Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 976: Breaking the wall

The heavy oak doors of the council chamber had finally groaned shut, leaving the room in a ringing, expectant silence.

Shahab, the patriarch of the House of Filastin, took his seat as he adjusted his silk robest. "I suppose this is the first time you have called for me privately , isn’t it?Ten years together and this is a first....it must be something important it seems..."

Alpheo racked his mind. To his surprise, he found the old lord was correct. "There is always a time for a first, then," the Prince replied. He finally reached for the decanter, the silver cool against his palm. He poured a stream of dark, garnet wine into his cup.

Shahab remained silent and patient throughout it all.

Alpheo held the man in high regard, truth be told; the Filastin family had hitched their wagon to a mercenary captain when the rest of the world saw only a gamble, and they had been rewarded with a golden age. They were the architects of the new Southern prestige, their coffers overflowing and their influence stretching from the borders to the high court.

Quite the rise...

And now the patriarch of the Southern house made a home in the court, given the honorable position of chancellor.

Truthfully it didn’t have official powers per se but was instead given whatever task the sovereign did not feel like holding on to, which could have ranged from administrative matters to warfare or courtly duty.

In their case it was diplomacy.

"I would like to ask," Alpheo began, his finger tracing the ornate rim of his cup, "how the weather is looking on our borders. How fares your work with our neighbors?Must have been years since I asked about it no?"

The initial fog of confusion lifted from Shahab’s face, replaced by the clinical mask of a tired employee. "The same as it has always been: overcast with a chance of steel. I have managed to cultivate no goodwill. At best, the neighboring lords treat us with a frigid indifference; at worst, they are sharpening their daggers. It doesn’t help that they all know they would incur the very specific, very lethal displeasure of a certain man if they warmed up to us."

Shahab’s throat tightened as he spoke, the dry reality of the situation prompting a sudden, mirroring thirst. He eyed the decanter. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Indeed," Alpheo murmured, his eyes narrowing. "That Nibadur is a persistent son of a bitch, isn’t he?Keeps the sun from shining on our fields simply by standing in the way."

"I am relieved you find yourself in the mood for such colorful jests," Shahab said, his voice dropping into a more somber register. "But this is perfidy itself. We are being suffocated by a diplomatic blockade. Though," he added, leaning in, his gaze boring into Alpheo’s, "I have known you long enough to have noticed, that you usually only downplay a disaster when you are already holding the solution behind your back. You always seem to pull something miraculous out of the ass when the world starts to shrink."

Alpheo took a slow sip of the wine.

"Well, I indeed have something that may serve as a lever to move the world," Alpheo murmured, the wine staining his lips a dark purple-red. "But before we discuss what I can do for you, there is a duty you must tend to, a loose thread that needs pulling to reveal the work behind."

Shahab straightened his spine, his silvered eyebrows lifting in a silent question. "What would that be, pray?"

"I believe I have been alarming enough lately to nail a singular truth into your skull: a great war is on the horizon. A war where we will be outnumbered, outsteeled, and surrounded by those who would see Yarzat returned to the dust where it rose."

The old lord grimaced. Like any man who had spent his twilight years building a legacy for his kin, he did not relish being reminded of his impending doom. The reality of a such a war was far less poetic than the verses of the court poets.

"I would like for the number of possible enemies to be lowered," Alpheo continued, his voice cold and clinical. "Right now, the only piece on the board we can truly influence is the Prince of Sharjaan."

"You want to make him an ally?" Shahab asked, a skeptical huff escaping him. "Something tells me he won’t be eager to leap onto our sinking ship. He knows the odds. He has seen the size of Nibadur’s shadow."

"An ally would be a beautiful dream," the Prince admitted, a brief, wistful light passing through his eyes before being snuffed out by pragmatism. "But dreaming doesn’t bake bread. I don’t need his love; I need his absence. I want to know that when the horns sound, his blades stay in their sheaths. I want you to organize a diplomatic party. We need reassurances that the mine we share with him is prize enough to make us friends."

"I see. It is a duty I had nearly allowed to slip through the cracks amidst our other... recent frustrations. Do you have a man in mind?"

"Aron," Alpheo said firmly. "Your task is the architecture: organize the party, prepare a gift that reeks of all that fucker may like, and get them on the road. We are blind until we have even a hint of what Sharjaan intends to do when the first blood is spilled."

"I will see to it then," the Chancellor replied, rising slightly as if to take his leave, though he hesitated. "Is there anything else you wish to ask of me? Anything that might actually carry a scent of victory?"

"Nothing that you won’t find to your liking, old friend."

"Well, out with it then," Shahab snapped with a sudden flash of impatience. "It may not seem it, but it irks me to my very marrow that I have had nothing to show my granddaughter. What figure do I cut in her eyes if I can’t show any results for my toil? A rascal of a boy, younger than she is, delivers gift after gift to the court, yet no matter how I strain, the world simply keeps shrinking my way."

Alpheo set his empty cup down on the table with a resonant clink. He looked at the shadows stretching across the floor, his face a mask of predatory calm.

"The world isn’t shrinking, Shahab," Alpheo muttered, his voice echoing in the hollow chamber. "It’s just getting crowded. Everyone is fighting for space in a single room while the rest of the mansion sits empty. And when the room is too full, and the guests have no intention of leaving, you don’t ask them for permission.

You simply bring the wall down and show them how much larger the world can be when you’re the one holding the hammer."

"What exactly is the game you’re playing?"

"As far as I can see, those haughty men on their golden thrones are paralyzed by a singular terror. They fear Nibadur because they stand to lose everything by resisting him, and they believe there is a feast to be shared by standing at his side. We simply have to flip the coin to the other side and make the opposite be truth’’

Shahab leaned in closer to his grandson-in-law, his eyes narrowing. "I suppose you have a concrete plan you wish to share?"

"I have already set the first stones," Alpheo claimed, a flicker of confidence crossing his features. "The moves were made months ago. Soon, I shall reveal the board, and we will witness the result. It is not a matter of if , but when."

"And where do I enter this grand design?"

"Well, the person to whom we must show our hand is..." Alpheo paused, searching for a descriptor that didn’t sound like an insult. He recalled the frantic, disjointed reports he had received of the man in question. That somehow made him wonder if someone like him could truly exist.

"Eccentric? Singular? Perhaps ’particular’ is the word that fits best, anyway a real piece of work. Whatever the label, it is enough to know he is a man of insatiable taste and terrifying appetite. It is in our vital interest that his tongue finds a respite in our home that he can find nowhere else."

Shahab looked skeptical. "A man of appetite? Those are usually the easiest to buy."

"Not this one," Alpheo countered seriously while watering his dry throat with the cup. "He is a man who cannot be appealed to through logic, reason, or even raw self-interest. He is governed entirely by his whims and his aesthetic likings. As things stand, the road he travels may naturally join with mine, it is already built, and he need only walk it. But he is fickle. If he finds the road even slightly distasteful to his palate, he will gladly march through the mud and ruin his own clothes just because he thinks it suits his mood."

"So what is the strategy?" Shahab asked, throwing up his hands. "Are we to seduce him? Who the hell is he anyway?’’

’’Hopefully the one who will make the difference with us’’