Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The air outside the tent was crisp despite the cold, heavy with the scent of pine smoke and distant roasting meat. The fires of the camp burned steadily in long lines across the field, their orange glow bathing everything in a warm haze. Alpheo walked with steady, relaxed steps through the packed earth paths between rows of tents, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. Beside him, walking a little more rigidly was Arnold.

The lord glanced around warily, eyes drifting from group to group of soldiers laughing over cups of wine or dozing in front of fire pits.

"…Is it really wise to walk around without guards, Your Grace?" he asked cautiously

Alpheo gave a short, unbothered laugh. "There's no safer place than this camp. Unless, of course"—he cast a sly glance his way—"you're suggesting I should be worried about my choice of companion."

Arnold blinked, unsure whether to laugh or bow. Instead, he looked at his side and cleared his throat. "If you prefer, I could offer you my sword."

Alpheo shook his head, the motion loose and easy. "No need. If you were to try anything , I've got half a thousand blades within shouting distance. You could easily kill me, but by the time you retrieved your sword from my guts, you would be captured and probably tortured to death..."

They passed a small group of soldiers gathered around a dice game, laughter and curses echoing into the night. Arnold's boots kicked a stray pebble that skittered ahead of them toward the camp's edge.

He tried not to think about what Alpheo just said.

As they neared the outer boundary, where the tents gave way to a palisade of sharpened stakes and a crude wooden gate, a voice barked out from the darkness.

"Oi! No one's allowed past the gate without clearance! And if you're trying to take a shit, go to the latrines like everyone else!"

There was a pause.

Alpheo chuckled, walking closer to the flickering torchlight. "And what if we asked for an exception?" he said, letting his tone turn light, almost playful as he stepped into view.

The guard squinted toward them, stepping forward—and then stopped so suddenly he nearly tripped over his own spear.

"Y-your Grace?!"

Alpheo lifted a brow. "In the flesh. Or do you still want to direct me to the latrines?"

The man visibly paled, then scrambled to straighten himself, thudding the butt of his spear into the ground and bowing low. "Forgive me, Your Grace! I—I didn't recognize—gods, I didn't mean—"

Alpheo waved a hand, brushing the moment away like dust on a cloak. "Easy. You're doing your job. And I appreciate that. Why aren't you at the feast?"

The soldier grimaced like he'd bitten into a lemon. "Drew the short straw, my prince. First shift."

Alpheo nodded solemnly, though his smile lingered. "Fate's cruel mistress. And what about our little exception?"

"O-of course, Your Grace! Please!" the man rushed to unlatch the gate, fumbling with the stick barring the way.

As it creaked open, he straightened again, trying to recover some dignity. "Would you like me to send someone to accompany you?"

Alpheo shook his head with the ease of someone completely at home in command. "That won't be necessary. Just enjoy the quiet while it lasts."

The guard bowed deeply, then hesitated a moment. "May your walk be peaceful, Your Grace. Would you… would you like my torch?"

Alpheo offered him a warm, almost amused smile. "That would be very kind of you."

He accepted the torch with a casual grace, the firelight flickering across the gold trim of his cloak as he saluted the guard.

"May time pass quickly," he added with a chuckle, "so you can make it back before they drink all the good wine."

The soldier laughed nervously and bowed again, grateful and dazed. With a slow creak and the grind of hinges, the gate opened, and Alpheo stepped through, his silhouette briefly backlit by the fire.

Arnold followed behind, his posture stiff and uncertain as the gate shut behind them with a heavy thud. They were alone now—just two figures in the starlit openness of the field beyond the camp. The stars above were like frozen sparks, and the moon hung low, casting long shadows across the frosty grass.

The cold wind slapped them both with equal disrespect. Arnold shivered and instinctively hunched his shoulders, pulling his cloak tighter around him, while Alpheo barely reacted, used to harsher climates and colder nights.

A silence stretched between them, broken only by the crunch of boots on frozen earth. After a few paces, Alpheo turned slightly, catching Arnold casting an odd glance his way.

"Is anything the matter?" Alpheo asked, the torchlight making his raised brow more pronounced.

Arnold blinked and looked away, embarrassed. "Apologies, Your Grace. I didn't mean to stare."

"You did," Alpheo replied dryly, though without anger. "Still, you haven't answered the question."

Arnold hesitated, then gave a sheepish nod. "I suppose I'm just… surprised. At how different you are from the image I had of you."

Alpheo chuckled lightly. "And what image was that, exactly?"

"Well… ever since we took up arms against you, we've lost every battle. Back home, you're seen as this… cold, unstoppable general. A man without mercy. Stories still spread of you beheading Lord Vroghios after the siege of Darska."

"Ah yes," Alpheo muttered with a smirk, "the turncloak with more crimes on his soul than hairs on his chest. He betrayed three prince by the time I got to him—he earned the axe."

Arnold nodded slowly, clearly still trying to reconcile the man beside him with the monstrous legend.

"I suppose," Alpheo continued, "watching me banter with that poor gatekeeper confused the image a bit?"

Arnold gave a weak smile. "A little."

"I grew up among soldiers, Arnold," Alpheo said, adjusting the torch in his hand though he did not specify on which side he grew up. "Slept beside them, bled with them, stole food with them when we had no supplies. Nobles... they wear masks. Soldiers have needs as clear as day: to drink, to eat, and to bed someone who doesn't cry halfway through."

Arnold coughed awkwardly at that, but Alpheo pressed on.

"I make sure my soldiers are satisfied in those simple needs, and in return, they fight for me with a fire no other army in this world can conjure. Not from gold, not from titles, not from flags. That is the loyalty I prize."

They walked in silence for a moment more, only the distant sounds of the camp and the rustle of dry grass underfoot filling the night.

"I can be a monster when I need to," Alpheo added, his voice lowering, now touched by something colder. "But I don't indulge in cruelty for its own sake. I believe in order. I believe in peace earned by steel. And if I must stain my hands to forge it, then so be it. Evil can be good on its own right if used for the right ends."

Arnold said nothing for a while, only nodded, trying to absorb the weight of the man he had once considered his enemy.

Then, curiosity crept in again.

"Earlier, when we left the tent… you recited something. A poem, I think? What was it? It sounded foreign."

Alpheo's expression softened with something almost nostalgic.

"Just some old verses," he said. "Lines from a poem of my homeland. I was born in the mountains. We spoke a different tongue there—a rough, ancient dialect. It made learning the 'true' tongue a challenge when I left."

"What were the lines about?" Arnold asked carefully. "If I may."

"They tell of a man," Alpheo said, turning his gaze toward the sky, "who, after passing through the very depths of human misery—betrayal, despair, the absolute worst man can be—finally emerges... and is granted a glimpse of what good mankind can still aspire to."

Arnold looked up at the stars as well, the sky vast and clear, listening.

"Do you believe man is evil, Your Grace?"

Alpheo smiled, but his eyes were unreadable.

"Didn't philosophers argue about that for centuries?Isn't it presumptuous for me to say that I know the answer?"

"I meant… your own opinion."

Alpheo's torch flickered in the wind. "I believe man is capable of anything. Great kindness. Great horror. The question is always—what do they choose, and what do they fear enough not to choose?"

They walked a few paces more, the torchlight bouncing gently in Alpheo's grip, casting dancing shadows along the grassy path. The wind had quieted slightly, though it still tugged at their cloaks with cold fingers. Arnold kept glancing sideways, clearly still pondering Alpheo's words, as if unsure whether to speak or keep silent.

Alpheo broke the quiet first.

"I don't believe men are born evil," he said at last, his tone less declarative and more reflective now, like someone unraveling thoughts he's carried for years. "Nor do I believe they're born good. It's not written into our blood like some divine script.The gods do not throw a coin to decide how to make a man's soul."

Arnold looked to him, listening intently.

"It depends," Alpheo continued, "on how they are raised. What they learn. What they're taught to value. Their station, their struggles. Their victories. Their losses. Men are shaped like river stones—worn smooth by the currents of their lives."

He paused a moment, eyes scanning the horizon as if he saw the whole world in its complexity.

"Most people believe man to be evil," he went on, "because it is easier to be cruel when the world is cruel to you. It takes far more strength to be kind when life has given you every reason not to be.

That's why evil seems more common and natural—it requires less effort, less courage.

It's the lazy man's morality."

Arnold looked down at the dirt beneath their feet, absorbing the weight of those words.

"I am not a good man, Arnold," Alpheo admitted plainly, and Arnold looked up again with surprise. "I have done terrible things. Things I will answer for one day. But I aspire to be good. That is the difference. I treat my friends well. I give them food, land, honor, safety. I speak to them as I do to you now."

He stopped walking, and his voice cooled like metal dipped in snow.

"But I show only steel to my enemies."

Arnold tensed instinctively, his posture stiffening. Alpheo noticed and turned to face him fully, his expression unreadable in the flickering light.

"Your father was my foe," he said calmly. "If he hadn't bent the knee, hadn't prostrated himself in front of me on that field, I would have had his head struck clean from his shoulders without ceremony. Just another name carved into stone."

Arnold visibly paled at that, his breath catching.

Alpheo stepped forward—not aggressively, but with a firmness that made Arnold straighten up.

Then, he placed a gloved hand on the man's shoulder.

"Calm yourself," he said, almost gently. "If I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the night air, with stars over our heads."

Arnold managed a nod, though tension still clung to him like frost.

"I've kept an eye on you for some time," Alpheo continued. "You've always seemed reasonable. Disciplined. Smart. You did not follow your father's every whim, and I've seen your skill in court and in command."

He gave Arnold's shoulder a small pat before letting go and stepping forward again, letting the torch lead the way.

"I like that in a man," he said. "Reason. Talent. Composure."

Arnold exhaled slowly, his nerves slowly unwinding.

"Perhaps that's the only reason I showed mercy," Alpheo mused aloud. "Because I saw in you a man who might be useful."

He looked back with the faintest hint of a smile. Not cruel, not mocking—just honest.

"I've risen as high as I have not just because of my strength, but because I always surrounded myself with those whose skills I could use. I make room for excellence. And I repay loyalty with power."

Arnold slowed to a halt, the grass bending beneath his boots as he lingered behind. His mind reeled, trying to balance the weight of the words Alpheo had just delivered—words that danced on the line between warning and wisdom, between threat and strange, twisted mercy.

The prince was not an easy man to understand.

"I thank you, Your Grace," he said finally, his voice low but steady, unsure however if that was the right sentence . "I shall repay your kindness for having spareed my life with my loyalty."

Alpheo didn't turn at first. He simply stood ahead, torch held high, the flame casting a slow glow on the side of his face. Then he spoke—quietly, almost contemplatively.

"Loyalty and gratitude… easy things to say in the moment." He looked over his shoulder, eyes catching Arnold's in the flickering light. "And perhaps you mean them now. Perhaps you are truly grateful. But time has a way of turning thanks into resentment. Memory softens the sharpness of fear and makes old loyalties feel like chains."

Arnold opened his mouth, then closed it again. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't sound like a lie or a plea.

"I'd hate to see you become one more name in the long list of men I had to cut down," Alpheo continued, his tone not cruel, just weary. "So let me offer you something better than a threat—a warning, and perhaps a favor."

He stepped closer again, enough that the torch lit both their faces.

"One day, you'll be given a choice. It will come cloaked in what looks like opportunity—a moment when the realm seems weak, when the nobles bicker, when I appear distracted, distant, or vulnerable. Maybe it'll come with whispers of rebellion, or a tempting alliance. Maybe someone will even say, 'Now is your chance, Arnold. Take back what your family lost.Do you feel pride at bowing to the man that took everything from you?' Rise and take what is yours."

"That moment," Alpheo said, his voice dropping, "will feel like fate extending a hand to you. Like the stars themselves are aligning in your favor. And it will be so, so tempting to reach for it. So close , so rich and so easy to grab"

He let that idea hang in the air, then slowly shook his head.

"But you must not."

His eyes were hard now. Not angry, but unrelenting.

"For what you will reach for will be poisoned. That hand of fate will turn out to be a blade aimed at your back. Because no matter how fractured things seem… no matter what storms rise against me… I will always find a way to prevail."

The wind kicked up again, tugging at their cloaks. The stars above shimmered, quiet and ancient.

"And when I do," Alpheo said, "I will repay kindness with kindness… and betrayal with retribution. In full.

So when that day comes—and it will come—remember this walk," Alpheo said, softer now. "Remember the quiet of the fields. Remember the breath of winter on your neck. Remember these stars—clear and distant and silent witnesses to this night, and remember , above all, with whom you would rather fight."

He turned and resumed walking, leaving Arnold a moment behind in the dark, with the torchlight flickering farther down the path.

After a moment's hesitation, Arnold followed; with the stars stayed fixed above them, watching still, the lives that had seen themselves repeated thousands of times already.