Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 572

Chapter 572: Putting an end to the war(1)
It was the ninety-fifth day.

Ninety-five days since the first horn had cried war and the ground had drunk the blood of friend and foe alike. Ninety-five days since the sun had risen over a princedom uncertain, and men had strapped on steel not knowing whether they’d see another dawn. And now—on this last day—it shone with a brilliance so warm, so forgiving, that one could almost believe the gods themselves had forgotten how close to ruin they all had danced.

Outside the great canvas pavilion where the war’s final terms were to be sealed, the royal army stood in rigid rows: 2,700 men , their faces bronzed by hardship and glory.

It stood proud, victorious—and alive. And there, beneath the open sky, they waited. They waited for the men in that great tent to lay quill to parchment and seal the tale that would echo for generations. A tale of victory and triumph

The laughter was easy now—rolling through the ranks like a new rhythm of life. Men who once wept for lost brothers now shared flasks and grinned through broken teeth. It wasn’t the giddy joy of fools; it was the hardened delight of those who had looked death in the eye and spat back. They laughed because they had earned it. They laughed because they had lived.

And soon, there would be silver.

It filled their dreams and stirred their chatter: the great wagons of plunder waiting to be counted, parceled, and handed out when the army was disbanded. The loot of nearly three months’ blood and fire, now ripe for the taking.

Yes, there had been desperation once. But that seemed a different life now. A fog long lifted. This day—this golden, final day—shone like a polished blade: sharp, gleaming, and clean.

Inside the vast war-tent, its red and gold flaps stirring gently in the breeze like a lion’s mane in repose, sat the man who would bring this long, bloody page to its close. Alpheo sat straight-backed upon a chair not of gold or velvet but of ash-wood carved in the field—fit for a commander, not a king. His sword leaned against his side. When the time came, he would stamp it into the earth like a judge’s gavel and declare war no more.

Outside, his army waited in arranged silence, not merely a force but a message in formation. Alpheo had seen to it himself—his own personal army, gleaming and unflinching, lined the central path that led to the tent. Their presence wasn’t ceremonial it was to give a message . These were the men who’d never broken ranks, who’d borne the prince’s banners through dust, flame, and betrayal. They were the mat upon which the riding traitors would tread.

And the traitors came.

They trotted their weary horses up the road with the quiet of condemned men headed to their own eulogy. Robes frayed, cloaks dulled by travel and time, their eyes were the eyes of men who had wagered everything and lost. Behind each lord rode their ten allowed retainers—no more. The prince had made that stipulation clear: no army, no blades beyond the ceremonial. This was not a parley of equals.

Not that they had any soldiers left to bring.

Even their last hope—those proud lances of heavy cavalry stationed on the outskirts, the ghosts of a force once feared—had bent the knee days ago. They had traded surrender for safety, and Alpheo had gladly offered it, knowing mercy was often more cutting than steel. One of their men had even ridden ahead under flag of truce to inform the rest: the prince would speak, and you will listen. He will offer you peace—but on his terms, and his alone.

And so the lords rode past the very men who had broken their armies and scattered their dreams, their spines straight not from pride, but from the knowledge that a bowed back would be too honest. The sight of their last cavalry riding away behind them—proud banners lowered, spears bundled like firewood—was still too fresh, too raw.

But what cut deepest was that it had been so easy.

Their hopes had shattered not in some glorious last stand, but in a sequence of surrenders, each one quieter than the last. Even now, as their hooves thudded softly upon the road, it felt less like a march to peace and more like a funeral procession for a cause that had died without an heir.

And waiting in that tent was the prince who had slain it.

They rode single file, like criminals on display, through a gauntlet of steel and eyes sharper still. On either side of the road, the soldiers of Prince Alpheo stood in ranks so perfect they looked carved from granite—immovable, unblinking, and silent as tombstones. Hundreds of them, blades sheathed but fingers never far from the hilts. Their armor gleamed beneath the late sun, polished by the pride of victory and the sweat of discipline. Their eyes, though—those eyes burned with a fury that not even peace could quench.

The rebel lords felt it with every hoofbeat.

That heat. That hate. That barely chained thirst for vengeance. These were the same men whose brothers had bled in the mud while the rebels besieged Florium. The same men who had held lines in rain and fire, watching comrades torn apart by ambitions born in castles now reduced to ash. If Prince Alpheo gave a single nod, the lords knew, the narrow road they trotted would become their grave. The ranks would collapse inward like jaws and the ride would end not in parley, but in slaughter.

But no such nod came.

They had been given safe passage, yes. Letters sealed in royal wax. A gesture of magnanimity from the man who held their fates in one hand and a war-won crown in the other. But who could trust the mercy of a man you tried to depose?

Their horses knew it too. The animals snorted and pawed the ground, nervous from the tension coiled all around like the press of thunder before a storm. Every clink of armor, every creak of leather, was deafening in that unnatural stillness.

The lords and their retainers, once draped in silks and pride, now sat hunched in travel-stained cloaks. Their banners were absent—stripped days ago. Their swords dulled, ceremonial things now.

And still they rode.

Past halberdier who looked them up and down as if measuring where best to strike.Past veterans with jagged scars across their lips who sneered as they passed, as if asking: Is this the mighty rebellion? Is this the high-born scum who thought to unseat him?

And the lords—oh, how they felt it. Every step was a humiliation, a branding of failure without the fire. They were not riding to parley. They were riding to beg.

To plead for lands, for lives, for something—anything—to salvage from the ashes.

They could see the great tent ahead now, its massive frame looming like the judgment hall of some vengeful god. The wind tugged at its banners, bearing the crown’s crest.

It snapped with pride while their own sigils—so many of them burned, trampled, forgotten—flapped only in memory.

And as they passed the last rank of soldiers, the path narrowed further, funneling them into that final stretch like cattle through a chute.

The hooves slowed to a shuffle, then to silence, as the rebel lords reached the mouth of the great tent. Sunlight glinted off the brass bindings of the flaps, dancing along the silk seams like a last mocking salute to pride. One by one, the lords dismounted—none with the grace or ceremony that once marked their comings. Their boots struck the earth with the heavy finality of gravestones laid.

They stood now at the gate of their reckoning.

Dust clung to the hems of their cloaks. Their blades, still sheathed but pointless now, clinked faintly as they stepped forward. The horses were taken without a word by royal squires, led away like ghosts departing the scene of a death. The air was thick—not with heat, but with shame. With memory. With knowing.

Behind them, their lesser vassals, the minor lords and distant cousins—those who once strutted behind banners as if born to command—tried to follow. But the wall of guards stepped in, silent but absolute.

“Only Lords Niketas, Eurenis, and Lysandros may enter; His Grace allows only them inside ” one of the royal guards said, voice calm but carved in stone. “The rest may wait outside… or be shown to their lodgings until summoned.”

The words were not shouted. They didn’t need to be. There was no debate left to make. These were not terms. They were facts.

A silence passed through the lesser lords like a dying wind. No one argued. Not one dared. They had felt the stares of thousands during their shameful ride; they knew well what waited if they overstepped again. Heads lowered. Shoulders slumped. They stepped aside, like reeds before the tide.

Some muttered to themselves. Others stared at their feet. But all eyes turned, in the end, to their suzerains—Niketas with his hawkish glare dulled by dread, Eurenis heavy in body and face, sweat already blooming under his arms, and Lysandros, whose youthful pride had not yet fully withered, but trembled now at the edges.

Together, the three approached the tent—slowly, silently—as if walking into a tomb they themselves had sealed.

No fanfare. No herald. No shield-bearers before them, nor banner-men behind. Just the long shadow of the tent flaps, yawning open like the jaws of fate.

This was the day of their defeat.This was the day their swords became pleas.This was the day the wind carried not their names in glory, but in shame.

And they stepped forward. Into silence. Into memory.Into history’s cruelest kind of mercy.