Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1000: Loss from Grace(4)

Korgas found himself paralyzed. For all his bluster, no words came. What answer could a man give to an ultimatum that had been laid across his throat like a razor?

To rage against it was to invite the extinction of his lineage. To make good on his threats was to watch the foreigners paint the hills red with Valakii blood. Yet, to retreat with a bowed head was to be branded a coward before his own household guard, men who lived and breathed by the code of the warrior. He stood in a suffocating hole, hoping against hope that the shadows of the afternoon would hide his trembling hands.

He remained a man without an answer, but in the brutal logic of war, silence is its own form of surrender.

Jarza accepted the concession.

The Legate nudged his monstrous steed forward. The beast’s breath was a hot, rhythmic steam that puffed against Korgas’s face, smelling of grain and iron. The Chieftain of the Valakii, who had come to this field clamoring for a feast of crows, now stood meekly in the shadow of the animal’s chest, absorbing the weight of a public humiliation. Jarza spared a single, accusatory glance toward Varaku before letting out a long, heavy sigh.

"It seems that today, neither of us shall be men of our word," Torghan relayed. There was a faint trace of relief in the younger Chorsi’s voice; he, at least, had no desire to see the valley turned into an abattoir. "I am glad to see the spirits will not be forced to witness the erasure of your people. With the sourness of our introduction behind us, I believe we can begin to build the bridge that will span the chasm of our conflict."

Korgas bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted copper. A sharp nudge from Volar’s elbow forced him to find his voice.

"We... we are glad of it also," Korgas stammered, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. "We wish no ill upon you."

Jarza let out a short, sharp snort, a sound that could have been a chuckle or a growl. He spoke a few clipped sentences, his gaze never leaving Korgas’s eyes.

"Nothing brings men closer than the threat of damnation upon their house, it would seem," Torghan translated with a grim irony. "In that regard, be assured the Prince wishes no ill upon you either. However, the Legate believes a great deal of work lies ahead. He brings with him changes that will reshape these hills forever."

Korgas felt a new chill settle in his bones. "What changes?"

"Big ones," Torghan replied laconically. He offered no further detail, his face an impenetrable mask that suggested he, too, was merely perhaps a passenger on this ship of transformation. "But the army you see is weary from the march. They have traversed the lowlands and the crags to reach you. Dialogue will commence only after they have taken their rest."

Korgas felt a surge of relief that the day was ending without a slaughter. He exhaled a breath he felt he had been holding since dawn. "We shall see ourselves tomorrow morning, then. We shall meet here on this ground once mo—"

"There is no need for that," Torghan interrupted, his voice cutting through the Chieftain’s words. "We shall make camp within the shadow of your own village."

Korgas’s head snapped up. He looked at Torghan, then at the towering Jarza, with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock, as if he had been told the outsiders intended to bed his daughters and sons in the same breath. He turned his eyes toward Varaku, his voice rising in a desperate pitch.

"You would have us host these outsiders? Men who came to our borders bearing steel and threats? What sort of fool do you take me for, Varaku? To bring the wolf into the sheepfold while the blood on his maw is still wet?"

"If we are to be brothers, chieftain, it would do well for you to begin by trusting us with more than just your insults,it is from us the steel you wear comes from..." Torghan replied, speaking now on his own behalf without the legate’s input, his tone hard and uncompromising.

"Custom dictates that no outsider may—"

"Customs are as malleable as clay if one has the mind to shape them," Torghan said, stepping closer. "They are birthed by one generation and discarded by the next; they live and die by the needs of the people. Is it not better to see a few old ways disappear into the mist than to see your entire culture washed away in a river of blood? You asked for a bridge, Korgas. This is the first stone."

Korgas remained frozen.

Suddendly the silence of the valley was suddenly shattered by a single, sharp bark of command from the obsidian giant.

Then, the nightmare began to breathe.

The black-lacquered lines of the First Legion began to move. They did not break formation as they began to grind forward.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" Korgas shrieked, his voice cracking like a dry reed barely above the sounds of more than a thousands foot battering the ground.

Thump Thump Thump.

Behind him, his son and his bloodguard watched with glazed eyes, rooted to the spot .

Korgas lunged toward the Legate, but Torghan moved with the fluid speed of a hunting cat, barring the Chieftain’s path with a heavy, unyielding arm across his chest.

"The Legate has already declared where the host shall rest," Torghan said, his eyes hard as flint. "He has ordered his men forward. Whether that march takes them through a path opened by your wisdom, or over a road paved with the broken bones of your kin, depends entirely upon the speed of your surrender. Look at them, Korgas. They do not tire. They do not hesitate. I suggest you let swiftness be your only counsel."

"Varaku! What is this madness? Command them to halt!" Korgas turned his desperate gaze to the elder Chorsi.

"My son has told you the truth of it," Varaku replied, his voice a weary sigh as he looked at the oncoming storm. "The leash has been slipped. The matter is no longer in my hands, only yours."

Thump. Thump. Thump. The spear-tips, leveled and gleaming, looked like the teeth of a great, metallic serpent hungry for the pass.

Korgas bit his lip until the blood ran, tasting the bitter salt of his own failure. He looked at the obsidian giant, who sat motionless atop his war-beast, watching the world burn with the indifference of a god.

"I understand!" Korgas roared, his pride finally shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. "You shall camp where you wish! "

But the lines did not stop.

The iron tide rolled on.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"It is not to us you should scream your submission," Varaku muttered, turning his back on the Chieftain to watch the approach of the First. "The Legate is not of a mind to waste another grain of sand on your indecision. He has given the order, and it will not stop until the objective is reached."

Varaku looked at the terrified men of the Chieftain’s bloodguard

"If you wish to save your brothers from being trampled into the mire," Varaku said, his voice dropping into a somber, funereal tone, his eyes becoming tired as he, too found the sight unwanted, "I suggest you choose your swiftest runner. Send him to the pass. Tell your men to cast down their spears and make way.

The Shadow of the East has come to your valley, and it will not be stayed by the cries of a single man or a thousand if that were to matter...."

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Their orders were stripped of nuance: the path forward was chosen. If the lines of the tribesmen did not part like a curtain, the legionaries would carve a red road through the center of their world. One way or another, they would claim the road.

There was no battle cry. No savage roar rose from the throat of the First. There was only the rhythmic, bone-deep thud of an iron-shod boot meeting the dust, a sound multiplied two thousand times, echoing off the valley walls until it sounded like the heartbeat of the mountain itself.

Two hundred paces remained between the iron wall and the meat wall of the tribesmen.

The front-line legionnaires adjusted their grip on the pila, their fingers tightening around the wood and heavy lead. The rules of engagement were written in blood: at thirty paces, the sky would turn to iron as the javelins were loosed.

One hundred and fifty paces.

The legionaries were now close enough to hear the human signs of their foe. They heard the frantic, whispered prayers to mountain spirits, the confused whimpers of young men, and the clatter of shivering spears. It invoked no pity. The legionnaire was not a man; he was a cog, and a machine feels no remorse for the harvest it reaps.

One hundred paces.

The subcenturio’s whistles blew a sharp, chilling note. The front ranks hunched their shoulders, locking their oval shields together until they formed a seamless wall of black-lacquered wood and iron. They steeled their hearts, leaning into the weight, preparing for the bone-shattering "push" that would ground the Valakii into the dirt.

Fifty paces.

The javelins were raised. The light caught the barbed points, wicked things designed to bend upon impact, trapping a man behind his own useless shield. Death stood on its toes, ready to leap.

It was then, at forty paces, that the Valakii line finally splintered.

Like the Red Sea parting before the biblical Moses, the tribesmen scrambled backward, tripping over their own feet in a desperate, panicked rush to clear the center. But their power derived not from a god, but from a man who had risen from the mud to seize the stars. The gap opened wide, a hollow canyon of dust between two trembling masses of mountain warriors.

Through this narrow corridor of humiliation and submission, the First Legion proudly marched, head tall, sovereigns of this new world. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Both sides, regardless of allegiance or origin, bore witness to the dying gasps of an era. For the Valakii, it was the end of the old ways. For the Yarzat, it was the moment they saw the colour of the piooners of the new way.

And as the black-and-white stripes along with the Falcon and the Fish passed through the ranks of the broken tribesmen, the shadow it cast was long, dark, and above all etched to last.

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Author’s note:

Hey guys!Just noticed this will be the 1000th Chapter. Never thought I would be so attached to this story. I thank each of you for your support.

Don’t have much to say, so I think I will end this with something about me.

I particularly like oranges and bananas.

Make of that what you will.

See you at the next!