Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 507

Chapter 507: Shield of Aracina(5)
Eighteen sunrises had come and gone, each greeted not with prayer but with the scree-scree-scree of whetstones on notched steel.

Eighteen nights spent curled in armor like crabs in their shells, if they slept at all. The men moved through the smoke like specters now, their eyes sunken into bruised sockets, their armor crusted with layers of gore that would never wash clean.

Asag knew sieges.

Knew how they sanded men down to their raw, quivering cores. This was no war of glorious charges or heroic last stands—just the slow, meat-grinder arithmetic of flesh against iron. A butcher’s ledger where the only numbers that mattered were how many bodies it took to fill a gap in the wall.

And yet.

And yet his men had held.

Not for his snarled orders.

Not for some abstract notion of honor.

But for the baker whose buns had warmed their childhood winters. For the cobbler’s shop where they’d gotten their first proper boots. For the temple steps where they’d stolen clumsy kisses behind their mothers’ backs. These bone-tired ghosts fought for the living memory of a city that still breathed, however faintly.

He sprinted along the battlements, his boots slipping on blood-slick stone. Below him, the siege unfolded with the grim choreography of a funeral march:

Archers loosed their volleys, arrows rising like a swarm of vengeful hornets before plunging earthward. One found a man’s eye socket—he danced briefly, fingers fluttering at the protruding shaft like a child trying to catch a butterfly, before pirouetting off the edge. Others ping-ping-pinged off raised shields, the sound like hail on a tin roof.

The wall had become a slaughterhouse.

Men fought so close they could count their enemy’s missing teeth, could taste the garlic and fear on each other’s breath.

A spearman ran an attacker through—only to have his skull crushed mid-thrust by a mace, the crunch like a walnut under a bootheel. Two soldiers grappled at the precipice, their daggers flashing like mating scorpions, until both disappeared into the void.

Every inch of stone was paid for in a currency of ruptured organs and shattered bones.

Asag’s knuckles cracked as he tightened his grip on his sword. He was no fresh-faced recruit to seek glory in this butchery. But he knew the precise moment when a commander’s presence could turn the tide – not through skill at arms, but by being the stone that breaks the wave.

He turned to his men—the thirty-five warriors who had followed him through fire and blood to this desperate hour.

“With me,” he growled , already moving toward the fray. The men straightened at his approach, backs stiffening unconsciously.

Let the enemy come. Let them break upon these walls until not one stone stood upon another. They would find no victory here today. Asag thought as he led the charge into a tornado that could easily claim his life as that of many others.

Not a single man faltered. Not the fresh recruits, nor his veterans who knew the price of ground given and ground held.

Twenty halberdiers formed the core of his force, their polearms’ cruel blades honed to split armor and bone with equal ease.

Five of his personal guard flanked him—battle-hardened killers who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him in a dozen hells, their loyalty forged in the crucible of shared suffering. The remaining ten had been pulled from the gate garrison, their faces streaked with soot and blood, called upon for one final, brutal push to reclaim the wall.

Asag drew in a breath thick with the stench of burning pitch and spilled bowels. The moment stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring. Then his sword flashed upward, catching a shaft of pallid light through the smoke.

“CHARGE IN THE NAME OF THE PRINCE!”

The roar that answered him shook the very stones beneath their feet. As one, they surged forward—not as men, but as a force of nature, a thunderclap given flesh and steel.

He led the carnage, his borrowed shield strapped tight, his sword hungry for enemy blood. He crashed into the fray where the wall teetered on collapse, where defenders fought back-to-back against the onslaught, their boots slipping in the gore of fallen comrades.

The moment Asag’s banner appeared amid the slaughter, the battle’s tide turned. Defenders who had been buckling under the assault suddenly straightened like drought-stricken plants given water. A wave of raw defiance rippled along the battlements as voices, hoarse from days of screaming, found new strength:

“The Lord is with us!” bellowed a sub-centurii, his face a mask of blood.

“Drive them back!” shrieked a young soldier, his spear suddenly finding renewed vigor.

A grizzled Black Stripe spat on the stones and roared, “Send these bastards to the gods!”

The enemy, who had smelled victory mere heartbeats ago, now faced something far worse than desperate resistance—they faced men reborn.

Where exhausted defenders had given ground, now halberds rose like a forest of death.

The first man foolish enough to challenge Asag was a mountain of muscle and iron—a brute with a shield locked tight to his chest and a short sword thirsty for noble blood. He never stood a chance.

Asag moved like a striking viper. He deflected a swing and then with the borrowed shield smashed upward, crushing the man’s nose into a pulp of cartilage and blood. Before the invader could even scream, Asag’s sword punched through his throat, the tip bursting out the back of his neck in a spray of crimson. The brute collapsed, choking on his own lifeblood, as Asag ripped his blade free with a wet schlick.

Another attacker came at him, a mace whistling through the air in a murderous arc. Asag twisted aside, the spiked iron head grazing his pauldron with a screech of metal. The second swing came faster—he barely raised his shield in time. The impact shuddered through his arm, numbing his fingers to the wrist. Gritting his teeth, he countered with a thrust to the gut, but his blade was a bit shallow, catching on mail rings and failing to break through.

No matter.

He tore the sword free and slammed his shield into the man’s chest, knocking him off-balance. A boot to the knee sent the mace-wielder crashing onto his back. Before the fool could blink, Asag was on him, driving his sword through the soft flesh of his eye and piercing the brain behind it . The man’s death rattle was drowned beneath the battle’s roar as Asag stood, panting, his blade dripping.

The lord was not alone in his fury. The halberdiers, now blood-drunk and battle-mad from the presence of their lord, carved through enemy ranks like reapers through wheat. Their polearms rose and fell in terrible rhythm, each swing leaving carnage in its wake.

One halberdier’s blade came down in a brutal arc, shearing through pauldron and collarbone alike. The attacker’s scream cut off abruptly as the weapon lodged deep in his ribcage, his body jerking like a marionette with severed strings before being kicked unceremoniously from the wall.

Nearby, a fresh-faced soldier – his smooth cheeks clashing grotesquely with the blood splattered across them – struggled against a grizzled veteran. The boy’s arms trembled as his sword locked against his opponent’s dagger, the wicked point inching inexorably toward his exposed throat.

His breath came in panicked gasps, eyes wide with the primal terror of a creature staring into death’s maw.

Then suddenly – salvation.

Asag’s boot connected with the attacker’s knee . As the man toppled, the lord’s sword found its mark, punching through temple with enough force to send teeth skittering across the blood-slick stones. The boy stared, transfixed, at the ruined face of his would-be killer, at the gray matter glistening on Asag’s blade.

For a heartbeat, their eyes met – the veteran’s gaze hard as flint, the boy’s brimming with shocked gratitude. Then the moment passed. The young soldier wiped his mouth with a shaking hand, spat blood onto the corpse at his feet, and threw himself back into the fray with the desperate courage of those who have stared down death and lived.

The attackers wavered—their advance, once an unstoppable tide, now fractured like ice under a hammer’s blow.

Moments ago, they had been on the cusp of victory, their blades pressing the defenders to the brink. Now, step by brutal step, they were being driven back. The wall ran slick with blood, its stones hidden beneath a carpet of the dead and dying. The air hung thick with the stench of opened bowels and iron-rich blood, the cacophony of battle reduced to the wet hacking of blades finding flesh and the guttural screams of men who knew they were already dead.

And at the heart of the slaughter, Asag fought like a man possessed.

His sword arm burned with fatigue, his shield sagged under the weight of countless blows, his breath came in ragged, fire-scorched gasps—yet he did not stop.

Could not stop.

Did not desire to stop

Hesitation is death, he continued shouting in his mind as he spurred forward, death is failure.

Because the moment he faltered, the line would break. And so he carved forward, his blade a flicker of steel in the chaos, cutting down any fool who still stood in his path.

His men followed, their exhaustion burned away by sheer, desperate fury.

What had been an enemy foothold was now a charnel pit. The attackers who had scrambled onto the wall lay butchered, their bodies heaped like discarded refuse. Some still twitched, fingers clutching at fatal wounds. Others stared blankly at the smoke-choked sky, their final expressions frozen in disbelief.

The survivors hesitated.

“What the hell is happening?!” a soldier shrieked, barely deflecting a halberd strike before another blade took him in the throat.

“They were broken—how are they—?!” Another voice cut short as an axe split his skull.

Some fought on, wild-eyed and snarling, refusing to accept defeat. Others wavered, their gazes flicking toward the siege tower’s bridge—calculating the distance, weighing their chances of escape.

The defenders pressed harder, their advance inexorable. Every step the enemy gave up was another step closer to collapse. The bridge, once their path to victory, now became a death trap. Men stumbled back, shields raised in feeble defense, only to be hacked apart where they stood.

And then—silence.

Not true silence, but the eerie lull that follows a slaughter. The defenders stood panting, their weapons dripping, their armor splattered with gore. The only sounds were the dying moans of the fallen and the creak of the siege tower’s timbers under the weight of the dead.

Yet the battle was not over.

A mass of enemies still crowded the bridge, either reinforcement ready to jump on the wall or the defenders that retreated back onto the bridge. Their shields were locked, weapons ready—but their resolve was lacking.

They had seen their brothers cut down. They had watched the defenders, moments from breaking, suddenly rise like vengeful spirits. And now, they hesitated.

Asag knew what hesitation would be .

He didn’t shout. Didn’t rally his men with pretty words.

He simply stepped onto the bridge.

His duty could only end in his death.

The hollow thud of his boots against the wood cut through the din. For a heartbeat, the enemy only stared, disbelief etched across their bloodied faces, as if looking at a madman.

Then the defenders roared.

Their commander had not just fought beside them—he was now leading the charge into the enemy’s teeth, what other display of bravery did they need?

With a howl of fury, the defenders surged after him, their exhaustion forgotten, their blades hungry.

The enemy on the bridge were taken by suprise.

Some turned to flee. Others raised their shields refusing to believe what was happening.

None of it mattered.

Asag’s sword rose, fell, and the killing began anew.

His duty had not ended yet.