Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 843

Chapter 843: Giving a finger to take an hand(1)

The council chamber smelled of crushed flowers. Someone had lined the windows with them, their sweetness leaking into the air. Alpheo very much liked it.

He sat at the head of the table, papers before him, heart thrumming , excited at the prospect of showing the results of a work he had dedicated weeks upon.

“We may commence.”

As he said so his gaze moved toward Pontus, the poor bastard who tried the ancient trick of making himself invisible by shrinking into his chair. Clearly taken aback by the great hostility he was shown around the room.

They knew he had been a rat.

The prince, really the only one who was devoid of such hate, almost laughed, disapproved of the shyness, yes, but the man’s usefulness far outweighed it.

Above all he would need him for greater things soon, that could win or lose the next war.

His mood soured at the thought of that.

He shook his head and turned to the task at hand. His newest true obsession.

Nights spent without sleep, mind turning over gears and cogs till the design clicked.

He had promised to give the noble a chance, and he would, of course deliver it, but only the harshest of gauntlets to earn it.

He’d stripped sentiment from it, left only blood and bone and sweat. The weak would wash away of that he had to make sure.

He folded his hands and leaned forward.

“As I told you after the lords’ council,” he said, voice measured, steady as a hammer, “we will open certain commands to their sons. But not as they think.We will not hand it to them, as much as they will have to earn that right.

Training will be merciless. The tests will break most, of that I have no doubt.

By the end only the very best will crawl from that fire with a rank. Their families will have their illusion of privilege, and we will keep the spine of our army intact while having the excuse to send away those that proves to be rot.”

He let the words settle. Saw brows crease. Fingers twitch. Waited for the ritual objection.

“Before I outline the mechanics, does anyone wish to speak?”

Silence stretched. And then a voice. Harsh. Too familiar went up

“As a matter of fact, there is.”

Alpheo’s jaw tightened before he even turned. Egil. He hadn’t heard him in two months.He had tought, perhaps, the absence meant distance and cooling.

Foolish hope.

“You may speak, Egil,” He conceded without amity.

They were all responsible adults, even though they were on bad terms, it did not mean they could not have civi-

“I believe this is a piece of horse-shit.”

Well fuck you too, then.

”I honestly cannot fathom that you two have let this abomination pass,” Egil went on turning for a moment to Jarza and Asag. “You’re inviting the rot into the very heart of what kept us alive. You’ll replace scars with crests, discipline with pedigree. You’re about to hand the keys of a hammer to men who’ve only known velvet.”

Jarza let his patience speak first. “We asked for time. Alpheo counted our doubts. He built safeguards for that very reason.” His tone was steady, though disapproval was clear in his words for at the barest of thing he agreed with Egil. But he could not openly say that again

“We are here to see the safety he has chosen and give our opinion; if you want to do so, then do it after hearing of them. We are trying to shape this the best we can”

“Shaping it?” Egil snorted. “If the men we trust, the ones who live and die in the ranks, see their posts plucked for the sons of silk, discipline will fray. Pride will turn to poison. The White Army’s strength is its unity. Anyone who thinks you can graft noble vanity into that without infection is a fool.”

“You do not understand the reasons and the means behind them ” Alpheo said quietly. “Power is not a thing given lightly.

You hate the idea because you see a threat. I see a fix for two of our problems; it was an unstoppable conclusion. We have the upper hand. We write the rules now, not them later when we are in a weak position. We all know how unstead our position really is….especially since last year”

Egil’s jaw worked though he did not deny it. “Write the rules all you like. When a shield-brother dies and the man beside him finds a boy of a lord taking his command, don’t come asking why the men wouldn’t lay down their lives next time. We are not chattel to be rearranged.

We have built a good thing; why sour it?”

The distance between them widened on every breath. It hurt him as it hurt Alpheo, but none would extend the hand first.

“You can point your worries without using such vulgar language. Are you forgetting you speak to your prince?” Jasmine’s voice cut; she had never liked Egil, but she had at least stomached him for his friendship with Alpheo.

It was clear now for her that the strange distance in Alpheo these past months carried the shape of Egil’s shadow, and she of course deduced who was at fault for that.

“Trust me, Your Grace,” Egil said, bowing his head in a way that for others could have been respect, but for Egil just to mock. “I have not forgotten who he is. He reminded me of that well enough.” His eyes flicked to her, then back to Alpheo, where they stayed.

Alpheo’s jaw tensed, but his voice carried calm. “Jarza and Asag can explain the reasoning to you. Though I’d prefer that to be after I present the reform in full.”

“You can’t even be bothered to defend it yourself?”

A slow exhale leaked from Alpheo’s nose, louder than the flutter of parchment. He folded his hands tighter. “If you desire it, I will debate you after. For now, I want to present the work I spent nights over….if that is all right for you?”

Egil mantained the silence.

A rather uncomfortable one. Glances darted. Jarza scratched at his chin. Shahab shifted in his chair, and Alpheo took the cue to continue.

“Then a premise,” he said, turning to Jasmine and Shahab, the ones least familiar with the marrow of the problem. “This reform is not just to mollify noble houses. It also addresses an issue our army has faced since its birth.”

The others Egil, Jarza, Asag ,already knew this. They had lived it after each campaign, watching officers fall and command chains fray like cut rope. Jasmine and Shahab, though, they had only heard his complaints in passing, never the weight behind them.

They were after all not part of the White Army, or his upper echolons.

“Until now,” Alpheo continued, “whenever an officer died, we pulled a replacement straight from the ranks. It has its benefits. Troops fight harder when they know glory can be won in a day. It lifts morale. And more often than not, we end up with officers who have proved themselves in the mud and blood of battle, rather than soft men with polished boots.” He paused, scanning their faces, letting them nod along.

He tapped the parchment before him, voice hardening. “But that system is a fire. It burns bright, then it burns out. Unsustainable. We strip talent from the ranks faster than we can grow it.

And worse, each victory costs us too much leadership to carry forward. The army grows weaker even as it wins. The officers we get, even though they are skilled, are illiterate, and that is a big enough problem that needs some months of studying to address.

While that may not be a problem in times of peace, in war it is a time that is simply unacceptable.

I hope to solve this problem with these reforms.”

The first to break the silence was Jarza.As it was said before he had agreed with Egil, and he believed now the time was right to extend his worries.

Of course, in a respectful way.

“I believe this will cause discord among our ranks. If a man bleeds his way up to sub-centurio, he earns not only command but a knighthood. It is the marrow of our promise to them. If those seats are taken by the sons of noble houses, what hope do the common soldiers have? Strip a beast of its meat and it will bite your hand. Strip a man of his ambition, his dream, and he may just drive a knife into your back.

It would be a grave blow to morale, of that I have no doubt. Remember, many of the old core stayed beyond retirement for nothing more than the chance of a knighthood. You gonna take that from them?”

The memory cut through the room on the right minds. A collective breath slipped from them, four exhalations carrying the ghosts of men they once stood beside. Companions who had clawed their way from mud to give them four honors.

Most of whom now lived scattered across the crownland, with plots of land, silver in their purses, wives at their hearths. Some would drift back to the capital from time to time, share a skin of wine with Laedio, laugh about old campaigns, or whisper favors into the ears of their prince.

Sometimes he would send them directly to the prince, allowing him to remember his oldest soldiers and companions at the dinner table.

Alpheo’s gaze softened for a heartbeat, but his words did not bend. “Your worries are not without reason, Jarza. But they are misplaced. We will not strip away that tradition. Not all command positions will be given to nobles. I will see to that. Thirty percent of them will remain reserved for soldiers who prove themselves in the ranks. Men who have earned it in blood and bone.”

He tapped the parchment rolled out before him, the ink of his own hand still sharp and dark. “The difference is this, we will no longer simply pluck replacements from the line after an officer falls. Instead, we will maintain a list. Candidates are drawn from the ranks. Men with the skill and discipline to rise. When the time comes, they will be chosen not by accident of survival but by merit we have already marked. And to those men we will give something greater, albeit requiring more time, than just the position.”

His eyes moved across each face, letting the anticipation draw taut, as that was to be his second point.

“We will give their sons a chance at the Royal Academia.”