Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 647: Caesar would be proud(1)

How much I hate sieges, Alpheo mused grimly as he strode out from the central command tent, his boots crunching over the dried grass and mud of the encampment stretched before the city’s towering gates.

The scent of sweat, horse shit, and smoldering campfires filled the air, a familiar perfume of war one that he had grown accostumed to since he had been a boy-slave that followed the Imperial army in their many campaigns.

Around him, soldiers not assigned to immediate duties found a thousand ways to battle the second most dangerous enemy in a siege: boredom.

Groups clustered beneath makeshift awnings, rolling dice over worn pieces of wood, polishing armor that would not see use today. Others simply stared at the stones of the city, their minds drifting to distant homes and better meals.

Alpheo was not a man prone to many complaints. He understood the value of patience—had learned it through fire and blood, through nights without sleep and years without comfort. But that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. And of all the things he loathed, sieges were near the top. Not for their danger—he had faced worse odds and won—but for their dull, suffocating stretch of time.

Time is the one thing I’ve never managed to kill. He would comment on the first week of every siege he would take part in

As he passed, soldiers straightened to attention, offering quick salutes—not just with their hands, but with their eyes, the kind that held a quiet reverence of a man having full trust in their superior.

Of course, many hid their wrongdoings; dice were tucked away mid-roll, idle conversations silenced, and boots snapped together in respect. These men, many of them young and freshly mustered, regarded him with the kind of admiration usually reserved for statues or legends.

He returned their salutes with a measured nod, acknowledging each with the subtle grace of command. He did not smile, did not speak. For this new generation of soldiers—barely tested, not yet blooded—that nod alone was worth more than any flowery praise.

They were not the old guard that had retired. Not the grizzled veterans who had marched with him since the days of Arlania, when the sands burned beneath their feet and they had no clear direction on where to go , only Alpheo, the escaped slave, knew where they were to go.

Those men—scarred, lean, weathered by wars and whips—had still called him by name in quiet moments, and he never minded. How could he? They had earned that right a thousand times over in blood and pain.

Some of them still camped near his tent, still watched over him like older brothers or loyal dogs, and sometimes, when the nights grew long and the wind carried the scent of old deserts, he would share a few words with them.

But this new crop—their backs unscarred, their blades too polished—knew only the legend, not the man. To them, that small nod meant the world.

Alpheo walked past the last row of tents, reaching the earthworks at the front. From here, he could see the city walls in the distance, silent and unmoving as if calling them forward. The banners on the towers fluttered, bearing a crest that no longer inspired fear in the eyes of the soldiers who had beaten it into the ground.

"Quite the city, huh?" Jarza muttered, his deep voice rumbling behind Alpheo like distant thunder.

The Peasant Prince didn’t need to turn around to answer. His eyes were still fixed on the grey silhouette of the capital, its walls rising like the shoulders of some ancient beast. "Two rings of walls," he said, voice even but heavy with consideration. "The first stands five meters tall, thick as a winter forest. The second not much lower, but older and harder to crack. At Aracina, Shamleik threw hundreds at stone half as high and lost them all in three weeks. Here?" He shook his head and gave a tired half-smile. "Here we’d lose thousands. And we’d still be tossing dice in a storm."

Jarza nodded and then added as he remembered something. "You know, after we crushed the Herculeians at Arduronaven three years ago, I thought you’d gone soft for not pressing onward. We had them routed. The land ripe for taking. But now—" He nodded toward the stone colossus ahead. "Now I see why you held. If we had marched on, we would’ve run straight into this graveyard. It would’ve soured even the taste of victory."

Alpheo gave a slight chuckle. "Wisdom tastes bitter at first," he replied, "but it lingers with a much sweeter taste the longer it stays’’

They crested a shallow hill and stepped down into the open plain beyond the camp’s earthworks. Before them, a thunder of hooves beat across the field. Five hundred riders surged forward flanking long lines of peasants trudging through churned soil and broken brush. These were the displaced—once farmers, now pressed into labor, basically empting the farmland that had already been halved from the famine and peasant rebellion.

The cavalry came to a synchronized halt, dust rising in a golden-brown cloud that curled beneath the sunlight.

One rider broke from the formation, his pace unhurried, as if the battlefield were a garden path and the war itself no more troubling than weather. He leaned slightly in his saddle, the reins held loosely in one hand, the other resting on the pommel of his saddle like a man lounging by a fireplace. His horse, a tall grey destrier, moved with effortless grace.

As the figure drew nearer, Alpheo and Jarza needed no introduction.

When the rider was just a few lengths away, he dismounted with a smooth, almost theatrical ease—dropping to the ground as if descending from a throne. In an instant, his languid posture gave way to urgent motion. He strode quickly toward the two men, long black cloak trailing behind him like a shadow with its own will.

"Egil," Alpheo said, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Your absence is like a ride without a saddle, how much we have missed you."

Egil stopped just before them, brushing the dust from his shoulders with mock seriousness. His eyes, sharp and flickering with amusement, met Alpheo’s. "Would you expect anything less, Alph?" he replied with a grin. "After all, I am not your favorite?" He said as he embraced the two men, though he failed at closing his arms around the great back of Jarza.

"Two months!" Egil declared as he ended the hug , spreading his arms like a drunk bard stepping into his favorite tavern. "And yet it felt like bloody years. By the Horse, how I’ve missed the stink of real men. You wouldn’t believe the hell I’ve endured.

Those days with my dear wife were about as pleasant as wading knee-deep in horse shit—while being told it’s a blessing from the heavens."

Jarza raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. Egil, predictably, kept going.

"Only thing worth that cursed stay was laying eyes on my boy. Cute little bastard, I’ll give him that. Has my nose too. But I’ll have to work him twice as hard, the lad’s got half land-dweller blood in him. Can’t have him growing up soft and sentimental like the kind I’ve been putting to the sword since I was tall enough to swing one."

"If you’re so fond of him, maybe talk about it later," Jarza cut in, dousing the performance with his usual gravel-toned pragmatism. "We’ve got work to do. Any trouble on the road? Resistance from the locals? You’ve been burning their fields for eight weeks."

Egil snorted and spat in the dirt, the saliva landing with purpose. "The day some barefoot pig farmer grabs my cloak is the day I ride full speed into a cliff, no reins. Did you forget how I gutted those Herculeians who thought ambushing me was clever? Those backwater worms never even saw the knives." He ran a gloved hand across his neck in a slashing gesture. "This mission was smoother than a noblewoman’s thigh. Fires lit. Stores emptied. Spirits broken. Everything just as planned."

He turned to Jarza, his grin gleaming under the sweat and dust. "But since I’ve now graced you with my presence, I’d like to reclaim the time I’ve been cheated of. Speaking of which..." His eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the camp. "I see we’re missing one of our charming little socioriums, as those oil-drinking scholars from the north say . Where’s Asag?"

"Being dutiful," Jarza answered dryly. "He’s overseeing the guards for the workers. Someone has to make sure they don’t run off screaming if the enemy tries anything ."

Egil gave a short chuckle. "Well, I’ll go whisper sweet nothings to him later. But first," he turned to Alpheo with mock gravity, "I’ve got questions. Chief among them—what in the many hells of yours was the point of sending me halfway across the province like a bearded shepherd, trying to round up every miserable peasant I could find?"

He leaned forward, a brow raised. "Don’t tell me you plan to throw them at the walls and hope the defenders waste their arrows? You want a moat made of peasant guts?I am sure sickness would spread like fire on a white field..."

He scratched his beard, already half-smirking at his own theory. "Because I’ve thought it over. And I don’t see how these ragged sheep of yours become anything more than bodies piled beneath a fortress. You can’t turn sheep into dogs, Alpheo. Not even if you scream at them long enough."

Alpheo’s expression didn’t change, but a flicker of something unreadable passed behind his eyes.

"Well, thank you for your insightful observation," Alpheo said, breaking into the first real smile either of them had seen on his face in weeks. It wasn’t warm, but it was real—etched with exhaustion, grit, and a faint glint of amusement. It seemed Egil, wild and unfiltered as ever, had managed to put down roots in the prince’s demeanor.

"And much to your disappointment, I’m sure—since I know how much it grieves you to be deprived of the sight of men dying—I’ve no intention of handing those peasants a blade."

Egil’s smirk faltered slightly as if being found out.

"The only thing they’ll be holding is wood, shovels, and nails. That’s all I need of them."

He turned his gaze toward the looming silhouette of the city—those double-layered walls cutting against the horizon like the edge of a blade. "This city," he said, his voice low, reverent even, "is a fat, well-fed pig of a fortress. But even pigs squeal when starved."

Egil followed his gaze, eyes narrowing at the great stone behemoth before them. He’d stared at it countless times over the last few weeks, and yet still it felt like a mountain painted by angry gods.

Alpheo stepped forward, gesturing with a sweeping hand toward the breadth of the defenses. "She’s too large for our two thousand five hundred alone. Too big to cover appropriately each side and yet have enough strength to deter night incursions.

And I surely have no interest in bleeding when the wind is already at our back."

He looked back to Egil now, eyes hard as iron. "The worst thing in a siege isn’t the wall. It’s what creeps behind it at night. Starved men will become desperate and I don’t plan to have my soldiers be caught drinking soup with their throat slit."

He gave a small nod of thanks toward Egil. "So, believe me when I say—the sheep you herded will do just fine."

Then he turned to both men, and something changed in his voice,as it appeared more....excited perhaps?

"My friends," he said, straightening to his full height, which fell lacking of that of both men. "I’ve decided the way this beautiful city shall fall. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

I will make an Alesia out of this place."