Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 581

Chapter 581: Sovereign (4)
The end of the tent had descended into chaos.

Plates clattered and shattered on the ground, goblets toppled and spilled wine like blood across the floor. Men shouted over one another, a tangle of angry voices mixing with the heavy thuds of bodies pushing and shoving to get a better look. The long tables trembled under the shifting weight of the crowd, and somewhere a lute screeched in protest as a musician was jostled hard.

Alpheo rose sharply from his seat, his voice cracking like a whip over the confusion,”WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!?”

Before he could stride forward, a hand — firm, calloused, and impossibly steady — clapped down on his shoulder. Shahab, seated close by, had already sprung into action. His hawkish eyes were fixed coldly on the chaos ahead, but his voice was calm as still water.

“Stand there, boy,” Shahab murmured, low and stern, like a father warning a reckless son. “We don’t know what’s going on yet. Better send your guards first. Let them put it down before you go stepping into blades. Maybe that’s just what they want.”

Alpheo didn’t answer, but his body stilled, the weight of Shahab’s words sinking into his gut. His mind flared back to Confluendi when he was victim of an attempted assassination.

He had survived that moment by a hair’s breadth.

He would not tempt fate again so foolishly.

Grinding his teeth, he thrust out his arm and barked,”GUARDS! Put it down! NOW! I want whatever madness this is silenced!”

At once, the royal guards surged forward like a human tide, their polished armor catching the torchlight as they cut a path through the mob, shouting orders and roughly shoving aside anyone who did not move fast enough.

Amid the disorder, Jarza, had already drawn his short sword. Without waiting for instruction, he pressed into the fray himself, determined to see the heart of the matter with his own eyes.

Alpheo stood behind, tense as a drawn bow, his gaze fixed bitterly on the empty chair where Talek had been sitting just moments before. The seat stared back at him, an accusation in wood and velvet.

The prince’s mind raced.

Had the damned boy gone and gutted Lord Gregor right there, in the middle of his royal feast? To avenge Robert, to wash his family’s honor in blood?

His stomach twisted into a knot as he watched the guards struggle to quell the growing uproar. Plates crashed again, someone cursed, and a sharp cry of pain rose above the din.

Damn the boy, he cursed bitterly in his mind, fists tightening at his sides.

If Talek had drawn steel and spilled Gregor’s blood — and it certainly looked like it from the way the tent was seething — then the matter was no longer a petty quarrel or a drunken squabble. No, it was proper murder, black and simple. The law was clear as daylight: it was death by rope, swinging from the gallows until your feet kick the empty air.

And Alpheo, for all his patience, for all his carefully stacked diplomacy, did not give half a shit about the young Lord Talek.

He wasn’t sentimental enough for that.

But there was one thing that had his blood simmering hotter than the mess Talek had made — it was the memory of Lord Robert. The old man, thorny and proud though he had been, had dealt honorably. He had bled and died standing firm, and in exchange, Alpheo had given his word — clear and binding — that Robert’s son would know mercy.

And now the little shit had gone and made a liar of me.

Alpheo’s face darkened, his fingers drumming angrily against the hilt of his sword. It wasn’t Talek’s life that bothered him. No, what crawled under his skin like fire ants was the feeling of a promise betrayed , when he had given his word.

If the young lord had spilled blood tonight, there would be no easy way out. Mercy had its limits, and even a prince couldn’t simply brush murder under the rug without looking weak — especially not after the whole tent full of sharp-eyed lords had seen it unfold.

The moment the tent calmed enough that no assassins came lunging out of the crowd, Alpheo set forward, the heavy boots of his royal guards thumping around him like a drumroll of judgment.

As he advanced, the murmurs fell away one by one, as though the very air of the tent was being sucked dry. By the time he reached the fray, silence gripped the hall like an iron hand.

There, at the center of it all, he found the two culprits.

Two guards held young Talek — Robert’s son — by the arms, his face red with fury but otherwise untouched. Another pair of guards gripped Lord Gregor, who, to Alpheo’s mild relief, was very much alive, albeit with blood streaming from his nose and a furious, half-murderous glare burning from his swollen eyes.

Alpheo’s heartbeat, wild a moment ago, settled back into a more manageable boil.At least I won’t have to hang the little shit, he thought grimly, his anger cooling just a hair.

He fixed both men with a look sharp enough to draw blood and demanded

“What the hells is going on here?”

Talek, despite being held fast, straightened his back like a proud fool and barked,”What happened,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, “is a son demanding his due for his father’s murder!”

There was a slight collective gasp from the onlookers, but before anyone could say a thing, Gregor with his reckless, bull-headed spirit ,snarled through his broken nose, spitting a gob of blood at the floor.

“Your father was a traitorous cur!” Gregor roared. “He got what was coming to him — and I’ll gut you too if you ever dare raise a hand against me again!”

He tried to lunge, but the guards jerked him back roughly, armor clinking as he struggled, looking for all the world like a mad dog held barely in leash.

Alpheo pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling deeply as he willed himself not to start screaming. This was not how peace feasts were meant to go.

Alpheo, without taking his cold, hawk-like gaze off the two standing before him, flicked his fingers in a sharp motion, calling Jarza to his side.

Alpheo leaned slightly toward him and muttered under his breath,”Why in the hells does Gregor have a bloody nose? ”

Jarza scratched his greying beard, looking both exasperated and faintly amused.”Well,Alph” he began, his voice low enough not to carry to the gathered lords, “the brat marched right up to Gregor, all fire and brimstone, and threw down a gauntlet at his face calling for a duel.”

Alpheo’s brow rose sharply, confusion flickering across his face.”And how does that explain the bloody nose?” he asked, voice dangerously calm.

Jarza coughed into his fist, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth.” The lad hurled it like a slingshot stone — straight at Gregor’s face. And from the look of that dented tin heap, I’d wager the gauntlet was made specially for the occasion, seems quite heavy really.”

For half a heartbeat, Alpheo just stared at him, processing the absurdity of it all.

Had the situation not been so serious — and the consequences for the realm so grave — Alpheo might have actually laughed, perhaps even clapped the boy on the back for his accuracy.

Instead, he only exhaled through his nose

Talek meanwhile, face flushed red with anger, jerked against the arms of the guards and shouted across the tent,”As the son of a murdered lord, I claim my right to demand a duel — to restore the honor stolen from my house and my father!”

A collective murmur rippled through the tent like a sudden gust of wind rattling banners.

Gregor, blood still dripping sluggishly from his nose, snarled back with a feral twist of his mouth,”You and your dead father had no honor to begin with, boy! Close your mouth before you embarrass his ghost even more!”

Talek tried to lunge at him, only the iron grips of the guards keeping him back.”Shut your mouth, you son of a whore!” he bellowed, voice cracking slightly with the sheer heat of his fury.

The tent now buzzed like a nest of angry wasps — lords leaning forward in their chairs, the lower-ranked knights whispering and craning their necks for a better view.

It was Alpheo who shattered the brewing chaos with a voice so low and cold it seemed to cut through the uproar like a drawn sword:”Enough. What is this? A theater show? Is this the behavior you show before your prince?”

The words, soft as they were, fell heavier than any shouted command. The tent went still.

Talek, still heaving from rage, tore his glare away from Gregor and dropped his head slightly toward Alpheo. His voice, though still quivering with emotion, was steady enough to carry:”Forgive me, Your Grace. But I judged it better to make my claim here, before all the gathered nobility and under the witness of the Crown itself. Else that coward would have found a way to slip away like the rat he is.”

Gregor spat on the floor, ignoring the gasps that came from some of the more sensitive lords. He straightened and shouted back,”Coward? I’ve been on more battlefields than you’ve bedded girls, whelp! The day I run from a challenge is the day I die!”

Talek, with a savage smile, answered back without hesitation,”Good. On either road, you’ll find only death.”

The words hung in the air, sharp and bitter, as if the very tent walls had heard and recoiled.

Alpheo stood tall at the center of the commotion, his gaze sweeping from the bloodied Gregor to the seething Talek. In his heart, he cursed both of them ,yet he knew he had no real choice. Both men wanted the duel — craved it, even — and if he dared to forbid it without cause, it would only make him look weak or biased.

Worse still, he had no legal ground to stop it. The customs of the realm were as clear as steel: a lord had the right to demand trial by combat to avenge a father’s death if both parties agreed. And these two looked more eager for blood than wolves after a wounded deer.

Suppressing the urge to rub his temples, Alpheo straightened and declared in a voice that rang through the tent:”The law grants such right to the son of a slain lord. And since both the sender and the recipient of the challenge have shown themselves willing, the Crown shall attest to the sacrality of this duel.”

A ripple moved through the tent — not the loud gasping of earlier, but a quiet, tense shifting, as if the whole room collectively exhaled.

Alpheo wasn’t finished. He gestured toward Gregor, whose nose was still leaking onto his tunic, and added,”Given Lord Gregor’s wounds”— he shot a half-amused glance at the bloodied mess of his face along with the other wounds he got when he was captured by his forces “the duel shall be held two months hence, in the capital, under the watchful eye of an Enforcer of the Crown, who shall ensure the fairness and honesty of the combat.”

He paused, letting his words settle like a stone tossed into still water.

“Does any here object?”

Both Talek and Gregor shook their heads, their faces like carved statues, grim and furious.

Alpheo let out a long, weary sigh — not entirely theatrical — and finished,”Then so be it. The Crown shall condone such a contest… and may the gods bless the just and true.”

Still if he count not stop it , then he certainly could just fix it