Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1008: Old acquaintances(1)

The sun hung at its zenith, a molten coin in a cloudless vault of otherwise only blue, not a cloud passed in the sun’s path, not daring to stop who was to come to light the way ahead.

Its herald stood atop a slight rise, the sea breeze tugging at his cloak, watching the result of the governor’s work

What had once been a military outpost, a collection of mud-slicked tents and sharpened stakes, had bloomed into the shape of a burgeoning harbor . To call it a city was a stretch of the imagination; it lacked the walls of Yarzat or the teeming alleys of the southern ports of Aracina. But for a frontier edge, it was a miracle.

With a population of barely thirteen hundred souls, it was a fragile toehold of civilization. Five hundred were the lifeblood: farmers breaking the stubborn soil, fishermen wrestling with the tides, and the camp followers who turned a barracks into a home. The remaining eight hundred were the iron: the garrison of Salthold, standing watch over the transition.

Four years ago, the only bath here was the salt spray of the ocean, and the harbor was nothing more than a rocky cove that broke the hulls of unwary ships. Now, stone piers reached into the water like grasping fingers, and the steam of a bathhouse rose to mingle with the mountain mist. It was a place of profound, unsettling beauty, a summer retreat carved out of a war zone.

Suddenly, the tranquil air was shattered by a cacophony of guttural shouts from the docks below.

"Vauhtia nyt!"

"Murskaan sun surkean naamasi, kusipää!"

"Kuolen tylsyyteen..."

"What a fucking ruckus they are making," Jarza muttered, raising a hand to scratch his scalp. The wind felt cool on his bare skin, a fleeting moment of peace before the noise claimed him.

"You were the one who brought those troublemakers to our door, " a gravelly voice from a half-forgotten past muttered behind him. "We were doing well enough without you mingling in my affairs."

Jarza turned, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Is that any way to address your Legate, Valen? I could have you scrubbing latrines for such a tone."

"I stopped being a soldier six years ago, in case your memory has gone as grey as your beard," the Governor of Salthold retorted. Despite the barb, the man surged forward, embracing Jarza with a strength that belied his years.

"From what the rumors tell me, you never truly hung up the sword," Jarza said, clapping the older man on the shoulder. "Killing the High Chief of the DuskWindai in combat? The boys in the First still toast to ’Strong-Arm’ Valen. You brought us honor even when you thought you were retiring to the quiet life."

"Never thought a promotion could be so damn exhausting," Valen sighed, stepping back to eye the horizon. "When they told me I’d be managing a settlement, I imagined ledgers and grain taxes, not puncturing the lungs of mountain warlords. But speaking of exhaustion, what is this nonsense I hear from the capital? Primogenia? Ardita? Aracinea?The hells are the winds that pass there?"

"Changes the Prince chose for the Legions," Jarza explained, his voice taking on a more serious tone. "Every legion now carries its own unique standard, its own identity, and its own commentarii. Alpheo believes that by giving the men a name to fight for, he fosters a lethal competition between the legions."

"And did his theory hold?"

"It did."

Valerian spat into the dirt, a glint of old fire in his eyes. "And the First? Is the old girl still the queen of the hill, or did some newcomer push us off the podium?"

Jarza snorted. "You know the answer to that. No upstart cub is going to knock the First off its throne while I still draw breath. We are the bedrock of the princedom."

"I heard we had a scuffle with the Romelians," Valern mentioned, his face darkening. "Slavers and dogs them all. Did our legion carry the day?"

"Actually," Jarza said, his voice tinged with a reluctant, prideful smirk, "it was the bastards of the Fourth who took the laurel. Edric took command and smashed the final defenses at the Fingers like he was breaking a dry twig. The lad came out of it bloodied, scarred, and covered in more honors than he knew how to carry. He even bested their commander in single combat and took him alive."

"That young cunt did all that?" Valen barked a laugh, shaking his head. "It seems like only yesterday I was cussing the skin off that ugly mug of his. That son of a bitch that didn’t know how to clean his sword.... Now he’s a Legate... Damn it, the world is shifting beneath my feet."

"You’re shifting right along with it," Jarza reminded him. "Last I recall, you were a grizzled sergeant with nothing to your name but a dented helmet. Now you’re a Lord Governor, commanding one of the Crown’s most vital assets."

"Yeah, I climbed that damn fucking mountain," Valen admitted, a touch of melancholy softening his voice. "But it’s fucking boring at the top, Jarza. I miss the mud. I miss the old boys. I miss the sound of a shield-wall locking together.What I wouldn’t do to go back there...."

Jarza looked out over the harbor, where the sun glittered on the water. "Yeah. They miss you too. Every single one of them."

"Yeah," Valerian murmured, his voice thick with the gravel of a dozen campaigns. "We were as thick as thieves, weren’t we? Iron in the blood, gold in the hand, eh? We made our own bloodydamn roads through the dirt."

He sighed, his gaze sweeping over the burgeoning harbor, the stone piers, and the smoke rising from the settlement. There was a fierce, paternal pride seeping into his tone, the look of an old man watching his grandchildren play in a house he had built with his own shattered knuckles. "Never thought I’d make it this far. I figured I’d be crow-food in some nameless ditch thirteen winters past."

"Didn’t we all?" Jarza offered a rare, genuine smile to his old lieutenant. "The gods took pity on us. They sent Alpheo our way, and he gave our lives a purpose in violence." He reached up, his fingers tracing the cold, sharp points of the holy star hanging against his breastplate, he kissed it before tugging it back inside.

"Speaking of purpose," Valerian muttered, his sentimentality evaporating as he pointed a calloused finger toward the town square. "When can I hope for us to send off these troublemakers? My patience is fraying like an old rope."

Jarza’s eyes followed the gesture. Below them, a long, serpentine line of mountain warriors, Valakii, Mashka, Chorsi, and Aranuaii, wound through the dirt streets. They were a riot of furs,and wild hair, standing in stark contrast to the disciplined rows of the legion tending to them. At the front of the line, a harried-looking clerk sat behind a stout oak table, scratching names, ages, and tribal lineages into a massive ledger.

As they watched, a particularly rash Valakii warrior let out a guttural roar, incensed that the clerk had dared to grab his hand and press his thumb into a bowl of black ink. The savage was of course then manhandled to the ground by two legionaries and beaten with stick.

No one dared raised a grumble after that.

"We made a final count this morning," Valerian said, rubbing his temples. "four hundred and seventeen of them."

Jarza let out a long, low whistle of surprise. "A hell of a haul. The Prince expected a trickle; we’ve given him a flood."

"And how long before I can wash my hands of this flood? They eat like locusts, Jarza. I’ve got a settlement to run, and I can’t be playing the generous host forever. If we start depending too heavily on grain shipments from the mainland, we’re vulnerable. I need these savages on a boat and out of my stores."

"The Prince will be more than happy with the numbers, Valerian. It’s a fine harvest of steel."

"Yeah yeah, always good the prince eh? Hey, kill a doubt of mine ," Valerian said, turning to Jarza with a skeptical squint. "Just how useful are they, truly? You’ve got more experience with the mountain-folk than most. The lad who did the talking at the council, Varaku’s boy, he’s a Voghondai now, isn’t he? Wait... bloody hell, isn’t he my brother-in-law? Or soon to be?"

"That makes two of us, then," Jarza replied absently, his mind on the logistics.

Valerian froze, staring at Jarza as if the Legate had suddenly grown a second head. "Oh, fuck. Are we... are we relatives now?"

"Not of blood, thank the gods," Jarza chuckled. "But yes, I suppose we’ll be brothers-in-law in a fashion. Your sons will be cousins to mine. The family tree is getting a bit tangled in the roots, wouldn’t you say?"

"Bloody fucking hell!" Valerian barked a laugh, slapping his knee. "Who would have said it? Me, related to the Great Jarza. I’ll never hear the end of it from the boys. But tell me true, are they any good in a real fight? Or are we just feeding hundreds of mouths for the sake of a parade?"

"They fight differently than we do, Valerian. If it were a contest of lines, we’d make short work of them, well, not easily, but the Legion would win the day. But their expertise lies where ours fails. The Legions are the anvil; we are made to hold the ground and push the wall. These Auxiliaries? They are the hammer. They are designed to break the line with a single, terrifying charge. They trade in shock and the kind of primal fear that makes an enemy drop his shield before the first blow is even struck."

"Yeah, I saw the Varaku boy," Valerian mused, his eyes drifting back to the line. "Bloody hell, he’s become a scarred colossus. It seems like only yesterday I saw him as a whelp with mucus running down his nose and a wooden stick to lead his herd.... Now he looks like he could wrestle a bear and win.Fucking hell...and you are going to get more of those"