Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king
Chapter 652: Other side(2)

Chapter 652: Other side(2)

“From now on,” Lord Cretio said sharply, his voice low but hard as stone, “if you ever speak of such matters again in the company of others, I will put distance between us so fast you’ll feel the cold, and I’ll write to your father myself—first thing—about your little plans.

I will not be brought down by your infancies, do you realise the gravity of what we are talking?”

His words struck like a hammer against the quiet of the morning air atop the capital’s most outer wall.

It took every ounce of the old lord’s restraint not to strike that smug grin off the prince’s face. That damned boy had dared to speak in riddles of treason—or close enough to it—within earshot of their guards. Cletio’s hands clenched at his sides as he swallowed the rising tide of fury.

What is he thinking? Is he trying to be caught? Or does he not understand the danger?

Thalien, for his part, seemed completely unbothered. He wasn’t even looking at Cletio. Instead, his eyes were lazily sweeping over the rooftops of the inner city far below. From this height, the houses looked like scattered mushroom caps, neat and harmless. He leaned forward just slightly, hands resting on the cold stone as if admiring a painting rather than discussing subversion.

“You worry too much, my lord,” Thalien said offhandedly, as if commenting on the weather. “It doesn’t suit you. Honestly, it was your expression that was more dangerous than my words, for them we could have been talking of killing a man or sharing a cup of wine that evening.

Until the beast bites, its claws are only as dangerous as we make them.”

Cretio’s eyes narrowed. The boy’s calmness only made it worse.

“I don’t think I need to apologize for reacting the way I did,” the lord snapped. “Must I spell it out for you? If even a whisper of what you’ve said reaches your father’s ears—or the wrong ears in this city—we won’t live to finish the sentence. We’ll be executed before nightfall.”

Thalien shrugged, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement. Still, he didn’t meet the old lord’s gaze.

“Until someone says otherwise, you haven’t actually agreed to anything I’ve said. Have you?” he said. “If heads roll, it’s only mine for now. You’ve been… curiously noncommittal. Silent. Vague. I might even say cowardly if I didn’t respect you too much.”

That made Cretio stiffen, but Thalien went on.

“It’d be better for all involved if you simply made up your mind, instead of trailing behind like a weary mule. The gods only know how far this carriage can go without changing the coachman…perhapse your dear son in law won’t be able to inherit anything , if something doesn’t happen to end this war…”

At that final line, Cretio’s patience cracked like brittle bark under a boot.

He turned on the young prince, his face red with fury, voice rising above the usual gravel.

“You speak as though my support is a foregone conclusion,” he hissed. “As if I’m just another footman in the ranks of your imaginary army. But I see no army, Thalien. There’s only you—here—spouting riddles and dangerous ideas into the wind.

Like a boy riding a mule and thinking himself a knight”

He stepped closer, his boots grinding against the stones beneath them as he grabbed hold of the boy arm.

“I am the one who would risk everything if I backed you. My men. My name. My wealth. My head. And what do you bring to the table, hmm? What, beyond clever words and vague promises? What weight do you carry in this? Because right now, all I see is a boy gambling with fire, hoping someone else will carry the water to put it out.”

His breath came heavy, steaming in the morning chill. For a long moment, the wind between them was the only sound, tugging at their cloaks like a patient witness to a long-overdue reckoning.

“As far as my eyes can see, you’re all so fucking cowardly,” Thalien finally said, his smile vanishing as abruptly as a candle snuffed in the wind. His voice didn’t rise, but the venom in it was unmistakable. “We’re bleeding to death one day at a time, and everyone’s too busy hiding behind titles and pleasantries to even acknowledge it.”

He turned his full attention on Lord Cletio now, the distant rooftops forgotten. His face, normally passive or smirking, had shifted .

“It’s clear to every soul with half a brain just how inept our prince is. And clearer still who’s losing this war. Every grain of barley we ration, every hour we sit behind these walls watching them build their noose, every prayer muttered by a starving citizen. We are the one fucking losing here.”

Cretio didn’t answer, jaw clenched, hands buried in the folds of his cloak to keep from shaking—whether from anger or something colder, he couldn’t tell. Thalien, sensing the silence as permission, stepped forward, now speaking with urgency rather than defiance.

“If this nation is to even exist a year from now, then peace must be made with the one currently besieging us. Unfortunately, my dear father—gods preserve him as an apple out in the sun —was clever enough to spit in the man’s face at his own wedding. Called him a dog. Called his wife a whore.” His lip curled, half in disgust, half in disbelief. “And now that very man commands an army outside our gates, with every reason and every opportunity to make us suffer for that insult.”

Thalien paused, taking in the silence of the rampart. Below, the city still slept beneath the slow dawn, unaware of the treason whispered just above its rooftops.

“He won’t make peace—not with my father. The only terms he may accept will come, if another man were to make the offer. Of course we will need to give many concessions. Enough that my darling elder brother can hold what’s left of our lands, and maybe—just maybe—we can keep the bones of this country from being scattered.”

He took a breath, steady and full, as if to purge something from his chest.

“And such a situation,” he went on, voice low and tight, “is as much my father’s fault as it is the fault of the nobility. Of you, Lord Cretio. Of all of you who stood idle and let him drag us to the edge of annihilation. You ask me what I bring to the table?”

Thalien took a step closer now, his eyes boring into the older man’s, his words clipped and deliberate.

“I bring the fact that, after two years of watching this realm get fucked like a back-alley whore for a silverii, I am the only one who seems willing to do something about it.”

The air between them grew still, heavy with unspoken truths and sharpened consequences.

“This plan—this so-called plot to seat Arnold where he belongs—doesn’t exist without me. It never will. I am not just another voice in the hall, or a signature on a parchment. I am the blade that makes it happen.”

Thalien turned slightly, gesturing with his hand toward the vast horizon where enemy banners fluttered like blood-soaked warnings.

“If we survive this siege, if we leave this city alive, I will go from lord to lord myself. I will put my name, my blood, behind this. And I promise you, that will count for more than any ink-soaked letter passed in secrecy from one trembling noble to another.”

He turned back to Cletio with a slight tilt of the head, the ghost of a grin returning—but darker now, more sardonic than amused.

“Ask yourself honestly—if some fool wrote you with such a proposal, what would you have done? Tossed it into the fire, or handed it to your prince to gain favor?”

Cletio remained silent, unmoving.

“But here you are,” Thalien went on, quieter now, almost intimate in his delivery. “Not burning letters. Not calling the guard. Standing on the wall with the boy you barely remembered existed, speaking about things you never dared to imagine.

Blood is power if you know its nuances.”

Lord Cretio said nothing for several long moments, his gaze fixed on the hazy stretch of the horizon, where enemy campfires still smoldered faintly in the morning mist. His hands, old and calloused, rested on the cold stone of the wall’s parapet, but his grip had tightened slightly. The young prince’s words gnawed at him.

He hated that they made sense.

In fact, he hated how much sense they made. Because deep in the marrow of his old bones, where pride and memory still wrestled with duty, Cretio had long harbored resentments toward Lechlian’s rule.

He had hoped that when treason came knocking, it would look like a traitor. That it would wear a mask of ambition or drip with venom. But Thalien stood beside him like a man possessed not by greed or envy—but by purpose. And worst of all, he wasn’t wrong.

Thalien, however, remained poised—unbothered by the silence, like a fisherman content to wait for a bite.

At last, Cretio exhaled, a slow drag of breath that misted faintly in the chill morning air. “Why,” he said quietly, “would the Peasant Prince even think of making peace with us? He has us by the throat. He’s winning the war. And we’re the ones holed up behind these walls, reduced to waiting for our grain to rot and our people to despair. The only words we’ve had from him came from his envoys bellowing surrender at our gates.”

Thalien didn’t even blink. “Of course he won’t make peace—not now,” he replied, his voice calm and even. “He’s practically sitting at the gates of our capital. Would you make peace, Lord Cretio, if the roles were reversed? If your army was camped outside Yarzat instead of his?”

Cretio’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t answer.

Thalien pressed on, his tone sharpening as conviction laced his every word. “This entire plot—this chance to back Arnold—it hinges on one thing: survival. If the city holds, and if by some gods-blessed miracle the Peasant Prince’s army is broken, then perhaps peace becomes possible after we change who sits the throne.”

He glanced sideways at Cretio, eyes narrowing slightly. “But I pray you have enough sense left to see what comes after even a victory. Let’s say we beat him back. Say we hold the walls. What then? Another two years of this cursed war? Another decade?”

His voice dipped, low and bitter.

“Didn’t we already take back Arduronaven? And how long did that last? Two weeks?” He shook his head. “Even if we crush his army now, he’ll raise another. He’ll always raise another.

There’s no running out of dirt to bury bodies in his realm.”

Cretio clenched his jaw, hard enough his old teeth ached.

“The best we can hope for—even if we win—is to beg him for peace with a new ruler, one who wasn’t arrogant enough to spit in his face on his wedding day,” Thalien finished. “A ruler like my brother, who might still command enough respect to be dealt with. ”

Cretio didn’t speak. He simply stared down at the city beyond the walls, watching the wind flutter the banners atop the castle’s second keep. His thoughts were bitter, tangled. He hated how easily the boy had cornered him—how every word spoken carved away another layer of old loyalties and illusions.

Damn him, Cretio thought.

“What would change if we were to make peace?” Cretio asked, voice slow and skeptical. “Wouldn’t it just give the enemy time to regroup? To rebuild, rearm, and come back stronger?”

Thalien didn’t flinch. Instead, he shifted his weight, stepping away from the wall and brushing a fleck of grit from his tunic sleeve, as if the answer was so obvious it barely warranted the effort of speech.

“Well, yes,” he said, glancing briefly back at the enemy trenches in the distance. “Of course they will. Just as we will do the same.”

He turned to face Cretio now, and his tone changed—firmer, more resolute.

“The key, however, is that unlike them, we will not be doing it alone. We’ll have support from outside. I assume you know very well how my father was once aided by the Prince of Hushandeia.”

He, of course, did.

Arnold had let him know of that.

“Well,” Thalien continued, voice dropping slightly, “you may not know that this same prince withdrew his support after the gods-damned mess my father led two years ago. That entire campaign made a fool of every man who stood behind him. The alliances withered. The trust died.”

He walked a few slow paces along the rampart, the heel of his boot tapping against the ancient stonework in rhythmic thuds. His hands stayed folded behind his back.

“If we were to win a battle—just one—and make peace,” he said, pausing mid-step and turning to face Cretio again, “that support would return especially with a new prince to treat with. Because victory—even a minor one—would prove that we are still worth backing.”

Thalien’s gaze drifted upward, to the grey clouds rolling lazily above the city, before returning to the old lord. “You see, my lord, even the smallest road to salvation has to begin somewhere. A narrow trail through a field of thorns. I’m not promising miracles. I’m offering a path.”

He stepped closer now, his voice quiet, the edge of command whispering beneath the measured tone.

“So, by all that has been said… can I take it that you are in?”

Cretio didn’t answer immediately. His jaw worked slowly, as if chewing over not just the words but the weight behind them. The wind tugged at his cloak, and in the distance, the enemy siege lines stretched silently across the plains like scars.

And still, damn it all… he hated that the boy was right.

He was in.