Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1032: Carrion raven(1)

Once again alone, with his own thoughts, his own worries and his own doubts.

He looked around the room. It had been scrubbed clean, the vinegary stench of wine that had permeated the stone for months finally vanquished by lye and fresh air. Yet, as his gaze drifted to a specific patch of rug near the desk, which previously wasn’t there, his mind betrayed him.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

He looked down at the floor.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

That was the exact spot where Basil had seen him puke and fall , eyes wide with a terrifying, precocious realization, seeing the pillar of his world reduced to a shivering, broken drunkard.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

His ears began to ring, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the settling of the castle’s timber. His heart hammered against his ribcage in a frantic, violent protest against whatever it was that he was doing.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

He—

Thud. Thud.

The ringing stopped abruptly. The phantom hammer was silenced by a real-world interruption. Alpheo blinked, his vision clearing, and found himself staring down at the object he was clutching with white-knuckled intensity.

It was a small flower, or what had once been one. It was no longer an organic thing of petals and scent, but a skeletal remain of dead wood where inside the brittle stem should have technically been in . It had been twelve years since he received it from her, the first true gift of his life, and the vibrant red color had finally surrendered to a dull, dusty grey. He looked at it, and for a fleeting second, his eyes filled with a profound, aching disillusionment.

Would they ever go back to it?To that moment?

The knocking came again, persistent this time, though noticeably more hesitant. The sound acted as a key, unlocking Alpheo from the trap of his own memory.

"You may enter," he called out, his voice a dry rasp that he had to force into stability.

The heavy door groaned open. He entered with a quiet, disciplined stride, closing the door behind him with practiced discretion. His long, curled blonde locks fell gracefully down the sides of his face, though he tucked a stray strand back with a flick of his wrist to keep his vision clear.

They were growing a bit too long, Alpheo noted.

"Ever thought of getting a trim, Lucius?" Alpheo asked, his voice regaining some of its habitual edge.

"I think of it often, usually at three in the morning," Lucius muttered, adjusting the thick bundle of reports in his arms. "Though my wife remains an ardent fan of the length. She claims it makes me look less like a cutthroat and more like a poet.Mind you a woman’s tastes...For now, however, I am here to deliver something different than my married life"

"How do you find life in the capital?" Alpheo asked, reaching out to take the heavy stack of parchment. He began to scan the top pages, his eyes darting over ciphered lines and logistical lists.

"It is... softer than the field, Your Grace. That much I can say without hesitation," Lucius said, his posture relaxing only slightly. "My family is significantly happier now that I am within a mile of our hearth. It is a strange, heartening thing to see my child’s face at the end of the day rather than the mud, smelling the flowers instead of the smelly rut of bandits."

"You certainly look more rested than you did in Oizen," Alpheo remarked, his eyes still on the reports. "How are things there, by the way? It has been eighteen months since you handed the command over to Ebran."

Lucius shifted his weight. "The specifics of the Oizenian unrest are detailed on page four, under the heading of ’Threat Compliance.’"

Alpheo looked up, offering his spymaster a weary smile. "Can’t you just answer the question as a friend, Lucius? Spare me the ink for a moment."

For the first seven years of his reign, Alpheo had been his own shadow. He had woven his own web of informants, personally untangling the threads of gossip and treason. It was an exhaustive, inefficient way to rule, born of a paranoia that whispered that any man who held the keys to the state’s secrets also held the dagger to the his throat. Luckily Yarzat was not ancient Rome, it lacked the storied tradition of imperial fratricide, but still... the risk was never zero.

Eventually, the sheer volume of intelligence had threatened to drown him. He had been forced to rescind his vigilance, delegating the darkness to Lucius. It was a risk, true, but mitigated by the fact that Alpheo held the man’s heart in a velvet cage: Lucius’s family was well-cared for, which in the language of power meant they were well-guarded.

Alpheo already knew that the successor to the Spymaster could never be a noble; a high-born man came with a lineage of debts and old loyalties. No, the next Raven would be a low-born orphan plucked from the gutters, a child with no god but the Crown and no father but the state. But that was a project for a more peaceful year.

Lucius exhaled a long, weary breath before answering the Prince’s prompt. "It seems the new... addictions you provided us were significantly more difficult to integrate than our initial projections suggested."

"Is that so?" Alpheo asked, leaning back.

"The recruits from the new frontier had a staggering difficulty acclimating to their new theater. We’ve spent months laboring with the head-squadron, teaching them a brand of warfare that requires more than just crouching in a thicket with a javelin. To the units Torghan sent us, we’ve had to teach the foundational command language of the Crown’s Secret Department, its signs and method of works.

We’ve assigned each unit a secretary to handle the correspondence, but it’s a clumsy solution. It doubles our risk of exposure. If this is to be a permanent fixture of our military architecture..." he paused, locking eyes with Alpheo, "then we must make these men literate. A soldier who cannot read his own orders is a liability we cannot afford."

He paused, a flicker of distaste crossing his refined features. "As for the ruffians, pardon me, the auxiliarii, they are exactly what one would expect. Loud, unruly, and entirely unreceptive to the commands of the Voghondai officers."

A deep frown etched itself between Alpheo’s brows. "That is a discipline problem I cannot—"

"It has been addressed," Lucius interrupted, his tone a winter grave. "A few necessary examples were made. The message was received with civilized, remarkable clarity."

"A few examples of what?" Alpheo asked, though a part of him already regretted the question.

"The hole... naturally," Lucius said without batting an eye.

A cold, tingling sensation crawled up Alpheo’s spine. He knew better than to roam deeper.

"Are they... still alive?" the Prince asked quietly.

"Yes. Physically, they are " 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"That... is good enough? I suppose...." Alpheo said, though the words felt hollow.

He had harbored a distant, idealistic hope that these men might settle his lands and become productive citizens after their three-year term was served. He wondered briefly if the hole would be a repellant to that. Still, a few shattered spirits were a small price to pay for a front line that didn’t break.

"And what of the Oizenian movements?" Alpheo asked, shifting his weight as he stared into the hearth. "Are they still polishing their boots and nursing their pride, or have they finally decided to give you some real trouble?"

Lucius let out a dry, pointed exhaled. "That would be located under the ’Threat Compliance’ section of the report... old friend."

"Just answer the question," Alpheo grumbled, not turning from the fire.

"Then what is the point of me spending half the night hunched over a desk drafting these reports?"

Alpheo turned then, fixed him with a look that was equal parts exhaustion and command. "So that I may read it afterward with the clarity of context. Now answer it... please."

Lucius straightened his back, the professional mask snapping back into place. "They pose no immediate threat. My analysts see no reason to increase the risk assessment of the Oizenian patrols from a level one to a two."

Alpheo’s brow shot up. "How come?" it seemed beyond belief that after three years of friction, Sorza hadn’t even managed to cleanse his own backyard of Yarzat’s influence. "How come it hasn’t changed? It has been three years, Lucius. Are you simply that much of a magician, or are the Oizenians truly that whimpering and pathetic? How have they not caused enough chaos to earn a ’two’ on your scale?"

"It is certainly not for a lack of trying, I can assure you of that," Lucius said, the most basic hint of a smile on his lips.

Alpheo studied him. How long had it been since he’d seen Lucius truly smile? He remembered a time, back when he met Marcus, the man was all sharp wit and easy jokes. Perhaps dragging him into the suffocating atmosphere of the court had been a harsh transition, even if it was necessary to keep the nobility on their toes by reminding them that a ’Raven’ was always watching. There had been a sharp decrease in assasination attempts after all....

"It is mostly a matter of the right circumstances falling into the right positions," Lucius continued, his voice regaining its melodic smoothness. "And, of course, some judicious probing on our part. I can assure you the Oizenian Prince took the matter of our border ’irregularities’ quite seriously. He even assigned a lord to the task to see it finished once and for all."

"And?" Alpheo prompted.

"And," Lucius shrugged elegantly, "we managed to ensure that particular man was... replaced. The new appointee is of far better tastes."

"What tastes?"

Lucius shrugged again, a gesture that encompassed the universal weakness of men.

"Money."