Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1037: Southern road (1)
"Shamelik was the first of them, he rode into the North, With a mighty host of iron, he led his princedom forth! To Aracina’s iron gates, he laid a heavy siege, Vowing that the Fox himself would serve him as a liege!
Oh, how sad the song is sung, how bitter was the cost, For everything he hungered for was in the winter lost! The land he craved, the gold he sought, the glory he did rule, In Yarzat, they just laughed and said: ’Here comes the royal fool!’
Of Aracina’s emerald grass, the King was quite a fan, But now the grass is painted red for every Oizen man! For when you land upon the field with a javelin in your cunt, You find you’re just a common whore simply begging for more! He tumbled from his stallion’s back, he fell into the fire, Aracina he desired, but he drowned within the mire!"
The sounds of laughter rose along the song.
"Lechlian was the second one, with a bald and dimpled rear, His feet were swifter than a stag whenever death was near! A coward born, a coward bred, with a heart of curdled milk,He hid behind his palace walls and dressed himself in silk!
He let his capital be sacked, he let his people bleed, While he searched for a hiding spot to match his yellow greed! But even rats have litters, and his eldest saw the truth, A crown is far too heavy for a king who’s lost his tooth!"
The men around mimicked the sounds of a feast, the clatter of plates by bringing spears together.
"At a table set for gluttons, mid the laughter and the roast, The Prince’s son stood up and raised a very special toast! He unbolted every lock, he threw wide the heavy door, And let the Fox’s shadow walk across the palace floor!
Old Lechlian, the wretched dog, he didn’t draw his steel, He didn’t fight for honor’s sake, he didn’t even kneel! He crawled toward the Yarzat’s prince , and like a pining concubine, he kissed the Fox’s ring!
Then to show his new-found master that his spirit was quite tame, He hiked his leg up like a cur to put himself to shame! He pissed upon his own white rug, he whimpered for his life, A prince who traded away his crown to avoid the butcher’s dic-!"
"DUNN!"
An old, gravel-shot voice thundered from the lead wagon, cutting through the laughter like a whip. "Mind your tongue, boy! This is not Yarzat! Do you have a death-wish, or are you just eager to see how a noose fits?"
The boy who had been singing with such chest-puffed bravado suddenly found his boots to be the most fascinating objects in the world. He shrunk into his seat, the fire of his performance extinguished by his father’s wrath.
The caravan guards, rough men with barely a rusted chaincloth and a loose sense of decorum, rose in the boy’s defense. "Come on, boss, we’s just having a laugh, that’s all!" one shouted, leaning over to pat Dunn’s shoulder with a heavy hand.
"Yeah, road’s as boring as it gets. Boy’s got a wild fantasy, I’ll tell ya that! Keeps the horses moving!"
"Shut up!" the old man roared, pulling his wagon to a stuttering halt. "I have everything riding on this haul! I don’t need my own flesh and blood calling for trouble with every breath! You may sing those songs in a tavern, a Yarzat tavern. There, you can sing until your lungs rot for all I care. But here? Here you keep your mouth shut and walk as if you’re standing on eggshells. Don’t you see the black looks we get in every village we pass? They hate us for the taxes we don’t pay. We don’t need to give them a reason to act on that hate! You’re the heir to my life’s work, Dunn. Start behaving like a man!"
"Come on, Pa!" Dunn shouted back, finally finding his voice and throwing his hands up in a defensive arc. "As if anyone would dare! The Crown is watching over us. We’re flying the Falcon, can’t you see?"
He gestured wildly toward the small, snapped heraldry fixed to the lead wagon, the sigil of the Yarzat Crown. It was a golden ticket, a symbol that protected them from every toll-house and tax-collector from the northern pines just before Romelia to the Zauern River. "We paid a pretty penny for that protection, didn’t we?"
"I paid for it," his father hissed, leaning over the bench. "And you would be wise to remember that only a fool sticks his hand in a lion’s cage just because he’s wearing a thick glove. Don’t go searching for trouble, boy. It’s got a way of finding those who call for it.You gotta learn to go inconspicuous if you want to survive!Other roads are not like the Magna Strata, outlaws spread like fucking mushrooms!" He turned around after giving his son one last hard look.
But Dunn was young, and the sun was warm, and the fear of his father was nothing compared to the thrill of the rhythm. He waited until the old man turned back to his horses, then leaned out over the side of the wagon, his voice a mischievous stage-whisper that quickly grew into a defiant bellow under the cheer of the hired men:
"Third came the First’s son, with a pride like a sail, He tried to outrun his dead father’s own tale! When the Fox’s great shadow fell dark on his shore, The Prince called his banners and screamed out for war!Out for War!All forth!
He marched with his long sticks, two thousand or more or so the songs told, With iron and courage and dreams to the core! But the wood all shattered, the shields they all crashed, When the Fox’s great cock down upon them was smashed!
He fled like a rabbit, he ran from the light, until lik....."
The song stopped.
The last word was swallowed by a sudden, sharp intake of breath from the boy. His jaw remained open, his tongue frozen mid-syllable. His arm, which had been waving in time to the music, slowly leveled out, pointing toward the eastern ridge.
"Pa..." he whispered, the bravado vanishing instantly. "Pa!"
The old merchant turned, ready to deliver another scolding, but the words died in his throat. His face went a sickly, chalky white.
Dust rose from the horizon...
’’Bandits!Bandits!’’ the Caravan’s leader called to the guards he had seen fit to hire for a haul in which he expected no trouble, whill all went the same shade as their boss.
Beneath the cloud, the rhythmic, metallic thrum of half a hundred hooves began to vibrate through the earth, shaking the very wagons they stood upon.It clattered to their insides all the way to their bones.
"Horses! Cavalry! Get to the wagons, you bastards!"
The lead mercenary, who had some experience as he volunteered during the war of eight years ago the same conflict that the boy sang first, didn’t wait for a reply. He scrambled onto the nearest open-air cart, his boots slipping on the grain-sacks before he braced his knees against the wood, spear pushed forward.
"Form up! Spears out! Spread the line!" He roared at the panicked men. "Don’t you even think of running! You think you can outrun a fucking horse on an open flat? Brace, or you’re dead men!"
The hired guards, a motley collection of men who had spent more time guarding grain-depots than fighting wars, scrambled to obey. They huddled against the thick timber of the wagons, poking their spears outward in a desperate hedgehog of steel.
Dunn watched as the spear-head held by the man next to him began to rattle against the side of the wagon. Clack-clack-clack. It wasn’t the wind nor the rattling of the carriage as more and more men got in.
The guard’s hands were shaking so violently he looked like he was having a fit.
A hand shook Dunn’s shoulder, it was his fathers’. He tried to say something but the boy’s heart was so loud that it muffled his words.
His ears just kept ringing and his heart’s durmming.
Those were probably the last words his father would tell him, but right now as an instinct to the preservation of life he turned to see the only thing standing between them and the bandits.
Most of these men had taken the job only after seeing the Prince’s golden falcon on the contract; they had been promised a "quiet circuit," a milk-run under the protection of the Crown’s regalia where no one would dare lift a hand. They were soldiers of luck, now finding themselves in the mire.
Their eyes, already wide with shock, nearly bulged from their sockets as the dust cloud finally thinned.
It wasn’t just a raiding party. It wasn’t just a few desperate bandits. Emerging from the haze were dozens upon dozens of riders, their armor glinting with a professional sheen that no outlaw could afford. They were mounted on heavy, froth-mouthed chargers, and they didn’t just have the speed, they also had the numbers.
All that rose upon the caravans of more than 50 people as they saw and witnessed their death, were only a few words which came from the very man that had gotten them to this deep end.
’’Gods above protect us...’’
