Sorza turned his gaze away from the Lord of Epietoli, his mouth set in a line of deep distaste. He had found no leverage there, only the edges of a man who seemed to find the prospect of his own death endearing.

"I am not here to trade insults like a tavern brawler," Sorza said, turning his cold, pale eyes back to the Fox. "I come with terms. Move your host away from my borders. Now. We shall sign a truce, a true peace if you wish it. You do this, and we shall have quiet between our houses. You do not, and you shall have a war that ends only when your halls are ash."

"I recall we had a peace once," Xanthios hooted from behind Alpheo, his voice rasping like dry leaves.

"We had it," Sorza snapped, "until you moved steel onto my land and sent an envoy who carried nothing but lies beneath my roof."

"We had it," Alpheo counted, his voice low and dangerous, "before you let your hounds worry my merchandise and piss upon my heralds. I am sure you had a jolly time of it when you heard of the golden showers they gave the black bird."

The Prince of Yarzat raised a gauntleted hand, pointing up at his own banner as it snapped in the biting wind.

"Now the bird is here, Sorza. Do you truly wish to rattle his feathers wet again?"

"By the end of this day, those feathers shall be so with the river’s water," Sorza promised.

"Or with Oizenian blood. I recall a peace once, and an oath. I see some men value such things more than others. I expected nothing of you, and yet you still managed to surprise me with your treachery." Alpheo leaned forward, his eyes locking onto Sorza’s with the intensity of a predator. "I will not clasp your hand in a false peace. If you want an end to this, it will be on my terms."

The Oizenian lords behind Sorza shifted, a low murmur of disbelief rippling through their ranks.

"You shall reimburse every copper of damage inflicted upon my caravans," Alpheo began, his voice ringing across the grass. "You shall offer a public apology for the travesty of my herald. Then, I shall be given all lands west of your capital. Every lord who resides there shall choose: bend the knee to me and keep his head, or flee to you with whatever pittance he can carry. And finally..."

Alpheo’s gaze raw even colder.

"I shall have the left hand of the Lord of Argustaven, who men led the assault on my merchandise. You do these things, and we have a peace. You do not, and you shall be given the dirt you so graciously offered the lord of Epietoli."

"You cannot truly expect me to accept such madness!" Sorza cried, his face flushing a deep, angry red.

"Then war it is." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Look at my host!" Sorza roared, waiting a hand toward the wall of lances behind him. "You see my cavalry! You stand with your backs to a rushing river, and in a fit of lunacy, you burned the only way out to spur your wretches to their deaths! You are trapped!"

"If that is so," Alpheo said, his voice eerily calm, "why give me terms at all? Why not simply give battle and be done with it?"

"Because I do not wish for needless bloodsh—"

"It is because you fear me," the Fox interrupted. "You fear me, and you fear the men behind me. I don’t blame you for it. I know what my legions are.I know their tastes and their courage.I know the monsters they are, and how demons they can be If I ordered them to be.

You came south with twelve thousand men in your wake, all jolly and bright with their bolt of cloths flapping above them, and we both know the butchery that became of them. You fear I have one more trick for you. You fear that even in this mud, I have found a way to win."

Sorza sat back in his saddle, a thin, bitter smile touching his lips as he kept his composition.

"Perhaps you do have a trick, Fox. Perhaps you even win this day. But do not think the world ends at the banks of this river," Sorza said, his voice rising "Even if I lose this field, do you truly believe the other princes will sit idly by? The Habadians will return. And with them, the Ezvanians and the Kakunian hosts shall come once more. They will come with twice the steel and ten times the fury. My house has stood for centuries, while your starts with a peasant who forgot his station. You will perish, and after you are given to the worms, we shall shine as brightly as we always have. The sun of Oizen will always hang over this land."

"Will it?" Alpheo asked, his voice a low, cold rasp that seemed to pull the heat from the air. "I doubt there is even a pinch of truth in your words, and even less in your heart. The other princes will not return to pull your chestnuts from the fire. If you believe otherwise, you are a greater fool than I give you credit for. Kakunia is dumping in its own blood, a civil war that will leave it a follow shell. And the Prince of Habadia? Ask yourself, who will he move to save?

His future son-in-law, or a prince who cannot even hold his own borders?"

Alpheo offered a thin, predatory smile. "You know the answer as well as I do."

"The Prince of Shaarjan is besieging your mines even as we speak," Sorza spat, his knuckles white upon his reins. "Should you not be there, protecting your precious coin? I recall you shed quite a lot of blood for those hills last time."

"His time will come," Alpheo said evenly. "Directly after yours."

"No! It will be your time! Yours, and the time of every wretch standing behind you! And that Rebel Bull who doesn’t know how to pick his own fight!" Sorza gestured wildly towards Merelao.

"Then we shall make a beautiful dance of it, Crownless One," Merelao spoke, his grey eyes as bottomless and cold as the hunter of the earth. "Though I doubt the singers will find anything brave to say of you when the music stops."

"One dog after another," Sorza hissed, his face twisted. "They’ll name this place the Dog’s Grave by the time I am through with you."

Alpheo didn’t flinch. He didn’t shout. He simply adjusted his grip on the reins, his eyes locked on the man who had broken every oath between them.

"Then come and make truth of your words," the Fox said, the air around him forgetting with the promise of slaughter. "By the day’s end, I shall shatter your bones and let the dirt drink its fill of your blood. The parley is over, Sorza.I have spoke terms and you have denied them, so let the swords do the talking. Run back to your golden sun. And offer it your prayer. If this is the only sun of today, night shall fall upon my wake by day’s end."

--------------

"My men believe it a mistake for you to take the lead so soon into the fray," Alpheo said, his voice flat as the grey horizon. Beneath him, the stallion snorted, a single heavy hoof smashing into the emerald grass as if eager to taste the mud beneath.

He would need to change it before war start, this was a parade stallion, what he needed was a charger.

Around them, the plain was a sea of steel, the light of a dying sun catching the edges of a thousand of armors.

"And what is it that you ponder, Fox?" Merelao asked. He was focused on his task, gathering his long blonde hair into a tight braid across his chest, donning the helm he had made a gift of to the wind.

Alpheo watched him, and even now, he could not grow used to the sight. Merelao looked every bit the prince the songs promised, regal, dangerous, and terrifyingly beautiful. Alpheo’s heart drummed against his ribs, not for the battle ahead, but for the one that would follow. He knew the treachery that had been sown. He knew the harvest they would reap once the Oizenians were cold.

Was enemies all that he could get around him?

"I reckon it a mistake as well," Alpheo said. "We need coordination, not a brawl. If you throw yourself into the tooth of the first charge, we will not move as one. We are outnumbered, Merelao. Order is the only weapon we have left that hasn’t been blunted."

"Nay." Merelao turned, sporting that easy, angelic smile,a look that was excited and cruel all at once. "Our courage shall be our steel, and our beliefs our armor. You have given me lies before, Prince, but I offer you only truth. It is your last chance to come clean to me before battle."

He searched Alpheo’s eyes, looking for a flicker of honesty, a crack in the stone. He found nothing.

Merelao sighed, a sound of genuine regret. "Pity. I liked you well enough, Fox of Yarzat. The dagger of a friend cuts deeper than any foe’s sword. We were both betrayed by the world; I had hoped our pain was shared, our understandings similar. I see now they are not."

He straightened in his saddle, the blade-sharp horns of his helmet catching the light.

"We are both sons of War, the most favored of his children. We shall take this field together, you and I, and let the world see what two men of such greatness can do to a common foe." He nodded towards the Oizenian line. "I know you are not craven. Yours is the most dangerous position of all, and you take it without a hint of fear. The weight of their army will fall upon your shoulders today. Every knight in the South will clamor for your head."

The Lord of Epietoli reached out.

"My respect to you, Alpheo. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. If, after this, we must be enemies, if friendship cannot bloom in this soil, let us at least fight with respect. Let us hope that one day one of us kneels to the other in servitude rather than death. Tomorrow we may be foes, but tonight? Tonight, we are allies."

Alpheo give no sign of agreement. He sat rigid, his face a mask of iron. He hoped it would not come to blood between them, but the seeds had been sown.

Merelao sighed once more, on the horizon the looming Oizenian host stood tall. "I hope to see you when the sun sets, wearing a crown of blood. Let us be naughty and tall. Let us play with our lives so that our Father might look upon us with love in his eyes. But for what you ask me, that answer is not.

My men are marching into the teeth of hell. What commander would I be if I did not suffer the flames alongside them?"

That, Alpheo could understand.

He offered his arm, and Merelao took it in a crushing grip. The Lord of Epietoli towered over him, a giant of muscle and golden hair, his shadow stretching long across the grass.

"A red day," Merelao promised, his eyes alight with the coming slaughter. "It shall be a red day."

"Then let us make it the tale of our victory," Alpheo replied, "Or the finest funeral pyre the South has ever seen."