Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 527

Chapter 527: Change of plans(1)

The day was alive with the sounds of battle—the whistle of arrows slicing through the air, the dull thud of them striking flesh, and the desperate shouts of men fleeing for their lives.

“Shields up! SHIELDS UP, YOU FOOLS!”

The order barely reached the ears of the retreating Herculean soldiers before another volley rained down upon them. Dark silhouettes ran for cover, their armor glinting faintly , their breath ragged and filled with panic. Some made it to the camp; others did not.

“Aghh!” A man crumpled forward, an arrow buried deep in his shoulder. Another staggered, gripping at his leg where a shaft had punched clean through his thigh, his blood soaking the cold ground. A third barely had time to scream before an arrow took him in the throat, sending him sprawling face-first into the mud.

From the walls of Bracum, triumphant cheers rose into the air.

“Run faster, you dogs! Perhaps next time, you’ll bring ladders that don’t snap like twigs!”

“How does it feel to taste arrows, Herculean bastards?”

Laughter and jeers rained down with the same force as their arrows. The defenders of Bracum had grown bold, their confidence swelling with the failed assault.

The Herculeans had come west with grand ambitions, marching in lockstep alongside the Oizenians in what was supposed to be a swift and merciless invasion of Yarzat. With the northern part of the princedom in turmoil, their lords had expected little resistance. And for a time, it seemed they had been right.

Arduoronaven had fallen in mere days, its banners stripped down, and the rightful ones being put . The various small holdings of minor nobles around Arduronaven either fell or submitted quickly, seeing the army coming toward them with no rescue on sight .

They had tasted victory.

But now, here they were. Stuck.

Bracum stood like an iron wall against their ambitions, refusing to buckle, refusing to kneel.

Prince Lechlian of Herculia sat atop his horse, his expression carved from stone, a mask of barely restrained fury. His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles whitening as the cold night wind whipped at his cloak. Below him, the remnants of his army dragged themselves back toward camp, battered, bloodied, and humiliated.

And beyond them, beyond the arrows still embedded in the frozen earth, beyond the corpses sprawled where they had fallen—stood Bracum.

A fortress of defiance.

A city that refused to kneel.

A city that housed the man Lechlian hated with every fiber of his being.

Xanthios.

His eyes burned as they locked onto the ramparts, where he knew the man would be standing, watching, perhaps even grinning at the failure of Herculia’s first assault.

Lechlian knew Xanthios well—better than he would have liked. The Lord of Bracum had been a thorn in his side for years, a name he had long despised, but nothing stoked his hatred more than the humiliation he had suffered at the man’s hands.

After the catastrophic battle of the Bleeding Plains, when Herculia had been left in ruins, it had been Xanthios who had delivered the final, brutal blow. It was his sword that had severed Lord Vroghios’ head, and it was perhapse not his will but certainly his pleasure that had paraded it high for all to see.

And by the end of that wretched week, the head of the Lord of Arduoronaven had been impaled on a pike, his city taken, his lands lost.

The bastard had gotten exactly what he wanted.

And now, once again, he stood beyond those walls, safe behind his stone and steel, his city intact, his defiance unshaken. Lechlian’s first test of its defenses—his first real attempt to take what he had come for—had proven disastrous.

The prince exhaled sharply, his breath misting in the night air.

The numbers had been against him from the start.

When he took Arduoronaven, he had barely 1,600 men to his name—a pathetic fraction of the grand host he had once dreamed of leading into Yarzat. The invasion had been planned with Hushandai support, but even that had not been enough. The lords of Herculia had grown hesitant, wary after last year’s failures. They sent men, but too few, their faith in him brittle as old parchment.

Victory in Arduoronaven had given him something to cling to—resources, weapons, hope. He had stripped the city bare, reforged its arms, redistributed them to his surviving warriors, and scraped together another 300 soldiers from what was left.

But in the end, 1,900 men were still just 1,900 men.

And now, the three hundred he had raised—the raw recruits, the desperate remnants—lay dead or dying at the foot of Bracum’s walls.

He had thrown them in first, using them as a blunt instrument to test the city’s defenses. And they had broken against them.

Useless to say, he had found those walls strong.

Too strong.

Through the crisp daylight, the hurried crunch of boots on dirt rang through the air. A man rushed toward Prince Lechlian, his breath uneven, urgency written across every line of his face. Without hesitation, he dropped to one knee before his liege, fist pressed to his chest.

“Your grace” he said, voice tight with exertion. “Sir Ervian has returned from the Oizenian army. He requests an urgent audience with you.”

Lechlian’s brows immediately pulled together in a sharp furrow. Ervian? Back?

That wasn’t right.

He had sent the knight with the Oizenian forces to report on their movements, to ensure their so-called allies were keeping their end of the invasion intact. His orders had been clear—watch, report, remain.

He was not meant to return

Lechlian exhaled slowly, feeling the dry wind pass through the loose strands of his dark hair, curling around his neck like a whisper of warning. Something was wrong.

His fingers curled tighter around the reins of his horse. “Bring him to my tent.”

The soldier gave a sharp nod, rising swiftly before turning on his heel and disappearing into the camp.

Lechlian did not move at first. His sharp gaze drifted toward the city walls once more, toward the banners of Bracum that still flew proudly in the daylight. His lips curled into a sneer before he turned his horse away, heading for his command tent.

Whatever news Ervian carried, he had the sinking feeling it was nothing he wanted to hear.

—————–

“Defeated?” he roared, his eyes burning into the kneeling knight before him. “How in the name of the gods is it possible that the Oizenians were defeated?!”

His voice rang through the tent,as if not caring if other could hear him, even loud enough that the guards just beyond the entrance exchanged wary glances. Inside, Sir Ervian kept his head low, his armor stained with dust and sweat, his face drawn with exhaustion, he seemed as if he had not eaten in a week

“My prince,” he started, his voice rough from lack of water and the long ride. “It happened in the dead of night. One moment, the camp was still, the next—hell itself had descended upon us.”

Lechlian’s nostrils flared, his hands tightening into fists. ”How the hell were you caught by surprise?Did that fool have no scout?”

“That’s just it, my prince. We don’t know. No scouts reported the presence of an army, and yet, they came like a storm.” Ervian swallowed, the weight of his failure pressing heavily on him. “It couldn’t have been just the garrison from the city—not after the state they were in. There were too many men, too well-armed, too well-coordinated, it was most certainly the little fox.”

They all knew the numbers defending the city—knew they had been running on desperation, barely holding on. They should not have had the strength to mount such an attack, let alone overrun an entire Oizenian camp.

He took a sharp step forward, looming over Ervian. “You’re telling me an entire army appeared out of thin air?”

“It might as well have.” Ervian exhaled, shaking his head as if he himself couldn’t believe the words leaving his mouth. “One moment, the Oizenian lords were sitting by their fires, convinced victory was only days away. The next, horns were blaring, and soldiers were running for their weapons.”

Lechlian’s eyes darkened. “Go on.”

“The attack came from every side. One after another, cutting off any sense of order. The prince and the lords barely had time to rally their men before the fighting was at our throats.” Ervian ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. “It was chaos. A massacre. The banners of the Oizenians were torn down before most men could even form up. ”

Lechlian’s grip on the table was white-knuckled. “And the prince? The nobles?”

“They fled.” Ervian spat the words like they burned his tongue. “Mounted their horses and ran. I broke off from the main road in the night, the pursuers—thank the gods—went after the others. I rode north as soon as I could, thinking only to find you and warn you before it was too late.”

Silence filled the tent for a moment, thick and oppressive.

Lechlian closed his eyes briefly, inhaling deeply through his nose. The Oizenians had been destroyed. Their great army, their war-hungry prince—gone.

A shiver of rage curled in his gut. He had placed too much faith in them.

He had thought them strong as steel, instead, they had been shattered like a rotting shield, and now all eyes would turn to him.

His own forces were far too small for what came next.

“My prince… now that they have struck the Oizenians down , they won’t be stopping there.” His voice was steady, but there was a tremor beneath it. “They must be marching toward us even as we speak.”

The words landed like a hammer blow. The fire of Lechlian’s anger was suddenly smothered by something far worse—cold, gut-wrenching fear.

His breath came faster, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts.

He knew. Gods, he knew.

He had faced him before.

He had stood before Alpheo on the battlefield, with twice as many men as the bastard could muster. And still—still—he had been beaten. Torn apart. Sent scurrying back across the border with nothing but ashes and humiliation to show for it.

And now? Now he was the one outnumbered.

His army was a pitiful force of 1,900. And that was before the doomed attack on Bracum’s walls, before he had thrown away hundreds of men in a blind attempt to test their strength.

What was left? 1,600? 1,500?

And That wasn’t an army. That was fodder.

Lechlian’s breath hitched as he tried to shove the thought away, but it clung to him like ice in his veins.

He had played the game , and he had lost.

His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms through his gloves. A faint ringing filled his ears—not from any sound in the tent, but from the sheer weight of realization crashing down upon him.

The Oizenians were gone. Their banners trampled into the dirt, their prince and nobles scattered to the wind like frightened crows. And whoever had done it—whoever had swept through them with such terrifying precision—was now turning their sights on him.

He had no way out.

No reinforcements.

No allies left to call upon.

All he had was an army that would be crushed the moment the enemy caught them in the open.

His throat tightened. Gods, how had it come to this?