Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 815

Chapter 815: Back home(2)

Even the day after the triumphant return of the army, the capital of Yarzat still throbbed with the exuberance of victory.

The city itself seemed to be in a festival, though most certainly an unofficial one.

What need was there for official decrees when the arrival of more than two thousand men, pockets heavy with coin and thirsting for revelry, had turned the taverns, inns, and brothels of the capital into their theaters of celebration?

Truth be told, the banners of return were fewer than those that had once marched out. Of the 3,500 men who had set foot on the road to war, four hundred now lay buried beneath foreign soil, cut down in the clash at Freusen or claimed in the final, merciless storms of steel and fire during the siege of Turogontoli. Nearly twice that number had been carried back maimed.

It was most certainly a ugly tally, one that marked this campaign as among the bloodiest in recent memory. For years, Alpheo’s wars had been counted in skirmishes and swift victories, losses measured lightly . But this time, the price had been heavier, far heavier, and though victory had been won, it was stained more deeply in red than any before it.

Another five hundred had been left behind to garrison the newly conquered cities and fortresses. Those men, taken not from the hardened ranks of the White Army but from local levies, had accepted their prince’s offer: three silverii a month to remain in lands where they had bled for three already relentless months. They knew relief would come in two months, once native militias could be raised to bear the burden and they could finally return home with a far heavier pocket.

Of course the sudden celabration had the prince’s hand,for those who had returned,had been steered them into the heart of his capital. He knew soldiers, knew their habits, their hunger, and their fleeting joy and of course the economic benefit they would bring.

He allowed them to pour their hard-won earnings into wine and dice, into women and music.

And so, when dawn broke on the second day, the city still carried the smoke and perfume of revelry. Soldiers staggered from taverns, nursing broken heads and broken purses, some with rueful grins, others cursing the realization that the silverii they had dreamt of bringing home was already squandered in a single night of intoxicated folly and that the ire of their wives was theirs to bear.

But while the army lay buried beneath its hangovers, the man who had quietly nudged them toward this outcome was already awake, working on one of the tasks he had set himself up with from the outcome of the war.

More than any city or fortress, the true sweet morsel of the war had been the Malshut mines.

The South had always been pitifully poor in mineral wealth, its princes most certainly could boast of having fertile land, but they were forever short of iron and silver or gold. The Oizenians, by sheer luck of earth’s whim, had clutched Malshut like a miser clutching his last coin. Now, by Alpheo’s hand and a deft naval maneuver, the mines had slipped from their grasp and fallen squarely into his.

It was not without risk, the fortress was the furthest reach from Yarzat’s border, a thorn to supply and to guard, especially since it was basically a walking distance from the Sharjaan border, a complication Alpheo had set up from increasing budget to mantain their web of spies in their new neighbour.

But difficulty mattered little when the reward was this. For with Malshut, Yarzat could at last claim something its rivals could not: a direct, independent source of iron, the very marrow of war and the skeleton of prosperity.

And when the reports of yield were finally brought before him, Alpheo had to read them twice to believe the figures.

“9,000 kilograms of ore,” he muttered, then said it again louder, the words escaping as half-laughter, half-disbelief.

Of course, ore was not iron, not yet. A third of that weight would be lost to slag and dross before the smelters’ work was done. Still, even at the crude 30% conversion of their present furnaces, the mines produced a staggering 3,000 kilograms of pure iron each year.

Enough for weapons, for plows, for tools. Enough to build armies and feed them too.

He took up a scrap of parchment and began scratching numbers, his lips moving with the sums. One hundred kilograms of iron valued at 210 grams of silver, that was the rate. Which meant…

He paused, frowned, recalculated. Then recalculated again.

“…That cannot be right,” he whispered, yet the numbers refused to change.

7,410 silverii. Every month.

More than half the income he already drew from his monopolies on soap, cider, and paper. In one stroke, his yearly budget would surge to nearly 124,000 silverii, three times the treasury of a respectable prince of the South.

For a moment, Alpheo simply stared at the parchment, stunned. Then the corners of his mouth curled, slow and predatory.

This was wealth enough to forge the kingdom he desired. Wealth enough to drown his rivals not in blood only , but in coin.

The war had left him bruised and weary. But Malshut… made it worth every scar.

He would be rolling in the dough.

Of course, those 7,410 silverii were nothing but the gross tally, a glittering figure that shimmered far brighter on parchment than it would in truth. He knew better than to fool himself with the illusion of unbroken gain.

The first slice was already gone before a single ingot left Malshut. Nearly a quarter of the profit, close to 2,500 silverii each month, was not his but belonged to Shaza, carved out as the prince of Sharjaan’s rightful share in their agreement.

Some might have balked at surrendering so much, but Alpheo judged it a small price for peace. A steady income fattening Shaza’s coffers and a proper Yarzat garrison anchored in Malshut would keep Sharjaan’s eyes from wandering too greedily over what now lay so close to their reach.

It was tribute disguised as a partnership, but a tribute willingly paid, for it bought him time.

That alone brought his cut to 4,900 silverii a month. From there, the numbers dwindled further. The miners had to be fed, housed, and paid. The carters and bargemen hauling thousands of kilograms of ore had to see their wages, their animals shod and their wagons repaired. And at the end of the chain, the laborers in the smelteries, sweating through the nights, stoking furnaces until their arms shook, would not work for free.

Smelteries that of course had to be built yet, but that was for another time.

The sum bled steadily downward.

Yet even stripped and carved, what remained was still rich meat on the bone. Far richer than anything his rivals could claim.

And suddenly Sorza’s fury made perfect sense. The prince of Oizen had not raged from wounded pride alone, for he had seen his balance sheets collapse before his very eyes.

Malshut to Oizen had been what soap, cider, and paper were to Yarzat: the beating heart of its revenues, the keystone holding its armies upright.

Losing it was not a blow but a gutting, one sharp enough to force cuts that would rip muscle and sinew away from Oizen’s strength, they would now be a paper tiger…

And yet, the silver was not what sang sweetest to Alpheo. Not really. For all its promise, he had no intention of flooding the markets with Yarzat’s iron, no interest in quick gains that might buy him luxuries now but leave him short-sighted later.

His monthly revenues from monopolies and trade already set him in comfort, though not the kind of bottomless ease he wished for. The iron, then, would not be sold like sacks of grain at market.

No, iron would become the marrow of his state.

Where Sorza might have squandered Malshut’s yield as a hoard of silver to be dribbled away on pomp and mercenaries, Alpheo saw something else entirely: the skeleton of a stronger Yarzat, a power that would grow year by year until no prince of the South could dream of toppling it.

Especially since everyone was looking to give them a wedgie.

He had no intention of selling a single lump of ore from Malshut’s veins. Not one.

The entire 9,000 kilograms a month would remain in Yarzat, transformed not into silver but into steel. Half of it, he resolved, would be poured directly into the lifeblood of his fortresses.

Swords, spears, helmets, mail, shields, breastplates, all of it stockpiled in arsenals hidden deep in stone keeps along the border.

Some of which he was looking to build in this years of peace.

The other half, though, was reserved for something far greater, something more patient, more ambitious.

With steady iron flowing each month, he could reshape his princedom into a war machine and more, capable of raising and sustaining thousands more troops than its size should allow.

After all wasn’t the basis of every state agriculture?

Improving agriculture would allow Alpheo ‘s son to feed itself for the storm he knew and felt was waiting just beyond the horizon.

He was not blind.

Victory had bought him peace for a season, perhaps two. But the South would never forgive what he was. The treaty he had signed was not an ending, but a pause. Sooner or later, they would come, Sorza, Nibadur, and every vultures of the South with them.

And when they did, numbers alone would crush Yarzat unless something fundamental changed.

And he hoped this would be enough change for that.