Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 808

Chapter 808: Second session(4)

In that fleeting moment where it seemed a compromise could be reached , one that might grant at least some degree of satisfaction to most sides , the council’s attention once again drifted back to the defeated prince, who , however, seemed incapable of swallowing his pride, his features contorting with indignation at the mere thought of losing his most profitable possession.

“The mines belong to the Crown of Oizen by right!” Sorza spat out as if shouting could make the impossible possible. “And I’ll see myself damned before yielding them to him.”

Alpheo leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with disdain, a cold smile tugging at his lips.”I had hoped,” he said with quiet venom, “that the months you spent beneath my roof might have softened that arrogance. That you would see reason. But you remain unchanged. Very well. Then hear me clearly: you will yield them.

By what scrap of logic, by what delusion of thought, do you imagine I would hand back to you what my men bled for, what my soldiers died to seize?”

“The mines are mine!” Sorza barked, pounding the table with his fist. His tone, however, carried more petulance than conviction, as he had no argument to make to that question.

“You are mistaken.” Alpheo’s reply cut like a blade. “They were yours for scarcely sixty years. Before that, they belonged to Sharjaan.”

At the mention, Shaza shifted uncomfortably in his chair, clearing his throat, but no words followed.

Indeed those mines were once his.

“And now,” Alpheo pressed on ”they are mine.”

Sorza’s face flared crimson, the last threads of composure snapping. “By what right?!” he roared, half-rising from his seat, leaning across the table like a beast ready to strike.

“By the very rights your father invoked when he raised his banners against me,” Alpheo answered, his tone thunderous. “By the very rights he clung to when he joined hands with Herculia and brought war to my soil. By the very right he carried into the very soil he craved to conquer where he was cast.”

His eyes, unblinking, bore into Sorza’s with merciless intensity.”The right of the sword.”

The words rang like steel.

“Your army is broken, shattered, scattered to the winds. The only reason you sit here flinging insults rather than hearing the clinking of iron is because I chose to stay my hand. You should be on your knees thanking me for this reprieve.”

“Do not mistake my patience for weakness. Only because your ears have heard no tidings after Turogontoli’s fall do you fool yourself into thinking my banners are stilled. They can march still and are eager for it. And if you force me, they will thunder upon your lands until nothing remains but cinders and ruin.

You speak of rights?” Alpheo sneered. “Then tell me, what strength do you command by these rights? Will you summon your broken host against mine, the same wretches who scattered before me in the field while you fled like a coward? Or will you crawl to the law, the same one your father spat upon, which you tried to twist with forged tongues and false proof?”

His voice dropped suddendly”Do not think I have forgotten your treachery of the earlier day. I endured it in silence, dismissing it as the tantrum of a spoiled child who could not stomach his defeat. But I should have ended it then. I should have called an end to this, marched upon your gates, battered down your walls, and crushed your capital into dust. I have the means and the will.”

He slammed his hand flat upon the table, the crack echoing through the chamber like a war-drum.

“So answer me, Sorza. By what right, by what strength, do you dare demand what is mine? Why should I listen to you at all?”

With no argument left to stand on, and yet unwilling to swallow the searing humiliation Alpheo had hurled at him, Sorza lashed out with the only weapon he had left , his pride and blood.

“Because you are nothing but a fucking peasant daring to speak above his station!”

The words fell like a thunder, and Zayneth’s eyes widened in horror. He made a desperate gesture, as if to silence Sorza before it was too late, but the prince pressed on, his face flushed with fury.

“I still cannot fathom what delusion seized your wife to seat you at her side as though you were her equal. You, a man of mud and manure, allowed to stand among princes! We suffered your pretensions, we tolerated your title , a title that should never have been yours , and yet you push, and push, and push against every boundary of what is proper.”

His lip curled in disgust.

“You have toiled in filth all your life, as did every miserable wretch who spawned you. Your blood is not noble , it is mud, filth carried from the fields. How could you ever imagine yourself worthy to reach such heights? Your eyes should never have risen above the soil, above the dungheap that bred you.”

He spat the words like venom.

“You should have been content with Yarzat , a miracle for one such as you! , but no, it was not enough. You seized Herculia, humiliating a dynasty that ruled for a hundred years. You murdered a prince , my father , skulking in the night like a common brigand. And now you stand here, pretending to speak of law, of oaths, of rights? All you wield is brute force, the strength of the sword. That is not the conduct of a prince. It is the behavior of a bandit.

You would be better suited poaching peasants and robbing merchants on the roadside.”

Sorza’s voice rose, and he turned toward the gathered envoys, his arms sweeping wide as though to draw them into his fury.

“By the grace of the gods, he killed a prince! A prince! One of noble blood, descended from high blood and if he has slain one, what stays his hand from the rest of you?Gods he even murdered his father in law! Look at him! Look closely.

Right now, he gnaws at me, but how long before his fangs are set upon you? Do you truly believe his ambition ends here, with me? He is a beast, and beasts do not stop once they have tasted blood.”

He fixed his gaze on the Kakunian envoy, his finger stabbing the air like a dagger.

“How long before Kakunia feels his hunger? Before your throne trembles under his shadow? And you, Habadia! You, Eshvania! Reshania! Do not deceive yourselves , it will be your turn next. Today it is my blood he spills, tomorrow it will be yours. Are you blind to what he is? You sit here, measuring how much flesh you can throw into the tiger’s maw, instead of binding it shut before it devours you whole.”

Finally, he turned back upon Alpheo, his face twisted with scorn.

“You hold power that was never meant for you, power you were never fit to wield. Go back to your home. Take what fortune you have stolen and be satisfied before it destroys you. Cast aside this ambition, it is not princely, it is not noble, it is not yours. Tell me, mud-born, what more could you possibly want?”

“Your life.”

That was the reply Sorza got.

Silence accompanied it for a few seconds before he continued.

” Right now, I wish for nothing more than to choke you.I did not expect your memory to be so short. The Prince of Herculia once gave me the very same accusations. Do you remember what became of him?”

He leaned forward, eyes fixed on Sorza like a predator studying prey.”You call me mud-born, spit upon my blood. In so doing, you insult my wife. You insult my son. I have killed men for less. And yet you sit here—” he gestured with a sneer, “—pretending you are shielded by powers that do not exist. Pretending you have strength that is not yours. Look at yourself.”

A sharp, derisive laugh burst from him.”No… look at yourself, I said!”

His roar cracked the air like a whip, and Sorza flinched, shrinking back as though burned.

“There you are, trembling like a whipped cur, writhing like a worm dragged from the mud. You could not oppose me as a man. No. The only ‘courage’ you found was to whimper into others’ ears, to beg them to call my quarrel theirs. You cannot face me, you cannot fight me, so you pester them instead. That is all you are. A nuisance. A parasite.”

He turned to the gathered envoys, sweeping his hand toward Sorza as though unveiling some pitiful exhibit.”Behold him! Look at what passes for a prince. Men fought for him, aye, with a ferocity that startled even me. I faced them. I felt their steel. And yet, when I look upon the man they bled for, the thing they died for, all I feel is disgust curdling in my throat.

Pity, perhaps, were I kinder.”

His eyes snapped back to Sorza, hard and merciless.”You ask me what I want? Lechlian once called me a dog and my wife a whore. I broke him. I made him crawl in the dirt, kiss my hand, and howl like the very dog he named me. Your father invaded my lands with foreign steel at his side, I buried him in very soil he desired .

And now you, his spawn, stand before me, hurling the same insults, brandishing the same lies, playing at the very treachery that damned him.

How did you think it was going to end?I would kill you where you sit, if I believed you were a man. But you are not. You are nothing. What power do you hold? What claim do you command? You desert your lords, you hide behind foreign tongues, you wear the cloak of another man’s strength and pretend it your own. You are not a prince, and if you are one, then the prince of cowards should be the title.”

He spat the words with contempt and distaste”You are a failure. A blemish. The very image of what I pray my son will never become. And so I will tell him of you. Night after night, I will tell him of you, so that he may learn what ruin never to resemble.”

He tilted his head, studying Sorza as one might a rotting carcass.”Do you even understand me? Or is all drowned out by the sound of your bladder quivering?You bring me hate; I return only disgust. By the gods, had I fathered a thing such as you, I would have smothered it in its crib. For what greater failure could a man leave the world, than you?

You are a jest. And not even one worth laughing at.

So I ask you again: by what right do you speak to me? By what right do you dare to name yourself my equal, much less my better? Tell me, by what right do you claim anything from me at all?”

The silence that followed weighed like a millstone, but then, new voice rose, dropping the sword that had been hanging on top of Alpheo’s neck.

“By the very rights you yourself proclaimed, prince Alpheo.

The rights of the sword.”