Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Valen walked the winding dirt road that cut through the heart of the reclaimed settlement, his boots crunching softly against loose gravel and dust. The settlement ,once charred, screaming, and soaked in misery, was quiet now. It had changed little in shape since the Chorsi retook it last year, but the air was no longer stained with weeping or distant cries.

There was peace now. Uneasy, perhaps, but peace all the same.

They had arrived just half an hour ago, yet already his men had settled in with the ease of soldiers who had spent years in similar places. Most stayed in tight groups, content with their own company, but here and there Chorsi warriors approached, exchanging halting greetings in the fractured tongue that had grown between them over three years of cohabitation.

Valen watched as a Chorsi warrior slapped the back of a Yarzat soldier, the two laughing over a joke neither probably fully understood. He couldn't help but be surprised, pleasantly so. He remembered vividly the first time their people had met, mistrust hanging thick in the air like fog, hands never straying far from hilts, eyes narrowed, posture stiff.

Now, he saw Yarzat troops squatting around a bunch of wild apples the Chorsi had brought as gifts. The fruit was gnarled and bitter, Valen had tasted them before, but the men laughed all the same as they bit in.

Some winced, others forced a swallow, and a few spat it out in mock agony, only to try another with grinning defiance. Even that simple ritual seemed to bridge something unspoken between them.

Up ahead, their new ally,tall and imposing, walked just a few steps before the governor of Salthold. The great chieftain paused, glancing over his shoulder as one of his own men laughed raucously, gesturing toward the Yarzat soldiers, apples in hand, before shouting something crude in his own tongue that drew laughter from both sides.

Valen let the faintest smile touch his lips. So much had changed since that first tense meeting. Back then, even a shared fire had felt like a dangerous gamble.

This was no utopia. There was still blood in the soil, ghosts behind the walls. But for the first time, the reception was warm. Warmer than he ever could have expected.

Valen's steps slowed as he heard the familiar, thunder-deep voice beside him.

"You look surprised," Varaku said, his tone even, though his voice carried the natural weight of a man used to speaking over wind and war drums.

Valen turned to him, brows raised slightly in thought, then offered a faint huff through his nose that passed for a dry chuckle.

"Does it show?" he asked, though his voice betrayed that it wasn't truly a question, more an admission.

His words came in the rough, angular syllables of the Chorsi tongue, he spoke it well enough now, if not fluently. Three years of effort had etched their language into his mind, even if it sometimes still stumbled on his tongue.

"I still remember the distance between our people," Valen continued, watching a pair of Chorsi and Yarzat soldiers clumsily exchange names over a shared skin of water. "The cold looks. The silence. The way your warriors stood with hands never far from their blades."

Varaku gave a single nod, his braided hair catching a glint of fading sunlight.

"Things were different then," he said simply, though there was a thoughtful weight behind the words. "You were strangers, foreigners with foreign customs, and strange gods. We did not know your strength. We did not know your hearts."

He paused, watching as a Yarzat soldier offered a crude but well-meaning carving of a bird,likely his attempt at a Chorsi totem, to one of the Chorsi women watching from a distance. She took it, not without suspicion, but did not refuse it.

"But now," Varaku went on, "you are friends. You come when the horn is sounded and blood must be shed. That changes things."

Valen said nothing, letting the older man speak.

"They know who we fight," Varaku added, eyes narrowing with meaning. "They know the power behind the horizon. And still, you came. Many of my warriors find that... remarkable. They whisper it around fires, calling it honor and you friends."

Valen offered a faint smile.

"Both might be true."

The Chorsi war chief let out a low laugh, deep and brief.

Valen looked away for a moment, gaze drifting toward the weathered palisade that crowned the village's southern side. He knew that the Chorsi misunderstood. They believed the Yarzat had come out of loyalty and valor. That they had responded to a call for help they were not bound to answer.

That was not the full truth.

But that was not a truth Valen needed to correct.

So he simply said: "We made an oath. And where I come from, oaths are not dust in the wind. We keep our words once spoken."

Of course, that was a lie, as with enough interest on the table, anything could be broken and betrayed.

Varaku studied him for a moment longer, then inclined his head with solemn dignity.

"You are a noble people," he said. '' Your warriors will be given a place at our fires. A place at our tables. A place among our dead, if it comes to that."

There was silence then as Valen wasn't sure how to respond. Praise, he had found, always sat uneasily on his shoulders, especially when he didn't feel it belonged to him. So he gave a simple, respectful nod.

He felt the distance closing between him and Varaku, an invisible thread tightening with each word spoken in trust, each silence shared without the need for explanation.

And he didn't like it.

Not because he disliked Varaku, he admired him, truth be told. But because the last time he had called someone a friend, they had bled out on a distant field far across the sea. All his true companions, were half a world away dead.

Here, he was alone.

And yet… that didn't mean he would betray the trust freely given. If Varaku offered the title of brother, then Valen would bear it with the dignity it deserved.

But something inside him recoiled, faint and cold.

So he changed the subject, deflecting away from the human warmth rising between them like a coward shielding himself from fire.

He did not know what the future held between his Prince and his policy with the Chorsi, perhaps one day they would be enemy.

His voice came soft and measured.

"What can you tell me about the DuskWindai?"

Varaku's expression darkened. His jaw set like stone, and his eyes, usually calm as a frozen lake, turned stormy.

"They are greedy people," he said, spitting the words like a curse. "They take what they can see and crave what lies beyond their sight. No river is deep enough to quench them, no mountain high enough to stop them."

He paused, as if seeing again the figures in the mist, the banners that came too close to Chorsi land.

"They enslave tribes. Chain the strong and break the weak. When they march to war, they do it with numbers fit for nightmares. And they always bring the same offer, live as slaves, or die like warriors."

Valen's brow furrowed.

''They made the same offer to us."

Varaku's hand tightened slightly around the pommel of his axe.

"We chose war."

Valen drew a breath. There was fire in those words, unpolished and raw, but they reminded him of something familiar. A defiance he knew intimately.

"My prince," he said quietly, "has faced men like that before. Many times. And like you, he chose war."

He looked up, steel hiding behind his calm expression.

"And he won."

Varaku nodded, but it felt dutiful. A motion of respect, not belief.

Valen felt it. That silence between a warrior's heart and a commander's duty. The Chorsi chief had yet to see what the Yarzat could do. And if Varaku had doubts, what of the warriors beneath him? Those who did not sit at the same table, who did not hear promises from the lips of emissaries?

Gods, if even their chieftain remained unsure…

Valen shook the doubt from his thoughts. He could not afford it. His future, his name, his standing, his place in the world , depended on this battle. Not just winning it, but surviving it, commanding through it. Failing here would mean not just death, but disgrace. Disgrace that would echo louder than his triumphs ever had.

He forced the uncertainty from his voice and asked plainly:

"How many march with the DuskWindai?"

Varaku's face grew grim.

"Many," he said simply. "More than us. That much is certain."

"We can win," Valen said quietly, but with the kind of weight that made it echo louder than any shout.

Varaku gave a small nod in response.

But Valen wasn't finished.

He stepped forward and, in a bold move that even startled himself a little, reached out and grabbed the chieftain's arm, firm, unflinching.

Varaku stiffened.

It was not common, for someone, much less an outsider to touch the body of a chieftain unless in duel or blood oath, but Varaku did not pull away.

"I do not say it merely to fill the air with words," Valen said, voice calm but steady as hammered steel. "We can win. I have seen armies greater than theirs broken. My prince has broken them himself, and I stood at his side fighting for his cause."

Varaku's piercing gaze locked onto his, and for a moment, the giant man said nothing. Silence stretched long and taut between them like a bowstring. Then, slowly, very slowly, a faint glimmer passed through the chief's dark eyes.

Not belief yet, but the dangerous spark of wanting to believe. The kind of hope that only visits seasoned warriors in the dark before battle.

"Do you have a plan?" Varaku asked at last, his voice quieter now, almost reverent. There was something in his tone, expectation, memory, even a trace of hunger. He was thinking of last year. Of the battle where Valen had trapped the Duskwindai chieftain's son in a gorge with fire and iron. The kind of memory that changed how a man was seen.

Valen met his eyes, and this time there was no hesitation in his nod. No bluff. No guesswork.

" I do."

Varaku stared at him for another heartbeat, then let out a long breath, deep and rumbling like distant thunder.

There was relief in that exhale.