Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 770

Chapter 770: Battle of Apurvio(5)

The sight of the Oizenian prince fleeing the field faster than a rat set alight, was a shock to all who witnessed it, friend and foe alike.

None had expected that the memory of his father’s death, carved into him four years ago when Crown’s Hounds had ridden out of the night and cut the old man down, would come rushing back with such venom now that he wore the crown himself.

Yet here he was, spurring his horse harder than any war cry had ever made him, heart pounding not for victory or honor but for escape.

The truth was, for most generals, the flight of an enemy commander would be cause enough to drink deep and laugh loud. The loss of leadership breaks armies faster than swords. But Alpheo was not most generals. For him, this was not triumph, it was an irritation and a bother.

The field was already his. The Yarzat infantry had driven the Oizenian line back with ruthless efficiency, prying open a gap wide enough for Egil and his riders to pour through. The Crown’s Hounds had entered the battle as if from some shadowed underworld, their riding forms materializing on the flanks like ghosts in a graveyard. From the first moment of engagement, Alpheo had known he would win.

The question had never been if, only how well.

And this had been meant to be the crown upon the day.

The prince’s retreat had not been part of the plan. The plan had been to pin the enemy, crack them open, and let Egil’s cavalry ride the gap until Sorza himself was surrounded and captured. That single moment, Sorza, bound and brought before him,would have transformed a crushing victory into an absolute one.

He would have made a ransom that would have rivalled that of the French King John II after Poitiers.

With a living Oizenian prince in his grasp, Alpheo could have named any ransom, demanded any concession, stripped away territory without spilling another drop of his men’s blood.

But instead, the moment the words of their presence reached Sorza’s ears, the man’s resolve shattered like glass underfoot. His horse bolted beneath him, and he made no attempt to slow it.

He simply ran.

And so, rather than being delivered the head of the snake in a velvet noose, Alpheo was left with the bitter taste of victory without the satisfaction of conquest. The battle was won, yes, but the prize had slipped the net.

Still, if the route of Sorza was a bother for Alpheo, then for the Oizenian army it was a catastrophe…

———-

“What do you mean retreat?!” a lord barked, his voice cutting through the din as one of the prince’s runners, mud-splattered, breathless, relayed the last royal order of the prince before his escape.

“Where are we to go?” the lord demanded.

The boy shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, eyes darting anywhere but the noble’s face. “The prince… he—he didn’t say, my lord.”

The words landed like a stone in the gut. The lord’s gaze drifted past the boy, toward the men under his command, confused faces staring back, looking to him for answers he did not have.

Should he fall back toward Apurvio, the nearest stronghold, knowing full well it would likely be besieged before the week was out? Or should he turn away from the city altogether, leading his men deeper inland, away from the fighting but also away from any organized defense?

The same scene unfolded again and again across the field. Runners brought only the single word—RETREAT!—and then galloped off, leaving lords to stew in uncertainty. No rallying point. No defensive line to fall back to. No chain of command beyond that panicked word from a prince already halfway to safety.

In the absence of leadership, the cohesion of the Oizenian host began to unravel. Some commanders, desperate for walls between themselves and the enemy, pulled their forces toward Apurvio. Others, unwilling to be trapped in a siege, broke west or south, seeking to vanish into the countryside. Columns drifted apart, communications splintered, and the once-solid formation dissolved into a scattering of isolated bands.

In some cases, the lords didn’t even need to give the order. The men could see it for themselves their prince running away.

“The prince! He’s fled!” came the shout from the far rear of a pike block already shrinking under the enemy’s pressure. A soldier at the very back had turned to glimpse the royal banner, once a proud beacon above the line, now growing smaller, fluttering away with every gallop of the prince’s horse.

The cry spread like wildfire, passed from mouth to mouth, each retelling sharpening the sting. At first, it was disbelief. Then anger. And then disullusionment

After all, why were they to die for a lost cause?

One man, jaw clenched and eyes burning, snapped first. “To hell with him!I’ve got a family behind!” he roared, hurling his pike into the mud. “I won’t die for a coward too scared to stand here himself!” And with that, he turned and ran, not even looking back at the comrades he was deserting.

The sound of his boots running through the dirt was the first wedge in the dam. Others turned to watch him go, then glanced ahead, at the oncoming wall of Yarzat steel, at the dark shapes of the White Army cutting their way forward with the slow inevitability of a tide coming to shore, and the choice was laid bare before them.

On one side freedom, at the others were approaching demons.

The choice was easy to make for most.

One man spat, tossed aside his spear, and followed.

Another cursed under his breath, then another.

The pike lines began to wither as men abandoned their weapons, slipping out through the gaps and throwing their weapons down. A few still clung to their place in the formation, but their grip on the shaft felt looser, their stance less firm, as if their own courage was halfway out the gate already, before long they quickly followed suit as none of them was foolish enough to die for such a cause.

Still, just because they didn’t want to fight anymore didn’t mean they’d be granted the mercy of escape.

“They’re fleeing!” bellowed a halberdier from the Third, his voice half-laugh, half-snarl. He tore his blade sideways, taking a man’s head clean from his shoulders, then spun to drive the spike of his weapon up beneath another’s ribs. The victim let out a weak gasp, more a sigh than a scream, before collapsing as the bloody steel was wrenched free.

“Run the bastards down!” another Black Stripe roared, sprinting after a panicked Oizenian who was too slow to outrun his fate. The axe came down between the man’s shoulder blades with a wet crunch, and his legs folded beneath him before he even realized he’d been hit.

Nearby, someone else cornered two Oizenians who had thrown down their pikes and fallen to their knees, hands raised as they were surrounded. “Mercy!” one cried, voice cracking.

“Mercy?Only thing you’ll be spared of is the wait.” His blade slid into the man’s throat in one smooth motion, the plea ending in a wet gargle.

Another trooper caught a soldier crawling away through the mud, trying to drag himself with one arm, the other hanging broken. “Not fast enough, friend,” the Yarzat jeered before stomping down hard on the man’s back and bashing his head with the same mace that broke his arm, sending it into the muck as the thrashing stopped.

While the Oizenians scrambled to decide which way to flee, the Yarzat soldiers surged toward them with a ferocity that could have rivaled even Egil’s infamous riders.

At first, the killing was almost easy, too easy. The two lines had broken so close together that the Yarzat had the embarrassment of choice, deciding in the span of a heartbeat whose life to snuff out next. Men fell in screaming clumps, and the ground drank greedily.

But as the minutes dragged on, the gap began to grow. The Oizenians, unburdened by armor or weapons, fled with only their lives to carry. The Yarzat, on the other hand, bore the weight of their wargear, nearly fifteen kilograms of steel and their pace slowed. Fatigue began to gnaw at their legs, the spring in their pursuit dulled by the grind of their own equipment.

It was unrealistic to expect them to stay at the heels of the prey forever.

For a brief, fragile moment, the fugitives could almost believe they had escaped. The black-and-white shapes behind them grew smaller and smaller, swallowed by the haze of dust and smoke.

Of course, that small sliver of hope was doomed.

For if the Oizenians felt any relief in watching the Yarzat fade from sight, it was only so they might have the privilege of replacing it with fresh, uncut terror,because ahead of them, blocking the way, waited the Crown’s Hounds.

And those riders, robbed of the chance to sink their teeth into the Oizenian prince to get the honor of sending both father and son the grave, now searched for other prey to vent their bottled-up displeasure upon.

And boys, oh boy, did they find one.