Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 490: Rock of Aracina(3)

The iron cauldrons tilted with a metallic groan, their searing contents spilling over the battlements in a shimmering golden torrent. For one suspended moment, the boiling sand caught the morning light, glittering like liquid fire as it arced through the air. Then it found its mark.

The first screams weren’t human.

They were the shrieks of metal - the tortured hiss of superheated sand meeting cold steel armor. The battering ram crew never stood a chance. Their raised shields, so effective against arrows and stones, became instruments of their own torment. The cascading sand didn’t strike - it flowed, it crept, it insinuated itself with malicious intelligence into every gap and crevice.

An officer was the first to understand his fatal mistake. He watched in dawning horror as the golden cascade deflected off his shield... only to pour directly into the open visor of the man beside him. The soldier’s scream started deep in his chest, a guttural animal sound that rose in pitch until it shattered into incoherent shrieking. He tore at his helmet with fingers already blistering, revealing a face that was no longer a face - just a bubbling, red ruin where features had been.

All along the ram’s crew, similar scenes unfolded. The sand worked its way under collars, trickled into gauntlets, seeped through mail rings to scald the flesh beneath. A burly soldier dropped to his knees, his mouth opening in a soundless scream as boiling grains found their way down his backplate. His armor contained the agony, turning his own steel shell into a cooking pot for his living flesh.

The formation dissolved into chaos. Men who had stood shoulder to shoulder in disciplined ranks now clawed at each other in blind panic. A young soldier ripped off his gauntlet to reveal skin sloughing off in raw, pink strips. Another collapsed, his throat swelling shut as inhaled sand boiled his airways from within.

From the walls, death continued to rain. Arrows found exposed necks and backs. Stones crushed skulls no longer protected by upraised shields. The once-mighty battering ram lay abandoned, its handlers scattered like leaves in a storm - some twitching in the dirt, others running madly toward their own lines while tearing at their armor.

Men who had faced sword and spear without flinching now turned and fled from this invisible, insidious torment. They abandoned weapons, standards, even wounded comrades in their desperate retreat. The sand kept burning long after it had fallen, its victims still writhing in the dirt as their attackers dissolved into a routed mob.

Now, with the ram left discarded at the feet of their gate, it was their time to deal with it.

The gates groaned as they cracked open just wide enough for two armored figures to slip through. The first soldier moved with the precision of a veteran, his arms straining under the weight of a massive clay urn brimming with viscous, pungent oil. His companion followed close behind, clutching a pair of burning torches whose flames danced wildly.

Without ceremony, the first man upended the urn over the abandoned battering ram. Thick, amber-colored oil cascaded across the siege engine’s wooden frame, pooling in the intricate carvings of its iron-shod head before dripping onto the churned earth below. The acrid scent of rendered animal fat mixed with the metallic tang of blood still fresh on the battlefield.

The torchbearer didn’t hesitate. As soon as his comrade stepped clear, he thrust both flaming brands into the oil-slicked wood. The effect was immediate - flames roared to life with an audible whoosh, leaping up the ram’s length like some primordial beast awakened from slumber. Heat radiated outward in palpable waves, forcing the soldiers to stagger back as their armor grew uncomfortably warm.

They retreated through the gates just as the flames reached their zenith, the massive siege engine now fully engulfed in a conflagration that cast flickering orange light across the battlefield. The iron reinforcements glowed cherry-red, their once-proud sigils now indistinguishable as the fire consumed everything in its path.

From his vantage point on the walls, Asag watched the panic spread through the Oizenian ranks with the cold precision of a tactician assessing a chessboard. What had begun as an orderly withdrawal from the gate area now threatened to become a full-scale rout. The sight of their prized battering ram - the instrument meant to break Aracina’s defenses - reduced to a towering pyre proved too much for the already shaken attackers.

Along the siege lines, ladders that had moments before been swarming with climbers were suddenly abandoned. Some Oizenian soldiers slid down the wooden rungs with reckless haste, while others simply leapt from terrifying heights, preferring broken legs to whatever horrors awaited them atop the walls. A few unfortunate souls remained trapped on their precarious perches, their desperate cries for help going unanswered as their comrades fled.

The defenders’ taunts rained down like arrows:

"That’s right, run back to your mother’s skirts!"

"Tell your prince we’ve got more sand where that came from!"

"Next time bring wine instead of swords - at least that we’ll welcome!"

Laughter and cheers echoed along the battlements, the giddy release of men who had stared death in the face and lived to jest about it. Weapons were raised in mocking salute to the retreating enemy, shields beaten in triumphant rhythm. Even the wounded joined in, their pain momentarily forgotten in the euphoria of survival.

Yet amidst the celebration, Asag remained still as a statue, his gauntleted hands resting on the sun-warmed stone of the parapet. His sharp eyes tracked the fleeing enemy not with joy, but with calculation. The retreat was real - for now. But how long before their commanders restored order? How many hours until the next assault?

The sun dipped lower in the sky, painting the battlefield in hues of gold and crimson that mirrored the still-burning ram. Shadows lengthened across the corpse-strewn field, where here and there a wounded man still twitched or cried out. The stench of burning wood and flesh hung heavy in the air.

Asag inhaled deeply, tasting ash and blood on the wind. His gaze swept across his exhausted but victorious men, taking in their battered armor, their bloodied weapons, their faces lined with fatigue yet alight with hard-won triumph.

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Prince Shamleik stood atop a small rise overlooking the battlefield, his gaze locked onto the retreating mass of his soldiers. His lips pressed into a firm, unyielding line, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, the leather of his gloves creaking under the pressure of his grip.

The remnants of the day’s failed assault lay scattered before him—abandoned ladders, fallen bodies, and the smoldering ruin of the battering ram, now little more than a blackened husk at the city’s gate.

And above it all, the walls of Aracina stood tall and proud, unbroken, unbowed.

The defenders had begun their jeering. He could hear them from across the field—mocking cries ringing out over the battlements, their voices carrying the unmistakable bite of triumph.

Some of his soldiers cast bitter glances over their shoulders, while others trudged away with slumped shoulders, knowing that today, once again, they had achieved nothing.

Shamleik felt the shame of it gnaw at his gut like a starving beast. This was not just a failed attack; this was an insult, one that festered deep in his soul. Aracina had defied him before, and now, it mocked him again.

The same city that had humiliated his bloodline still stood before him, its banners fluttering lazily in the evening wind, as if reveling in his failure. He had been played for a fool—forced to spend precious time and men , all because of some stubborn cur unwilling to surrender when given the chance. His patience was thinning, and the desire to grind those walls to dust had never burned hotter.

Yet, he remained still, his face betraying nothing.

At his side, his nephew shifted restlessly. The young man had been watching the retreat as well, his jaw tight with frustration. There was anger in his eyes, but more than that, there was a wound that had never healed.

Two years ago, he had fallen prisoner to this very city after a reckless night attack ended in disaster. It was a humiliation that still clung to him, an open sore that had never scabbed over especially politically he had never recovered from that.

His voice was edged with that same bitterness as he spoke.

"Uncle," he said, his words carefully measured, though his temper frayed at the edges. "Shall we rally the men and force them back into the assault? One more push, and we might—"

"No." Shamleik’s answer was cold, unyielding.

The young man faltered, caught off guard by the finality of the response. His lips parted slightly, as if to protest, but something in his uncle’s tone silenced him.

There was no sense in pushing exhausted men into another assault when they had already been beaten back once today. The city had survived this battle, but battles were not wars.

He turned instead to another figure standing a few paces behind—a man draped in dust-stained robe. The chief engineer had been waiting in silence, knowing that his time to speak would come.

"How long?" Shamleik asked, his voice sharp and to the point.

The engineer bowed his head in deference before answering. "By the end of the week, Your Highness. Then, it will be usable."

At last, Shamleik allowed himself a slow nod. Satisfaction crept into his expression, though it did little to smother the simmering anger beneath. He turned his gaze back toward the walls, his mind already moving beyond today’s failure.

Let the defenders have their laughter, their taunts, their moment of glory.

By the end of the week, Aracina would not be laughing anymore.

Prince Shamleik slowly turned to his nephew, his gaze cold yet purposeful. The young man straightened under the weight of his uncle’s stare, standing stiff as a soldier awaiting judgment. For a long moment, the prince simply studied him—this boy, once a proud commander, now a man clawing for redemption.

Then, Shamleik spoke, his voice measured but laced with iron.

"You will finally have the chance to avenge your shame," he said, his words deliberate, each one sinking into the nephew like a blade. "And you will do so by bringing this city to me and with it the head of that cur who call himself lord."

The young man’s breath hitched, but he did not dare interrupt. His fingers curled into fists at his sides, not in anger, but in restrained anticipation.

"The day our preparations are complete," Shamleik continued, his expression unreadable, "you will once again lead my royal footmen onto the enemy’s walls. Personally."

For the first time since the battle began, his nephew’s eyes lit up. This was not just an order; it was a return to what had been stolen from him.

He bowed his head deeply, his voice steady but carrying the weight of two years of disgrace. "I will not displease you again, my prince."

He relished the command, knowing that this was the moment he had waited for. Since his capture, since his defeat, he had been cast aside, stripped of his title as commander of the prince’s elite footmen. He had once stood at the head of three hundred of the finest warriors in Shamleik’s host, men clad in armor meant for kings.

But that was before.

Now, only one hundred and thirty of them remained, the last remnants of a once-unstoppable force. The others had died in Aracina, on that cursed night of his failure, and the armor that had once belonged to them now graced the Low Prince’s White Army. His humiliation had not ended with his capture—it had been paraded on the backs of his enemies.

No longer.

He lifted his head, his jaw set with renewed determination. "I swear it, my prince. This time, Aracina will fall."