"I see you haven’t been properly introduced," Merelao said, noticing the dawning horror on Alpheo’s face. He reached out, his fingers tangling in the knotted hair to hoist the severed head up to Alpheo’s eye level. "I thought you’d be more pleased to see the man who delivered so much death to your doorstep. But looking at you now, I see you don’t recognize the visage. A pity."

Merelao’s smile was the sweet expression of a lover presenting a bouquet of wilted flowers. "Allow me to present the Lord of Aragustoven, the architect of this misery. I recall you asked for his left hand in your terms; I hope you find his head a suitable exchange.Of course I cut his hand too , though I only have the end with me. I truly hope I haven’t disappointed you."

Disappointed? Alpheo could only stare. What the hell was he talking about?

"I suppose you wanted the pleasure of sawing it off yourself," Merelao continued, sighing as he did. "But you cannot steer a fool away from his end. You should have seen him, so high and mighty in the saddle, delivering his challenge with not a speck of blood on his dandy armor. It might warm your heart to know he begged at the last. A fitting end for such a man, don’t you think?"

He let go of the hair, and the head thudded against his breastplate again, the dead man’s open eyes staring vacantly up at the sky,forgotten once more.

He had understimated his killer no doubt, They all did , Nibadur, Lavus, Alpheo himself. They had treated the Kakunian as a secondary player, a flamboyant piece on the board to be moved at their whim.

Yet here he was, the only man on the field who seemed to be enjoying himself, steering the entire war onto a new, bloodier track. And while Alpheo had made him an ally today, he knew he had made him a catastrophic enemy for tomorrow.

How was it that no matter how hard he fought for peace, he only ever succeeded in birthing more monsters?

Alpheo wriggled away from Merelao’s heavy, blood-slicked hands, his head swimming. He looked past the golden knight, trying to find the shape of the war. "Where are my men?"

"Fighting with the teeth of hell!" Merelao cried"They’ve been shoved back, yes, but they aren’t broken. They wait for us to lend them our steel, as all good brothers should!"

"And my guard?"

"Standing with the line, perhaps? Or piling up corpses in your name! It’s a tragedy to see you blooming from the mud all alone, bare of protection in the heart of danger. You forced me to exceed myself just to reach you! But the path to heaven is always fraught with hellish stones.That is known and many were the stones I overturned to get to you."

Merelao leaned in, his eyes burning with that manic, blue fire. He never seemed so alive as after hours of slaughter.

"Do not fret over their absence. Join us, and you shall find them soon enough. We are marching straight into the furnace, and hell is still waiting for its demons yet."

In that moment, Alpheo understood the secret of the ragtag army.

It all rested on the man ahead.

But Alpheo was not a creature of passion. He was a creature of survival. His limbs were screaming, his senses were fading, and the adrenaline that had kept him upright was vanishing, leaving behind a crushing, bone-deep exhaustion.

In short he was tired.

Dead Tired.

If Merelao was here and the center was being reinforced, the battle was effectively won. The glory meant nothing to him. He didn’t want to be a war-prince or a legend; he wanted to sit in the silence and breathe air for one more day with his family. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

All he cared for is today’s victory.

"I must return to my line," Alpheo managed, his voice sounding thin and metallic within the confines of his helm. "My men do not know if their Prince is a ghost or a corpse. I am humbled they fight like lions in my absence, but I must let them see me, lest they break after giving me their all."

Merelao recoiled as if Alpheo had struck him, a gasp of offense escaping his pink-stained lips.

"Break? Break!" Merelao’s voice climbed into a rapturous shout. "What could hope to break a storm? The symphony of their steel has blessed my ears since the first light! Never has a more resilient band of bastards graced a field of slaughter. They have killed and they have died in your name, oh man of Yarzat! Would you truly slight their honor by straying from the flame now? After so long? After so much red work?"

He shook his head violently, his golden horns catching the dying light that broke through the grey cracks in the sky. "No, no, no. I will not have it. War is our time, friend! All those who hope to evade it are fools destined to feel its teeth sinking into the softest parts of what they love."

He turned to the ragtag soldiers surrounding them, his arms thrown wide as if to embrace the carnage.

"Fear writhes like a dark, muddy river from the pelvis to the tip of the spine. Scatter it! How long have you shivered in the freezing mire, your only warmth the sweat on your skin and the hot blood you reaped with your steel? How long have you stood when hope was a rotting carcass at your feet?"

He turned back to Alpheo, his eyes burning with an intensity that was like fire. "I remember a time when all I wanted was to rise. I salute you, my friend! For you gave me this august chance! Despite your wounds, despite the cold rot of your doubts, when the call came, you answered. And for that, I salute you once more!"

The soldiers swayed on his every syllable, devouring the words like starving bears finding honey. Alpheo saw men barely propped up by their spears, their faces caked in grime and gore, staring at Merelao as if he were an archangel descended to lead them into paradise.

But Alpheo knew better. No angel would spur the absolute worst of humanity to crawl out of the mud with a smile.

Unless Lucifer himself was framed among those blonde locks....

"Had you not stood," Merelao whispered, stepping into Alpheo’s personal space, the head of the Lord of Aragustoven thumping wetly against his golden chest, "those rabbles would have won. Those creatures devoid of honor or duty would have had their way with your world. You told me once you took this field to defend what is yours. Tell me,oh prince... is this not the land where your daughter, your son, and your wife draw their breath?"

He leaned in closer, his voice becoming a hiss upon his ears.

"Think of them. Think of the Habadians, the Ezvanians, and your dear cousin’s dogs. Had they broken through, do you think they would have been as ’graceful’ as we are? Your wife... a woman of such breeding?

It is known of the ravenous appetite of conquerors.

They would have passed her from hand to hand like a common cup until she was empty, pregnant with their broods. And your children? Your son would be murdered in a dark room after that dog of Habadia would preach of mercy, and your daughter... well, a lineage like hers is a currency they would spend quite greedily.No doubt there would be eager people to have their sons marry them and get that throne of Yarzat, as with the males spent the women are what remains."

Merelao’s eyes searched Alpheo’s, fanning the embers.

"They didn’t come for your throne, Alph. They came for your blood. They came to put a torch to everything that makes you a man. Will you go back to the rear now? Will you sit in the safety of a tent while the men who want to desecrate your home still draw breath a few yards away? The beast is wounded, Prince. Do not let it crawl away to heal. Go back into the press. Show them that the Fox has teeth, and let them die knowing they never should have looked toward your borders.

So go on, and forth, and kill,for today shall be a red day."

When he saw how the prince’s eyes rose like coal breathed upon, slowly and then all at once in an ever-burning fury of righteous anger, he knew his task was done. He turned instead to his men, who swayed upon his word like bears with honey.

He raised his drown red sword high over his head. "Who will follow the call one more time? Who is with me?I promise you no richness nor softness, only blood shall come from those who cross our shadows!Woe to them and honor to us!"

It is no easy thing, to convince men who have just endured a wholesale slaughter to stand up, take a breath, and march towards another one, offering them nothing but dead through the act.

But if it were an easy thing , that wouldn’t make it exceptional. and if it weren’t so it wouldn’t have amused Merelao’s interest and efforts.

But at his heart below being a creature of theater and war, he is a warrior , of the sort which so many of those bleeding men still think they are or could be, and though the words may seem hollow for those with brains , it cannot help but reach their hearts.

At once they made their answer known.