Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 516

Chapter 516: Burning a banner(4)
Lord Sorza’s eyes flew open as steel shrieked outside his tent.

Not the orderly clamor of training yards—this was the raw, discordant symphony of battle: blades biting flesh, hooves pounding earth, men screaming their last into the smoke-choked night. He was moving before conscious thought took hold, fingers closing around the dagger beneath his pillow as the tent flaps tore open, fearing the worst.

Luckily the worse did not come to fruit.

Two guards stood silhouetted against the hellish glow instead. The taller one spoke through gritted teeth:

“My lord—the camp’s overrun. Your father commands your presence. Now.”

No hesitation. No questions.

Sorza rolled from his bed , his bare feet hitting the ground as his free hand snatched his sword belt. Leather hissed as he cinched it tight, the weight of his blade a familiar comfort against his thigh. His cloak billowed behind him like a stormcloud as he plunged into the nightmare beyond.

The royal encampment had become a charnel house. Men ran in every direction—some still lacing gambesons over bare chests, others dragging wounded comrades through the mud. A sergeant bellowed “Enemies to the east!”—just before a javelin punched through his gut, nailing him to a supply cart like a butterfly pinned to a board.

Sorza’s guards closed ranks around him, their swords flickering like silver tongues as they carved a path through the rout. To the north, a cluster of spearmen made their last stand, their formation buckling beneath the weight of armored riders. One horseman wheeled past Sorza, his mace rising and falling in a pulping rhythm—crunch-squelch-crunch—each swing leaving another body twitching in the dirt.

Then—through the smoke and screaming—he found his father.

Prince Shamleik sat astride his midnight charger like a statue of some forgotten war-god carved from winter granite. The royal guard around him looked like they’d dressed in a hurricane—half-armored, their usual polish replaced by the sweat-slick desperation of men who knew Death rode close behind.

Sorza vaulted onto the nearest horse, its nostrils flaring at the scent of his fear. His father’s gaze locked onto his—no words needed.

With a jerk of Shamleik’s reins, the remnants of Oizenian nobility dissolved into the night, their flight marked by the distant cries of the butchery they left behind.

The night swallowed them as they rode, their horses’ hooves pounding through the wreckage of what had once been an army. The air hung thick with the stench of blood and burning pitch, the ground churned into a morass of mud and gore beneath them.

Sorza kept his gaze fixed ahead, his jaw clenched so tight it ached.

They were moving too slowly.

Every second they lingered in this graveyard of their own making was another moment for death to find them.

Then he felt it—the weight of eyes upon them.

The enemy footmen moved through the ruins of the camp like vultures descending on a fresh kill, their blades flashing as they finished the wounded and cut down those too slow to flee. As the prince’s retinue galloped past, their heads snapped up in eerie unison—a pack scenting blood.

The first javelin struck like divine retribution.

It took one of the royal guards high in the back, punching through silk and flesh with a wet thunk. The man arched violently, a choked gasp escaping him before he tumbled from his saddle, his horse shrieking as it bolted into the night.

Before anyone could react, another shaft hissed through the air—then another. Two more guards fell, their bodies hitting the dirt with the finality of stones dropped into a well.

“Ride!” someone roared, voice cracking with desperation. “For the gods’ sake, ride!”

The wooden gate loomed ahead, its timbers smashed open but still standing—the last barrier between them and the open fields beyond. Sorza leaned low over his horse’s neck, avoiding the javelin by a hair distance, his heart hammering against his ribs as they surged forward. The world narrowed to the drum of hooves, the ragged gasps of the men around him, the distant screams of the dying.

For one breathless moment, they were through.

Then the cry came.

“They’re coming!”

Sorza twisted in the saddle, his blood turning to ice.

Behind them, spilling from the camp like a tide of shadow, came the hunters. A dozen riders—no, more—their armor glinting dully in the moonlight, their spears and swords held low and ready.

This was a pack, and they had caught the scent of fleeing royalty.

Then, cutting through the chaos like a blade through silk came their response—

“Armored riders to the rear! Hold the line!Protect the royals and do you Duty!”

Sir Eldmur.

The old knight’s voice was steel wrapped in velvet, the same tone that had steadied a thousand men on a dozen battlefields. Even now, fleeing for their lives, that command brought order to the panic.

Sorza’s hands tightened on the reins as the first of the enemy riders closed the distance.

————–

Egil rode as if the hounds of hell snapped at his heels, his warhorse’s muscles bunching and releasing like coiled steel springs beneath him. Moonlight glinted off the bared teeth of the White Army’s riders as they fanned out behind him, a scythe of death sweeping across the darkened plains.

The wind carried the symphony of their prey’s terror – the panicked shouts of noblemen, the ragged breathing of exhausted mounts, the metallic tang of fear-sweat mixing with the stench of burning canvas from the ruined camp behind them.

With a fluid motion born of countless battles, Egil brought the war horn to his lips. Its bone-deep bellow rolled across the landscape like thunder – once, twice, thrice – each note a death knell for those foolish enough to ignore it.

Silence answered.

“Mercy offered,” Egil murmured to the night wind. “Mercy denied.”

His hand found the first javelin almost lovingly, fingers tracing the notches carved into its shaft – one for each life taken. The weapon felt alive in his grip as he drew back, the muscles in his shoulder and back coiling like a drawn longbow.

The release was perfection itself – the shaft singing through the air before finding its mark with a meaty thunk between a guardsman’s shoulder blades. The man arched backward, his scream cut short as he tumbled from his mount, his body cartwheeling grotesquely before slamming into the hard-packed earth.

Behind Egil, his riders needed no command. A deadly rain of javelins arced through the moonlit sky, their steel tips winking like falling stars before finding homes in flesh and bone. One noble took a shaft through his elaborately embroidered cloak, the impact spinning him halfway around in his saddle before he toppled sideways. Another projectile found a horse’s flank, sending the screaming beast crashing into its neighbors in a tangle of limbs and splintered lances.

Egil’s grin was a predator’s grimace as he selected his next javelin. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he called to one of the rider behind him, who answered with a dark chuckle.

Ahead, panic had taken full hold of the fleeing nobles. Their carefully maintained decorum shattered like glass as survival instincts took over:

“For the gods’ sake, someone help me!” wailed a young lordling, his once-fine silks now dark with blood, his screams quickly made worse by the hooves of the horses battering his bones.

“They’re catching up to us!” screamed another, his voice cracking with realization

Prince Shamleik’s knuckles stood out like bleached bone against the dark leather of his reins. His face – normally the picture of royal composure – had gone ashen beneath his trimmed beard. When he turned to shout at his panicking nobles, spittle flew from his lips with the fury of a man who could taste his own mortality.

“Silence your damned wailing and RIDE! If you won’t fight, then at least have the decency to—”

The world upended in a blur of pain and confusion.

His prized warhorse, bred from imperial stock of Romelia , gave a shrill scream that cut through the night. The animal’s powerful hindquarters collapsed beneath it as if the tendons had been slit. Shamleik had a heartbeat to register the javelin protruding from the beast’s flank before the ground rushed up to meet him.

Royal blood meant nothing to the unyielding earth.

The prince struck the packed soil shoulder-first, his body rolling like a common drunkard before coming to rest in a cloud of dust.

His horse thrashed nearby, its screams growing more desperate as its legs churned uselessly against the dirt. The javelin’s shaft snapped as the animal convulsed, sending fresh rivulets of dark blood coursing down its heaving flanks.

Chaos reigned.

The fleeing column fractured like glass under a hammerblow. Some riders wheeled about instinctively, their training overcoming their terror. Others saw only opportunity in the disaster – a chance to put more distance between themselves and their pursuers under the pretense of protecting the heir.

Young Sorza’s voice cut through the din like a blade. “FATHER!”

Sir Eldmur moved immediately . His armored hand shot out, seizing Sorza’s bridle with unshakable strength. “My prince,”

Sorza’s face contorted seeing the Knight’s look . “I won’t abandon him!” He swung a fist at Eldmur, the blow glancing harmlessly off the knight’s pauldron. “Release me! That’s an order!”

Eldmur’s jaw set like iron. He nodded to two of his most trusted guards. What followed was a brutal ballet of loyalty and necessity – strong hands grabbed Sorza’s reins. The young prince fought like a wildcat, his boots connecting with armor and flesh alike, but the guards held firm.

“Forgive me, highness,” Eldmur murmured as the struggling heir was dragged away into the night. Then, louder: “Theo, Joric – get him away.Make sure he make it safe to the capital.Apologies for the force your grace, but we cannot lose both prince and heir in one night….this night is already a tragedy, but it doesn’t need to become a catastrophe.”

As the sounds of Sorza’s protests faded, Eldmur turned his warhorse toward the fallen prince. The old knight drew his sword with a whisper of steel, the blade catching the moonlight like a sliver of ice.

He did not hesitate, did not falter. His place was with his prince, whether that meant saving him—or dying beside him. (map of battle in the comments)