Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 952: Barred roads(3)

The rain scattered down upon the green field, though it was now less green and more a vast expanse of churned earth that thousands of feet trampled daily, becoming a muddy, shimmering surface of puddle water. It had been a miracle of luck that they had enjoyed mostly dry days and nights during the siege; it would have been an unbearable bother to have the siege engines and mining operations bogged down by both rain and thick mud.

With the profound relief and lightness that comes from the cessation of long, brutal labor, Alpheo raised his head to the sky, letting the cold water wash down his face and helmet.

I want to go home.

"Alph, you’ll get a cold... please cover yourself. You have survived a rebellion, an uprising, assasinations, and battles were we had the worst of the odds. Do you truly wish your cause of death to be an ugly case of rain-cold?" Asag muttered, wrapping his heavy cloak even more tightly above his head. Asag really, genuinely did not like rain.

"Doesn’t it bring you back to the old times?" Alpheo commented, his head still raised up to the liberating sky. "We suffered nature’s caress at our skin. I always felt rain to be liberating and cleansing."

"I usually prefer not to think about those times," Jarza replied flatly, his voice a low rumble. "They weren’t that good, you know? The only thing I’d care to reminisce about was the day I punctured those bastard guards’ guts with that chipped piece of stone.

Pulling the blade out and looking in their eyes as they realized they weren’t walking out alive of there, I got enough pleasure in there to offset those years of abuse. Not a bad bill for a good revenge eh? " With that a small silence hung, bringing them to recall just how many he had butchered in the old Romelian camp.

He had claimed he had gotten five, but some said he had counted only the killed and skipped the wounded. The fact he was famished and in his worst physical state made that feat even more impressive.

Jarza hadn’t really participated in pitched battles anymore; he was, after all, getting on in age. But Alpheo was willing to bet one of his balls that the man hadn’t lost his edge, he even had half a mind to organize some duel to see how he still moved.

"Wasn’t some water that gave us that freedom," Rykyo stated tiredly, cutting through whatever that was, which certainly was not nostalgia. "We took it by our own strength. We learned it there, didn’t we? About what we have to do if we want or deserve something?Unfortunate that our efforts aren’t always repayed by results" He turned his head to look at the others. His once-long braid, which would have usually whipped with his movement, was no longer there...

Alpheo gave his new Legate a long, knowing look. He understood him; he truly did. Out of everyone present, Rykyo was the one most deeply dissatisfied with the immediate outcome of the siege. They had bet their campaign, their very future, on this fortress. But they had also bet on a personal score.

They had hoped to grasp their great prize, the specific head they were itching to claim so they could settle the score of their fallen comrade.

They had, in fact, not. And none was more bitter about Mavius’s escape than Egil’s second-in-command.

The other may have lost a brother, but he had lost something akin of a father.

The Prince felt the need to say something, but he had nothing to add that wasn’t a useless platitude. They had done all they could to avenge Egil. And they all felt the collective irritation at having their friend’s killer flee right under their nose.

Still, despite the shared weariness and the successful capture, there were too many critical doubts that needed immediate answers about the siege’s final moments. And they were on their way to get them.

"Anything I should know when dealing with him?" Alpheo asked, turning to Edric. The Legate was the only one who had gotten close enough to gauge the man.

One look at Edric was enough to make Alpheo furrow his brow. The Legate, after that painful spectacle, still seemed to find the mud below him intensely interesting, actively evading his Prince’s gaze as they walked.

"Still hung up about that?" Alpheo asked, surprised by how long the personal supplication was going. He leaned in conspiratorially. "Politics is like an arrow, Edric... it goes where the crowd is thickest. We must always spread out. You know I didn’t give a shit about you leading the line,actually yes I do, but in not in the way you think. It simply was not worth the risk you incurred, but I had to act as if I was bothered that you went against me.

Stop looking as if you swallowed a turd; all is good between us, as long as you don’t make an habit of it." He hoped that would be enough. Edric was after all a very good commander, and his desire to get his ankle bloody wasn’t really too bothersome. He could make use of that in some given circumstances.

"I just recognize the bad position I put you in. Apologies for that," Edric finally said, at least looking at his Prince in the eye now. "Regarding your question... I believed the man to be honorable, as much as that is worth anything when the other is out for your guts. I believe that if you posture yourself as wanting answers through pain and torture, he will give you a hard time about it. It would be easier if you were to put a wall of decorum between you two and proceed with respect for his rank. Things will probably come out easier through that.

He behaved honorably toward me, even though it is very well known that all of your Legates are not of old blood."

Alpheo found the information more than helpful and took it into account, though he remained profoundly skeptical about any high-born Romelian being an honorable man. After all, what honor can there be in a civil war?

Still not all agreed with Edric.

"Bha!" Rykyo spat onto the ground, "He is our prisoner, and we got the Imperator’s permission to do with him as we wish! You all know the troubles he gave us during the siege, not even speaking of the nice little gift he left us when he fled.For all we know it is his fault; the masked bastards still breathe while....a better man does not.’’ A grimace of pain went through him.

’’Honorable? Respect? Decorum?" Rykyo scoffed. "We all know those to be words empty of value!"

He turned to Edric, his eyes blazing. "Only because he crossed swords with you and seemed decent about it, doesn’t make him your friend. For all we know, he will lie to safeguard the one who holds his leash. You say he won’t talk if we mean to get information out of pain? Leave him with me for two hours and some of my men. He will squeal like a pig and sing like a bird, on my name I assure you of that.

He’s been pampered his whole life; I’d bet anything to see how long he’d resist with a wooden pole up his arse and a hand shaking it above."

"We all know the diplomatic trouble that would cause us," Alpheo interjected, his voice hardening slightly. "Whether we like it or not, Rykyo, we have a certain set of behavior we must follow. We are already pariah among the other princedoms.

Things are to improve thanks to this campaign and our standing with the Empire, but if we are to break the rules the game is played on, we shall only expect scorn. If we are to have a proper standing, torturing high-born prisoners is something that we ought to evade."

Rykyo said nothing to that. He recognised where the truth lied, he was speaking simply to get the rot out of him.

He gave a sigh and a nod to both his prince and Edric. Signalling them that he was just tired and speaking vainly.

He exchanged a few words and after that , He just set his head straight toward the tent where the man he blamed for their failure was now leisurely standing, unwounded and unscreaming.

Both conditions did not sit well with the new Legate of the Crown Hounds.

Still, he certainly was not going to do something as foolish as to go against Alpheo’s explicit wish. The Prince wanted answers, and if Edric believed respect was the way to obtain them, it would hurt nobody to put trust in the strategy.

They after all, all had the same end to reach. Didn’t they? Who was he to trust if not them?

With that they crossed the Rubicon and finally entered the tent, where they would get all the answers to their doubts, much more than they would have ever expected.