Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 818

Chapter 818: Baptised by fire(1)

The rising star of the Confederation stood upon the prow of the Roaring Axe, one hand gripping the salt-slick rail as the wind lashed his face, carrying his black hair like banners across his cheeks. The sea stretched endless and gray before him, foam biting at the ship’s flanks, the gulls circling like restless souls.

He had stood here once before, though then it had been with only four ships, a petty raid upon some city and its villages, an adventure that seemed small now, yet had birthed the seed of everything that followed.

From that raid, he had taken not only plunder and slaves, but something far more precious: the woman who now guided his fleet. Who could have foreseen that the slave he once dragged into his bed would one day lead him to the very heart of her homeland?

She had proved a rare prize, her knowledge had proved worth more than a king’s ransom. Geography, it seemed, was a discipline taught to the highborn daughters of her land. Why women were made to learn such things, Blake neither knew nor cared, only that their folly had given him the keys to the capital itself.

Now he was even thankful for it, that the sand’s men found themselves aroused to bed women who knew where they were being fucked

Four years ago, he had crossed the waves with four ships. Now, he commanded forty-five, their sails swollen with the same wind that kissed his face. Over six thousand hardened men stood beneath his banner, every one of them starved for glory, silver. Their blood sang with the prospect of doing what even their forefathers had never dared: to carve their names into history with fire and salt upon the boiling sand.

Yet Blake no longer cared for plunder or fleeting indulgences. He had surpassed those childish cravings long ago. Silver and women were dust in his hands. His eyes were fixed on something far greater, the true prize.

The crown of the sea.

He did not know why it would be found here, in the land ahead, but the witch had sworn it would be so. She had whispered it to him in the dead of night, promised it in visions by firelight, repeated it until the words beat in his skull like waves against the shore. And until now, she had never been wrong.

“How long before we reach Khairo?” he asked, turning from the horizon toward the figure that should not have stood so steady upon the groaning deck.

She was a dreadful sight to the uninitiated: all sagging bones and parchment-thin skin, her presence as unnatural as the fact that the sea’s sway seemed to dance away from her. She stood with the poise of someone planted on stone, while seasoned sailors staggered and braced themselves against the mast.

The crew had once been unsettled by her, whispering in fear at her shadow. In the early days, there had even been mutterings of refusal, men spitting at the thought of sharing a deck with such a creature.

Blake had silenced them the only way he knew, by dragging the loudest down for a keelhauling while the rest watched in horror.

The rebellion had died with the man’s bloated corpse. Since then, the crew endured. After all, their loyalty to Blake outweighed their fear of the witch, and more importantly, silver never ceased to flow into their purses.

“Two days, and we shall reach the false church.”Her grating voice carried to his ears, dry as sand, steady as if the creaking deck beneath her bare feet did not exist.

Blake turned on her, shoulders squaring as he loomed closer. The sea-wind lashed his hair, his teeth bared like a wolf’s.”Gods, must you always speak like a cursed one? You’ve mastered our tongue well enough these past years. Do you truly find it so hard to twist your words into something less… unnatural? Speak as men do, not like some tomb whispering secrets.”

The witch did not flinch beneath his shadow. She never did. Her black pits of eyes met his without so much as a flicker, and when she answered, her tone was as level as stone.”You waste your thoughts on trifles, and pour your attention into useless matters.”

His lip curled. “We’ve been chained together for half a decade, woman. Forgive me if I point out the strangeness that clings to you. I thought perhaps time would grind it down, like waves wearing cliffs. But no. Always the same. Always the grave in your throat. You can see fire and make miracles, can’t you pray for your God to take out that gravel in your throat?”

Her reply came with the weight of a tolling bell.”Strength. Power. Vision. Divine providence. And soon, a crown. These have all been placed into your hand. Not even the first Sultan, whose bones lie in the land you now sail to, was so greatly favored. And yet…” She leaned nearer, her stench of herbs and ash curling in the wind. “…not once have you bent in gratitude. Not once whipped your back bloody, nor set fire to offerings as thanks. Others would flay themselves raw for half of what you have been granted.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed. His jaw twitched, and for a heartbeat he nearly struck her, but his hand stayed. He knew too well her words carried some truth. He had been granted much by the strange god she served.I just need time, he told himself.

He forced his voice to calm, wrapping his irritation in reason instead of violence.”You speak as if these are gifts freely given, like a father doting upon a son. But they are not. Are they? I doubt this Great Fire of yours spreads blessings without expecting payment.”

For the first time, her withered cheek twitched upward in irritation

“Indeed. He grants, and in return, you should prepare to give. When the crown is yours, His flame will compass every shore your fleet touches. All other gods will be cast into the abyss of the sea, forgotten, their altars broken, their names silenced.”

“Favors, then?” Blake sneered, folding his arms. “I see. You would have me abandon the sea-god, the one my men were raised to honor? The only god who ever mattered to them? And you would replace him with your fire-spirit, as if sailors could be made to forget the waves that cradle and crush them. That was not our deal…” He spat overboard. “My fleet is built of those so-called ignorant unbelievers. If they learn, I mean to tear down their god, their swords won’t be pointed outward any longer. They’ll be turned against me.”

The witch tilted her head, her face unreadable, but there was scorn in her stillness.”Even after all that you have been given, you still—”

Blake’s hand shot forward like a viper. He seized her by the jaw, his fingers digging into the hollows of her cheeks, forcing her mouth closed. His grip was cruel, the veins standing on his forearm. He drew his face close until their breaths mingled.

“As your Fire has given me much,” he growled, “so shall I give in return. I will allow His flame to burn here, among my lands and my men. I will permit His priests their temples. That alone is a greater thing than most kings would grant to your faith. I believe that bargain enough.”

Her skin was like parchment beneath his palm, if he grinded his finger further perhaps it would break…. She neither struggled nor blinked, and that calmness only made him squeeze harder.

“Normally, I would spit on the wishes of things I cannot see,” Blake went on, his voice dropping low, almost intimate, though no less venomous. “But your Fire has not smitten me yet, and that tells me He is content enough with how I walk. In time, I am sure His flame will outshine the Sea-God, not because I kneel, but because His miracles will make sailors kneel for me.

Ships blazing with His sigil, victories spilling into harbors like wine… then, and only then, my men will trade one god for another.It is not I that should work to that. ”

He released her, shoving her head back with a sudden jerk. She rocked once, but her feet remained planted, as unshaken as ever, as though she were carved into the very timbers of the prow.

Blake wiped his palm on his cloak as if rid of filth, though in truth it was not disgust but unease that itched at his skin.

Along with the unease was not dirt but the thought that, for all his bravado, he had spoken like a man trying to convince himself.

Why did this god demand blood of his own believers?

Were they not the very hands that should have upheld his flame, the voices that should have cried his name into the dark? Why cast them aside like driftwood, why burn his own house only to build a new one among strangers?

It gnawed at Blake, that contradiction. Gods were meant to protect their flock, not slaughter them. Yet this Fire seemed eager to snuff out those who had knelt longest at his altar. Why? Had they failed him somehow, wandered too far from his commandments? Or had they simply outlived their usefulness, like tools dulled with time?

A shiver ran through him, sharp as cold iron. If the Fire could discard his own chosen people when their purpose waned, what would stop him from doing the same to Blake? Was he truly favored, or merely borrowed? A sword wielded until it broke, then tossed into the sea without ceremony?

He wanted to spit, to curse, to rip the whole notion from his mind. And yet, beneath the fury, beneath the scorn, he felt it, the weight of reliance. Every victory, every surge of strength, every unbroken storm had been lit by the Fire’s unseen hand.

Blake’s lips curled into a bitter smile that quickly faltered. He hated the thought, hated how true it rang. He was a man who had risen by his own blade, by cunning, by ruthlessness. Yet here he was, unnerved, bound ever tighter to powers he despised, walking a path paved by a god he did not trust.

But still that power was just so warm….