Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 917

Capítulo 917: Great Castle

He was finally there, at the end of that long road, standing before the Fingers, that monstrous stronghold which served as the hinge between the Empire’s beating heart and the rebellious provinces that clung to the north and east.

It was the gatehouse to two worlds, the choke point on which entire realms balanced, and the last great bastion Alpheo would have to seize before he could even entertain the faintest hope of setting foot in Yarzat again.

Warmth stirs in his chest at the thought, quickly extinguished by the notion that one less soul would accompany him on that journey.

He sat silently in his saddle, scarcely feeling the reins in his hands, his gaze climbing the colossal walls that rose like a broken knife wedged between two mountains. The Fingers did not resemble a fortress built by mortal ambition; they looked like something gouged out of the earth, like a castle made on a sand beach.

It was so tightly pressed between the mountainsides that any army approaching from either direction was forced into a narrow strip of stone.

His first reaction to the sight was doubt. How in all the hells was he supposed to take such a place? The answer did not come quickly, because every instinct screamed an answer he did not like: he was facing a position that could scarcely be beaten even with twice his strength.

Starvation was out of the question. The mountains, which hemmed the fortress in like protective giants, made it utterly impossible to form a proper siege line. One could not starve a castle so deeply nestled between cliffs unless one controlled both mountain passes leading to it, which meant two armies on two sides, each of them large enough to maintain its own supply, communication, and command , a logistical impossibility and a foolish notion to be entertained.

He could perhaps imagine some miserable goat path winding through the rocks, a smugglers’ trail but what then? How would they be fed? How would they remain hidden? How would they withstand even a minor counterattack without support from the other side ? Such a maneuver would be nothing but a prepackaged offering of half an army delivered straight to the enemy’s doorstep.

So long as the mountains shielded it, the Fingers would never starve. Food could pour in as steadily as if there were no besiegers at all. Reinforcements could drip down from the Rebel heartland like water from melting ice, replenishing the garrison as often as the Pretender wished.

Which left only one option, the same grim option generals had taken since the dawn of warfare: break the thing by force of arms. Storm the walls. Throw men in waves until the stone cracked under the sheer pressure of bodies.

But with only two narrow approaches to attack from, every inch of wall would be thick with defenders, every tower fully manned, every gap in the battlements a trap waiting to be sprung. To have even a reasonable chance they would need six attackers for every defender , a margin they did clearly not possess, not even close.

The only faint advantage, the only sliver of cold comfort in this entire nightmare of stone, was that their bruised and battered veterans had been swelled by the recent flood of conscripts pressed from the traitorous lords behind them. Those men would form the bulk of the first assault, taking the brunt of the arrows, filling the ditches with their corpses, and soaking the outer walls with their blood before Alpheo’s true soldiers even took their first steps.

“Order the troops to set up camp,” he muttered at last, when his eyes had grown numb from staring at the next great obstacle fate had placed before him.

For a few breaths nothing happened, no answering voice, no shift of armor, not even the scrape of a boot in the dirt. Irritated, he turned to his right and found Jarza still fixed in place, gaping at the colossal fortress as though the gods themselves had descended to earth and carved their judgment into stone.

“Jarza,” Alpheo called, sharper than he intended, iron curling unbidden around the single word.

The lieutenant snapped out of his trance with a jerk. “I…apologies. I drifted for a moment. What did you say?”

“Set. Up. Camp.” Alpheo repeated, slower this time.

Jarza swallowed, then spun toward the lieutenants riding behind them to relay the command. They saluted in stiff, crisp motions,first to the prince, then to their legate, before scattering across the field to carry it out. A ripple of shouts soon followed, rolling outward as the orders passed from officer to officer, until the valley floor began to stir like an anthill kicked awake.

Only when the last messenger rode off did Jarza lean closer, lowering his voice so it would carry no further than Alpheo’s ear.

“Tell me you’ve thought of something,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving the titanic walls before them. “Because we’re going to need a damned miracle against that.”

Alpheo exhaled through his nose, the sound thin and sour. “Nothing elaborate,” he admitted, though the bitterness in his tone surprised even himself. “For now we let our… ally” the word felt empty now that he had paid dearly for that, “throw his newly reclaimed curs against the stone and see how many die before they reach the halfway point. I won’t waste my men on a meaningless slaughter. They’ll be needed for something that actually stands a chance of working.”

He let his gaze drift again to the only two narrow segments of wall where an assault was even remotely possible. They looked laughably small from here, two slivers of battlements the defenders could drown in arrows and boiling oil without breaking stride. No sane commander would hurl troops at those killing grounds unless he had numbers to burn or nothing left to lose.

Mesha had the latter, Alpheo none of the two.

His family awaited him at home after all.

Let him send his retaken dogs to claw at the stone.

He was the one had sacrificed the most to reach this moment, yet he was the only one who felt no heat in his chest at standing before the lair of the man who had taken everything from him.

He had expected rage,expected fire. Expected his heart to pound so hard he could not think. Instead there was only the dull weight of fatigue hanging around his ribs like soaked cloth.

The sight of the fortress where the Masked Bastard hid should have driven him into frenzy; instead it merely hollowed him out further.

Even the herald snapping lazily in the wind atop the highest tower, its colors taunting him with every flutter, failed to ignite so much as a spark.

Now it only pulled a worn sigh from his chest, long and thin and empty.

Ashes. That was all he felt. Ashes where the fire should have been.

He swallowed, but the movement only scraped against the dryness coating his throat.

“How are you feeling?”

The question landed softly, almost hesitantly, yet it struck him harder than a shouted order. He blinked at Jarza, surprised.

Gods, what must he look like? He hadn’t slept,not truly, not even for a handful of heartbeats. He’d lain in the dark with his eyes open, mind turning like a wheel stuck in mud.

It took him a moment to lift his gaze, and when he did, Jarza’s eyes were already waiting for his. Normally, Alpheo would have deflected, offered a sharp jest or a sarcastic half-truth to push the concern away. But something in Jarza’s expression pulled the lie right out of his mouth.

“Just tired,” he confessed, the words dragging out of him in a long, fraying sigh. “Tired in my bones, tired in my blood. I want to lay down and not get up for… gods know how long.”

Jarza studied him for a beat, then said quietly, “Then go. Rest. No one would fault you for it.I can take your mantle for an afternoon”

“There’s too much to do,” he murmured. “Boredom will come soon enough, once the siege drags its feet and we settle into waiting. I’ll have time to sleep then. Until that happens, I’d rather fill the hours with something that isn’t pointless.”

His gaze returned to the towering Fingers, their black stone cutting into the gray sky like two colossal blades. “We need to begin preparing our part of the siege. I may not have a plan yet, but I have the shape of how to move forward”

He knew Jarza was listening so he let the thoughts take form aloud. A frontal assault was, in simple terms, lunacy. Nine times in ten it would be a massacre, and the tenth time would merely be a massacre with slightly more corpses on the other side. They didn’t have the numbers, the time, or the appetite for a slaughter that achieved nothing but shortening bloodlines.

“The eagles may have the sky,” he murmured, eyes narrowing. “And the stray dogs will tear at the ground. But we shall take the worms’ domain if the other two will not allow us passage.”

Jarza stiffened slightly, and Alpheo saw the moment understanding clicked behind his eyes.

It would truly be a long siege….