Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 588

Chapter 588: A new place(2)
After their conversation, the rest of the day slid into a heavy silence.Maraya said nothing more — not a word, not a complaint.

She only rode with her head bowed, her eyes locked on the trampled road beneath her horse’s hooves, as if the stones and dust were more worthy of her attention than the world around her.

Torghan rode beside her, his hands tightening around the reins more than once. Guilt gnawed at the edges of his mind. He was no brute, nor did he take pleasure in breaking his sister’s spirit. But in his heart he knew — he knew — that this burden had to be borne.

Their tribe’s place in this new land hung by a thread, and this union was the knot that could hold it fast.If he had to play the villain to secure their future, then so be it.

And so they rode, until, at last, the familiar walls of Yarzat rose before them — a sight that stole the breath from their lungs even after all these weeks.

As waiting for them, as Torghan had half expected, was not merely an honor guard.No — the Prince of Yarzat, would never settle for something so mundane as the bride of one of his favorites.

Stretching out before the gates was a great phalanx of his personal army , drawn up in gleaming ranks. Their armor caught the setting sun and reflected it like a sea of molten silver, their Pilae  standing straight as the trees of a forest.At the head of them, cloaked in a deep purple mantle, sat the Prince himself astride his white stallion, a smile carved into his lips like a man who knew exactly how much awe he commanded.

Trumpets sang out, high and clear, and the gates swung open as if the whole city itself were bowing to greet them.

Torghan straightened his spine, stealing a glance at Maraya.She too lifted her head, if only for a moment, her face pale, her eyes wide at the splendor laid out before her.

The wide road toward the city was lined with thousands of soldiers: rank upon shining rank of footmen in gleaming mail, each raising their javelins skyward in perfect, mechanical unity, the sound of their movement a synchronized whirring of death.

Trumpets blared from the towers and battlements, a keening, heroic sound that seemed to shake the banners hanging heavy in the warm breeze.Behind the line of infantry, the royal drummers pounded out a rhythm meant not for merriment but for war:

a low, rolling thunder that vibrated through the stones underfoot, up the legs of the horses, and into the hearts of men.The horses of the Golden Steed Knights , the guards of the royal family pawed the earth as they escorted the siblings, their armor glinting like gold torn from the gods themselves.

Torghan felt it again — that electric thrill, the shiver that ran up his spine despite himself.It was not fear. It was not even awe.It was the pure, primal understanding that this — this monstrous, glittering machine — could erase him, his people, and their memory from the earth in an afternoon if it so desired.

He turned, seeking his sister’s reaction.He caught her face just as it changed — from stubborn defiance to something more complicated: a swallowing of pride, a dawning understanding.Her mouth parted slightly, her eyes wide, her knuckles white around the reins.

And at that moment, Torghan smiled grimly to himself.

No words he could have spoken would have struck her heart so deeply as the sight of the White Army assembled here not to wage war —but simply to welcome them.

If this was what the prince mustered for a handshake, what could he conjure when he was truly enraged? Torghan had witnessed it and fought beside it, but his sister did not .

Still both knew that they would never match it.

Not in men, not in arms, not in wealth, not in dreams.

The road ahead was clear and lined not with choices but with the hard, glittering truth of necessity.

He leaned toward Maraya slightly, not bothering much with secrecy as they spoke in their language.

“Look around you, sister,” he murmured. “This is why we must bow and smile and bend the knee. Because the day we stand against this…” he gestured almost imperceptibly at the endless forest of spears, “…is the day we die.”

Maraya said nothing.She simply looked down at the ground as if searching for a crack to slip into and vanish.

Torghan left her to her thoughts.Some lessons could not be taught with words.Some truths had to be crushed into you like iron on an anvil.

And as the army roared in thunderous salute, the prince’s banners snapping high above the walls, Torghan felt both the weight and the strange exhilaration of belonging to something greater, something unstoppable.

This was Yarzat.This was their future.And they would either ride its tide — or be drowned beneath it.

As they continued their march, at the end of the great road, framed before the gates of Yarzat, sat the figure who commanded it all.

The Prince.

Maraya’s breath caught for a moment.Despite the grandeur, the prince himself was… not what she had pictured.

Alpheo was no towering, thunder-voiced giant.

He was almost slight by warrior standards — a lean, lithe frame that seemed built more for speed than brute force, his youthful face framed by neatly black hair falling to his neck.Not heavily muscled, nor tall — and yet, somehow, he carried a weight about him, an unseen gravity, as if the air itself bent toward him.

A man who needed no size to command obedience.

Without missing a beat, Torghan kicked his horse’s sides and slid down, bowing low in his saddle.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his sister copy the gesture, though less fluidly, and — to his horror — stealing a glance upward at Alpheo while she did with a raised highbrow.

Torghan nearly grimaced.

The prince’s gaze flicked to him first, a familiar and easy smile spreading across his face.

“Torghan,” Alpheo called out in a tone of camaraderie, “you return to us once again — and I see you bring more than yourself this time.”

He turned his head slightly toward Maraya.

Torghan, feeling the weight of the moment, straightened himself and with a formal voice announced:

“My Prince, Sister…. Maraya”

Alpheo’s gaze settled on her properly now — assessing, weighing — though his smile did not waver.He gave a small nod of approval.

Then, turning slightly in the saddle, Alpheo called over his shoulder, where another man sat mounted, tall and broad-shouldered, his face a battlefield of scars and pride.

“Jarza!” Alpheo said, a laugh in his voice. “Come see — your bride has arrived!”

The soldiers nearest the gate thumped their chests in approval.The drummers gave a quick, celebratory roll.Even Jarza allowed a rare, toothy grin to crack across his weathered face as he nudged his horse forward for a better look.

Maraya kept her face still, but Torghan could see the fury boiling under her calm mask.

Still, there it was.The deed was done.The wheels were turning, and now not even the gods themselves could stop it.

Torghan allowed himself the smallest smile of satisfaction.

Their place was secured.

————

Maraya’s eyes fixed on the man called Jarza, and despite herself, a ripple of awe — and unease — stirred within her.

If Alpheo had surprised her by being smaller, Jarza was the exact opposite.

The man was huge.Easily a full head taller than her brother Torghan, and thicker by another half in sheer muscle.His shoulders were like the beams that held up longhouses, and his arms were packed with the kind of dense strength that looked as if it could tear a bear in half.

He sat on his horse — a beast larger than any Maraya had ever seen — like a boulder perched atop a mountain, solid and immovable.

In truth, Jarza looked the part of a chieftain — the kind of man Maraya had imagined his brother to be serving .

Alpheo, for all his charm and grace, could have passed for a young clerk or unbloodied young compared to this towering mountain of a man.

Jarza’s skin was deeply dark, a rich obsidian hue that reminded her vividly of the Azanian merchants who used to travel to their father’s hall near the border when they were still living on their hills.

He even had the same foreign cut to his features — broad nose, thick lips, and piercing eyes — though Jarza’s nose had been broken once, maybe twice, and now it bent slightly to the left like a crooked branch.His head was completely bald, the sun glinting off his scalp.

As Maraya studied him, Alpheo trotted forward casually on his gleaming white stallion and gave a hearty slap to Jarza’s massive shoulder — an action that would have likely shattered a lesser man’s bones.Jarza barely moved under the friendly blow, only offering a slight nod of acknowledgment.

Then came a familiar voice.

From the crowd stepped a man Maraya recognized — the translator, the one who had spoken at length with her father back when the tribe was whole.

First, he said a few words in the clipped, musical syllables of Azanian — Jarza nodded solemnly — and then translated into the Mountain Tongue of the Voghondai, so that Maraya and Torghan could understand:

“This here is Jarza,” the translator proclaimed proudly, “a great warrior and a great friend of our prince!”

He grinned, pausing for effect, before adding with a playful lilt:

“His grace says not be daunted by his size! His heart is as kind and warm as his fists are hard and fast!”

Maraya didn’t smile back.

Her hands tightened around the reins, as she realized that now this was going to be her life.