Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 998: Loss from Grace(2)

"This is an outrage! An abomination!"

The roar came from a boulder of a man, his voice a landslide of gravel and fury.

Korgas, Chieftain of the Valakii’s voice was lost in the valle as he marched at the head of twelve hundred warriors flowing through the mountain pass outside his home. Not long ago, they had been the shackled subjects of the Duskwindai; now, they marched under their own name, having clawed their freedom from the wreckage of the old world’s collapse.

But there was no triumph in their stride. Instead, a thick, suffocating dread clung to their ranks like a mountain mist. The vanguard of the Valakii wore the chainmail of the Golden Lands of the east, the links glinting like snake scales under the cold sun, and carried blades of the same alien steel. Yet, despite their superior arms, the men looked to one another with hollow eyes.

"Those scoundrels! Those sons of wolves and carrion birds!" Korgas bellowed, his face a mask of purple rage. It was a desperate performance, a frantic effort to shroud the cold knot of terror tightening in his gut.

"Father, I beg you, wait!" Volar, the Chieftain’s eldest, lunged forward, his fingers catching on the ornate steel plates of his father’s breastplate. "Maintain your reason! Do not call for blood that will drown us all!"

"Reason?" Korgas spat, twisting his shoulder with a violent jerk to throw off his son’s grip. "Reason died the moment those outsiders dared to pitch their silk tents upon our sacred hills! This is your shame, boy! You, who salivated over the honeyed lies the Chorsi dogs fed us. You, who whispered of prosperity while they were whetting the blade for our throats!"

"Lies?" Volar’s voice cracked at the guilt that was being thrown his way. "Look at our men, Father! Dozens of our kin stand armored in steel that does not shatter! Our blades are sharper than the winter wind! Was this not the promise they made of us? That we would stand as equals? That we would fight alongside them , not beneath them?"

"I recall the promise of a brother!" Korgas retorted, his eyes wild as he gestured toward the horizon. "A promise that they would rise in our defense as we would in theirs. Now, look at the field. Look at which side of the valley our ’brothers’ have chosen."

As if the heavens themselves were answering the accusation, the horizon began to ripple.

First came the banners, long, predatory strips of black and white that fluttered in the April wind like the wings of a magpie. Beside them, held aloft on a spear that seemed to touch the clouds, flew the sigil of the Falcon, its wings spread in a posture of infinite, cold defiance and domination, inviting all challengers forward , to test the sharpness of its claws and shed their blood.

Then came the sound. It was not the chaotic shouting of a tribe, but a rhythmic, soul-crushing thrum of a true army. It was the sound of a machine made of meat and iron. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thousands of boots hit the earth in perfect unison, a heartbeat of impending doom that made the very stones beneath the Valakii tremble and heart drums against their chest.

Death! Thump. Thump. Thump. Death! Thump. Thump. Thump.

The First Legion of Yarzat consumed the landscape with their presence alone. They came in a black forest of javelins, a phalanx of interlocking shields that looked like the impenetrable skin of a great, metallic serpent. There was no gap in their lines, no flaw in their discipline. Behind the wall of shields, the sunlight died against the matte black and white of their breastplates, as if even the light couldn’t survive where Yarzat’s legions passed .

And at the center of this iron tide rode the eater of nations, Jarza, the Legate, a mountain of steel atop a beast of war, his presence alone turning the warm spring air into the chill of a tomb. The Valakii were warriors of the hill, but they were looking now at the end of an age and the start of another in which they were unfortunate enough to live in.

The fire that had fueled Korgas’s rage was snuffed out, as if a winter gale had descended upon a fluttering candle,extiguishing all hope of light. In its place, the cold, stark terror of reality took root. His son, Volar, saw the flickering of his father’s eyes and pressed the advantage, his voice a desperate plea to stave off the annihilation of their bloodline.

"Father, gaze upon them! Gaze and look well, and then turn to me and say that if we take this field, we shall see the sunset!Gaze upon your own brethren and tell them they shall lose their tribe on this day! " Volar’s voice was a jagged rasp of urgency. He grabbed his father’s heavy cloak, forcing the older man to look past the pride and into the iron teeth of the Legion. "Look at me and confirm before the spirits of our ancestors that you will condemn our tribe to the worms, not for glory, not for land, but because you were too proud to use your tongue!"

Volar wetted his dry lips, his heart thundering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The sheer scale of the army before them was a weight he could barely breathe under.

"The Chorsi sent word, Father. They have chosen. They stand with the outsider, for it is from them they get their steel. We are alone on these hills, no other tribe will march to the sound of our drums. We wear the very steel the outsiders forged! If the Chorsi alone were enough to break our Duskwindai masters, what hope do we have against the Chorsi and the might of the sea-people combined?

Even if by some miracle of the gods we broke their line, what would we accomplish? We would be a people without a patron, surrounded by the Chorsi who seek vengeance and the Duskwindai who will make sport of our children for our betrayal. We will have no steel, no allies, and no future. Is that the fate you shall choose for us?"

He searched his father’s face, looking for a crack in the granite mask of the chieftain. Korgas’s shoulders, once broad with the arrogance of command, seemed to slump beneath the weight of his own armor. The hope of victory left him all at once; it drained away, leaving him hollow.

"What other choice is there?" Korgas asked, his voice barely a whisper, the sound of a man who had already seen his own grave and was simply counting the seconds before being thrown on it.He was finally seeing his son’s point.

"Words!" Volar declared, the word ringing out like a clarion call as if it was the answer to everyone’s problem, which most of the time was.

"Let us see what the outsider demands and hold the Chorsi to the oaths they swore!Let us remind it of them and see if they can intercede with the monsters of the outside. We know why we are on this field. I warned you against the folly of insulting the Envoy of the sea-people, but that path is behind us now. What can they truly want from us? They have no herds to graze our grass; they have no hunger for our thin soil where nothing but weeds grow. Let us see if the slaughter can be evaded, for if we march another step in anger, death is the only truth that shall remain.

We already bowed once already to a cruel tribe, what shame is there in doing less to gain more?Have two years of peace and freedom grown our spines to be unbendable when once it were made of sand?"

Korgas looked at the black wall of the First Legion, then back at his son. The pride of a chieftain fought one last, losing battle against fear of death. Finally, he gave a slow, somber nod. "We shall see what they wish for. If they seek a kingdom, they shall find a graveyard, but if they seek a bargain... we shall listen."

Korgas turned to his men, signaling for them to halt to the relief of a thousand. The command rippled through the Valakii ranks like a sigh of relief. With a small, hand-picked band of household guards, the Chieftain and his son began the long, harrowing walk across the no-man’s-land toward the black tide of the First Legion and the betrayers.

The silence of the valley was absolute. On one side, twelve hundred tribesmen held their breath; on the other,a thousand professional killers watched them approach with the cold, unblinking eyes of predators. As they drew closer, the sheer scale of the Legionaries grew more oppressive, the black and white-lacquered shields and the towering height of the Legate on his warhorse looming over them like a judgment from the gods who was moments away from smiting all of them to their deaths.

And at their sides just as both son and father had feared, the great betrayers took their place.