Free Web NovelChapter 1198: Losses(2)
The heir of the Princedom of Yarzat watched the slow, rhythmic revolution of a cartwheel. It hit a deep rut in the track, causing the wagon to rattle violently enough to dislodge a dented helmet, which tumbled into the churned mud like a dice on a table of marble.
A passing soldier, his face hollow with fatigue, stooped to retrieve it and tossed it back onto the mounting heap of salvaged iron.
The dead were so numerous that the harvest of their steel would take days. In the wake of the carnage, the camp had succumbed to a collective, death-like slumber; thousands of men had slept for twelve hours straight, leaving only the skeletal sentries to haunt the perimeter. At first light, the silence had been absolute, where the splash of a stone in a puddle could be heard from one end of the palisade to the other.
By the second morning, the victors began to reap the dark bounty of the pain they had sown. There was pleasure in the work to be sure, stripping helmets, unlacing chainmail, and especially collecting stirrups, which Basil knew his father intended to repurpose for his own designs.As which design, he had not deigned to share.
They picked through the abandoned Oizenian camp, a place left in such frantic haste that it remained a feast of abandoned belongings, waiting for the vanquished to be forgotten and the victors to be sated.
That was the law of the world, Basil mused. The victor held the right to impose any condition they pleased upon the loser, so long as he possessed the iron to enforce it.
A man could declare himself king of the world at his own peril, but the lords of Yarzat obeyed his father for a simpler reason: when Alpheo declared his rule, he demonstrated a power that made opposition look like suicide.
Men only truly obey when the cost of disobedience becomes unbearable.Loyalty when not enforced was a rare thing to hold.
The Prince of Habadia had forgotten that truth, and his bid for glory had brought him close to the very edge of ruin.
Basil looked down at his sodden boots. The grass was wet, and a fine mist still clung to the low places; it had rained earlier, though the sky above was now a brilliant, mocking blue. It was hard to reconcile the splendor of the sun with the horror of the field. Perhaps it was the Gods’ way of expressing their joy at the battle’s outcome, or so he liked to believe.
"We suffered heinous casualties" his father said suddenly without even turning around.
The prince walked with a measured gait, the white bandage wrapped around his head stark against his dark hair. Behind them followed a trail of white cloaks, Vrosk at their head. Basil had heard the tales, how at the battle’s end, the guards had been so encrusted with gore and mire they looked like demons carved from clay.
The soldiers spoke of it as proof of valor, but to Basil, it felt like a failure. Their task was to be the shield, yet his father had come within a hair’s breadth of the grave. The thought that his father’s life had rested on a literal roll of the dice left a hollow, aching hole in his gut.
They could have been Lightbringer one and one, for each, and yet they would still little better than failure had his father perished on that damn field.What good is a guard that doesn’t guard?
Alpheo offered a tired smile and a nod as a passing legionnaire dropped into a deep, reverent bow. Two days ago, that man had been a dealer of death; now, he was like a hound wagging its tail at a kind word from his master.
"Nearly half of our Legions lie dead or broken in the tents," Alpheo continued, his voice low and their sorroundings empty. "Ser Tham Badfoot perished bravely in the center, as did two of Lord Damaris’s nephews. Ser Miro and Ser Mervy took steel to the thigh and may never walk straight again and a mace to the arm that set it wrong. Lord Vatio fell at the Bastion and his son Brittle Beard now lord had half his face maimed.; Lord Arnold and his brother are both mangled, with the former unsure if he’ll live. This war may have been on our side, Basil, but it handed out death and maiming with a very easy hand for all that played in it."
The boy hung on every word, watching as the easy smile his father wore for the soldiers evaporated the moment they were out of earshot.
"You’d think after so long and bloody a road, they would have earned their rest," Alpheo murmured. The tone of his voice suggested the answer was the other way.
"Did they not?" Basil asked, tilting his head.
"They have earned that and more," his father replied, his eyes scanning the horizon where the Oizenian hills rolled , distant, toward the north. "But wishes do not make the world, and neither do men, it is their action that make it and change it .
A battle may have been won, but the war still lingers like a sickness in the bones. I shall need one more service from them... and from the Kakunians."
Basil fought the urge to bite his cheek at the mention of the Bull. He knew it was churlish; his father might be cooling meat in a ditch if that golden-haired freak hadn’t found him in the press. He knew he owed the man his thanks, would likely have to suffer his leering, smug gapes in silence the next time they met, but the boy resolved to swerve around Merelao’s shadow whenever possible.
Of course, the Kakunian’s malefic presence was made a degree sweeter by the memory of Ellaria. She was... striking and sweet...she also had nice hair.
"Pay attention, Basil. This is no time for your mind to drift into the clouds," his father said sternly, sensing the boy’s focus wavering. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
"I am sorry, Father."
"Do not be sorry. Be better." Alpheo stopped for a moment, his hand resting on the shoulder of a passing levy. The boy’s face, barely a few winters older than Basil’s, bloomed with a radiance as if he had been touched by a god.
Once they were walking again, Alpheo’s voice dropped to a low, instructional hum. "The road to a throne is hard, but the path to keeping it is paved with glass. We raised an army, Basil. Thousands followed our banners, many perished, and their deaths sit upon our shoulders because they fell obeying our breath. Do not let their blood be merely rain that washes off your breastplate, but do not let it be the stone that weighs you down until you cannot walk.
Neither extreme is the duty of a prince.Be it a vice or a virtue."
He gestured to the field of death being scavanged by ants of iron.
"Life saw fit to grant you kindness, but it is our duty as men to teach you when to use it, and when to let it rot in your hand rather than waste it. You can throw pearls to swine, but all you will have is a pig with pearls in its gut and a wasted fortune. Discernment, Basil. That is the crown before the crown.If a man opposes you give him steel, if he falls to your to his knees help him rise, if you do not do that you will have no friends, and when your enemy comes you’ll be alone to fight them."
Alpheo slowed his pace, his gaze falling on a stack of broken shields being loaded into a cart.
"I had thought this field would be the end of it," Alpheo said, his voice a low rasp that seemed to grate against the morning air. "I thought to strike a blow so clean the South would fall silent. Instead, I find myself holding a broken blade, counting the cost of a victory that feels uncomfortably like a debt. There are many hands I must still deal reprisal to for this war. Many names written in the ledger that have yet to pay their share. The work will be long, and the sun will set on many more fields before the account is settled."
If it will be settled...
Basil frowned, his boots crunching rhythmically against the dry earth as they walked. Why did he sound so... sour? freewebnoveℓ.com
"You have won a great victory, Father," Basil noted, looking up at the man the entire camp was currently deifying. "The soldiers say it was a miracle."
His father scoffed, a short, sharp sound devoid of any mirth. They were approaching the center of the camp now, where a massive white pavilion rose like a ghost amidst the muddy grey of the common tents. Its silk walls flapped lazily in the breeze, a stark contrast to the utilitarian grime surrounding it.
"I can lock myself in the most secure of dungeons, Basil," Alpheo said, his pace unhurried. "And no matter how brave or ingenious an escape I eventually muster, nothing takes away the fact that it was my hand that closed the dungeon door. No matter the odds I overcame to win this day, it is undeniable that it was my own fault those odds even existed. I dared to rise too fast. I grew greedy for the end of the story. I should have been more patient, playing the long game with the steady hand of a sculptor rather than the desperate reach of a gambler.
I got a taste of my own medicine, you could say..."
He looked down at his son, his gaze softening for a fleeting second.
"You are more patient than I was at your age. That is a rare gift, and a dangerous one if used correctly. You will excel where I have stumbled, I suspect. But for now, it is my burden to teach you the tools you will need to survive your own future."
They came to a halt, no longer at the pavilion of state, but before a long, sagging tent where the air grew heavy with the cloying, sweet-iron scent of blood and the sharp tang of vinegar. From within, a low, discordant chorus of whimpers, choked prayers, and the occasional, sharp scream of a man being held down rose to meet them.
Basil flinched. He looked up at his father, his voice small and uncertain. "Father?"
Alpheo did not move. He stood at the threshold of the hospital tent, a dozens more rose in the back.
The prince’s shadow stretched long across the grass at the entrance. He didn’t look at the boy; he looked into the dark interior, where the shadows of surgeons moved like busy spirits.Nurses entering and exited with blody bandages thrown at boiling cauldron.
"Look at them, Basil," Alpheo commanded softly. "Do not turn your head once inside.That would be the most henious of insult you can give."
"It... it sounds like they are in pain," the boy whispered.
"Do you not see the red cross above? These are the men who paid the bill for our victory," Alpheo said, his voice as cold and hard as a winter’s frost. "They broke themselves so we could stand here in the sun. Many have died, and some more will die in the dark of this tent."
He turned his head then, his eyes locking onto his son’s with an intensity that demanded a man’s strength from a child’s frame.
"If a man cannot bear to look into the eyes of those who willed themselves to die for him, then that man is not worth dying for. Worse, it means that man’s loyalty was a wasted thing, a pearl cast before a pig who lacked the courage to even acknowledge the prize. Now I will walk through this tent, and impress their face upon me . We owe them that much for their service.
You can come inside or rest outside. It is your choice, I will not think of you any less whatever you choose.But be aware, once inside I’ll do."
