Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 972: Catching up(2)

At the sovereign’s question, Aron didn’t speak immediately. He began to shuffle through a separate, thicker stack of vellum, his movements buying him time on how to best present it . A full minute passed in a silence so heavy that a dark thought began to drift through Alpheo’s mind: Just how much has the world burned while I was looking the other way?

"Your Grace..." Aron began, his tone dipping into a register of cautious formality that Alpheo knew all too well. It was the voice of a man preparing to deliver a blow to the ribs.

"Yes?"

"Would you prefer the abbreviated summary, or the exhaustive ledger?"

"Somehow, I suspect I shall find no comfort in either," Alpheo sighed, shifting in his seat and bracing himself to swallow the sour pill. "The short one, Aron. "

"In short: an alliance of tribes has indeed been forged. However, it did not bloom with the vitality we anticipated. Of the slave tribes previously under the Duskwindai’s yoke, only four have answered the call. All of them occupy the furthest fringes of the Duskwindai’s reach, huddled closer to the Chorsi for warmth. Basically they would have been the first to be raided if they refused."

Alpheo nodded slowly. It wasn’t the grand coalition he had envisioned, but it was a foundation. He could work with a few thousand souls and a handful of spears.

But Aron’s eyes remained fixed on the paper, and his voice didn’t lift. "The terms for this alliance were... aggressively favorable to these minor tribes. In order to secure their signatures, the Chorsi have agreed to a monthly quota of steel, diverted directly from the shipments we provide, to be distributed among these four clans. It appears Varaku, in a desperate bid to keep the coalition from shattering before the ink was dry, relented to every demand they made."

White anger washed over Alpheo.

He made no sudden movement; he didn’t slam his fist or throw his cup into the ground. Instead, he simply went still, his eyes narrowing into slits. When he finally spoke, his voice was a lethal whisper.

"What the fuck is that fool we sent as a diplomat doing? Is he spending his days rutting with the tribal daughters and his nights drowning in their ale? How could he possibly permit the Chorsi to bleed our resources into the hands of a few thousand mountain-dwellers?"

The frustration was clear in the prince, and understandable. The Chorsi had just come off a glorious victory; they had crippled the Duskwindai and possessed a monopoly on Yarzat’s superior steel and medicine. They held every card in the deck, and yet, somehow, they had been swindled by a handful of illiterate raiders. Alpheo felt a leap of murderous intent toward the man in charge of the negotiation. Had it been a mistake to recall Aron? Had he left a man of straw to do a titan’s work?

"Your Grace, I believe there is an... additional nuance," Aron said, bowing his head slightly. "The diplomat we left in the highlands, Seraphim, found himself utterly sidelined. The Chorsi’s allies refused to even acknowledge his presence. They made it quite clear that if Seraphim so much as set foot on their ancestral lands to ’oversee’ the talks, they would give him wings and a cliff to fly from.

The Chorsi, fearing a diplomatic execution and enmity betwee the us and them , took the negotiations into their own hands."

Alpheo rubbed his temples, the headache finally arriving in force. He had wanted a strong, stable player on the coast, a puppet he could influence, certainly, but a puppet with teeth. Instead, he found himself subsidizing a group of "allies" who were essentially holding the Chorsi’s steel for ransom.

He needed the Chorsi to have a central role in the alliance, so that they could mantain their control but only through superior resources which would make them dependent on them to maintain the supremacy.

Basically there was a man giving water to a tribe in the desert , and that man was going to the one owning the river for that.

Watering down the entire alliance was not in Alpheo’s plan.

"So," Alpheo said, his voice dropping into a register of terrifying calm. "We are currently paying for the privilege of arming tribes who hate our messenger and treat our support like an entitled tribute. Tell me, Aron, before I order Seraphim’s head brought back in a box, is there any part of this mess that doesn’t smell of incompetence?"

Aron’s face flushed a deep, uncomfortable crimson. "Well, Your Grace, the situation was indeed reported back to the capital months ago. But it seems... it was sidelined by more ’pressing’ tragedies."

Alpheo fell back into his seat, the leather creaking under a weight that was purely mental. He felt tired, defeated by the sheer entropy of a world that refused to stay ordered while he was away.

"All right," he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "The damage is done. Now we mitigate it. Inform Varaku that his charity has reached its limit. He is to change tactics and renegotiate immediately. The Chorsi will hold the steel. They will stockpile it. Their ’allies’ will see a single blade only when the drums of war actually beat, and only if their warriors have spent the preceding months training under Chorsi eyes."

Alpheo leaned forward, his voice hardening into a jagged edge. "If those illiterate curs threaten to walk away, let them. But inform them that the moment they leave the alliance, they will get to see exactly how that steel is used, not as a gift, but as an executioner’s tool. Varaku won a war against the Duskwindai, for the Star’s sake; he should be riding the high tide of that glory, not begging for scraps at his own table. It seems he feared losing our support if the coalition failed. He needs to learn that a watered-down alliance is a poison, not a cure."

"I shall draft the instructions to the Chorsi at once," Aron murmured, his quill poised.

"And I almost forgot," Alpheo added, a dark, predatory light returning to his golden eyes. "The savages think they can sideline us? They want to give my envoy wings? Very well. Let us see it done under the watchful gaze of my Legions. Inform the Lord Governor of Salthold to prepare immediate lodgings for five hundred of the White Army."

Aron’s quill halted mid-stroke. His eyes widened behind his spectacles. "Do you truly mean to escalate so far, Your Grace? A blatant show of force in the highlands... I do not know how the tribes will respond to such a provocation."

"It seems force is the only dialect they speak fluently," Alpheo spat, his voice a low rumble. "Let the First Legion remind those barbarians exactly where the high-grade steel comes from. Inform the Governor to mobilize his garrison.

Tell Varaku to call his banners.

Every man is to be outfitted in the finest plate and mail we possess. We shall have a Royal Progress through the heart of the Confederation."

He stood up, pacing the room like a caged beast, finally seeing the latch lift.

"I want the banners of the White Army and the Royal Falcon to choke the mountain passes. I want the sound of Yarzat trumpets to haunt their sleep. When the envoy enters their camp, he shall do so upon a black stallion, with the Primogenia marching in lockstep beside him. Let them take heed of the negotiation while staring into the eyes of the men who broke the Might of an Empire."

He turned to Aron, his face ice cold.

"If those mountain-dwellers so much as reach for a knife, may Jarza burn everything in sight. Tell him to salt the earth of their valleys, slaughter their herds, rape thier women, kill men and elders, and drag the children and women into the slave-pens of the coast. If they want a world of cinders,Jarza shall have the honor to provide the torch."

He sat back down, the fury subsiding into a calculated, lethal resolve.

"It was my mistake to think we could remain the secret puppet-masters. The time for whispers is over. It is time for a firmer stance. May the Primogenia have the honor of dispensing Yarzat’s might upon any man foolish enough to mistake my silence for weakness."

For a long, agonizing moment, Aron did nothing but nod, his head bobbing in a rhythmic, frantic motion as he scribbled onto a scrap of parchment. He wasn’t even recording the orders anymore; he was simply trying to create some form of sound to fill the suffocating silence that Alpheo’s decree had left behind.

The scratch of the quill was the only thing standing between the diplomat and the weight of the Prince’s resolve.

It was only when the ink began to blot that Aron gathered the courage to look up. "Your Grace?"

The white-hot rage that had animated Alpheo only seconds before vanished with the suddenness of a snuffed candle. He slumped back into his chair, the terrifying conqueror retreating to make room for the weary sovereign once more. "Yes, Aron?"

"Regarding the tribes... I believe we have relied too heavily on the Chorsi’s interpretation of diplomacy. May I have your permission to take a select group of the Voghondai and personally instruct them in the art of negotiation? If we are to build a civilization in the highlands, we cannot rely on men who think a treaty is a list of demands they must satisfy to avoid a headache. I would like to teach them how to make others not feel the ’hurt’ of a deal well-struck. I believe it will serve us well in the years to come."

Alpheo’s eyes brightened, a genuine spark of pleasure touching his face at the man’s forethought. "An excellent suggestion. Proceed with it."

He sighed, his fingers drumming a slow beat on the armrest. "And you are right to imply it, Aron this failure is as much Varaku’s as it is ours.’’ Of course said man , had no intention to imply anything of that. ’’ Our response time from the capital is too sluggish. By the time a report reaches my desk, the blood is already dry. We cannot micromanage a frontier from a palace."

Alpheo leaned forward, his gaze sharpening, knowing the risk of the decision he was making. "Expand the authority of the Governor of Salthold. Give him the power to make localized, executive decisions without waiting for my seal. However," he raised a warning finger, "let it be known that this is a temporary grace. A tether, not a release. I have no desire to see a secondary throne rising in the east, especially not one sitting atop a gold mine. I want the foundation laid, the quarries opened, and the dissent stifled.When the time is right we shall deprive him of said power."

He looked out toward the horizon, where the distant peaks of the eastern coast were hidden by the night.

"In a few years, Salthold shall be the crown jewel of our holdings, both as a vault for our treasury and a furnace where we will get our steel. Ensure the Governor understands that he is the architect of my glory, not the master of his own."

He after all didn’t want to make an America out of his colony.