath from your lungs.

And yet you stand here smiling, like a fool who hasn’t yet realized his throat is already cut!” Some of the soldiers shifted.

Robert’s grin widened.

“How long will it take before your precious ‘White Army’ realizes they march to their deaths?

That their white and black , will become red of their blood?

When will your little mercenary savages understand they are fighting for a man who has already lost?

How many of them will die before you admit it,My Prince?!” His breath was heavy, his voice hoarse, but he did not stop staring at the prince.

Alpheo merely tilted his head, his smile not fading in the slightest.

He didn’t move, didn’t blink, just sat there, watching, waiting.

He then let out a chuckle, shaking his head as if Robert had just told the most amusing jest of the night.

Then, with a theatrical sigh, he spread his arms wide and declared, “They’re surrounding us?

Excellent!

Now we can attack in any direction without walking too far!Things have been a bit stale haven’t they my friends?” For a moment, there was silence.

Then, like a ripple through the gathered soldiers, laughter broke out-first a few chuckles, then a roar of amusement, as after all they had never lost a battle when fighting for their prince.  Alpheo let them enjoy the moment before raising a single hand.

The laughter faded, but the energy remained, lingering in the air like a storm ready to break.

His gaze swept across his men, his voice turning softer, but no less powerful.

“Tell me, my brothers at arms -when have you ever tasted defeat at my side?Have your mouth ever been dirtied with such a thing?Has the sweet wine of victory ever been blemished by such distaste?

“Never!” came the thunderous reply.

Robert clenched his jaw.

Alpheo nodded, his dark eyes gleaming with something close to satisfaction.

He leaned forward slightly, his voice now carrying the weight of steel beneath the velvet.

“And tell me this-do any of you hold so little faith in me that you would lend your ears to the ramblings of a defeated man?” “No!” The answer came like a war cry, shaking the very air.

Alpheo let the moment settle before turning his gaze back to Robert, his smirk now almost pitying.

Almost.

“See, Robert?” He gestured lazily at the men around them.

“These are not mercenaries who run when the wind turns, they are the cliffs upon which the waves shall break.

These are warriors who have seen battle at my side, who have watched their enemies crumble before them.

And you?” He cocked his head.

“You are a man haunted by a past that you may no longer attain, blind to the future and sour of the present.

And I shall show you the true strength that you chose to oppose.

Be it the last thing you will lay eyes upon”