Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king
Chapter 593: Goodbyes(1)

Chapter 593: Goodbyes(1)

Alpheo climbed the wide, groaning stairs of the wooden pavilion outside the royal keep, his steps slow but steady, each footfall echoing like the beat of a distant drum. The afternoon sun draped the earth in a rich gold, and the banners of Yarzat swayed lazily in the warm breeze.

His heart sat heavy in his chest, a weight greater than any armor he had ever worn.

This was no mere ceremony, no routine address to his loyal captains.Today, it was a farewell — a long-awaited goodbye from a man to those who had been his pillars, his shield, and his sword.

It was a farewell from the prince who had once walked among them in chains and rags, now clothed in silk and crowned by victory, standing at the edge of a new dawn and bidding his companions ‘Goodbyes’.

At the top of the pavilion, waiting in solemn ranks, stood the high command of the White Army — grim and proud as ever.

Jarza, his figure rigid and stalwart as stone.Egil, ever the loud one, his keen eyes now however reflecting the gravity of the moment. And Asag, whose youthful stubbornness had been forged into something unbreakable by the trial he had experienced at Aracina.

They stood there not as soldiers awaiting orders, but as brothers who had shared in the burden of a long, bitter road.

Alpheo stepped onto the pavilion floor, the old wood creaking beneath his boots, and for a moment — just a breath — he paused.Their eyes met his, and in those glances, a silent communion passed between them.The grief, the pride, the ache of knowing that this chapter — written in blood and sweat and dreams — was reaching its final pages.

In the hearts of those assembled, the weight of the moment settled like dust upon ancient ruins.

They all knew.

This was the closing of a journey worth a thousand songs — a journey from the bottomless pit of slavery and disgrace, across burning deserts and lush, rolling plains, through kingdoms rising and empires crumbling, to a land fractured by dozens of princely banners.

Here, among these clashing warhorns and bleeding fields, they had carved out their place.Here, they had planted a flag that would not fall.

Nearly three years of endless march, of battles fought beneath cruel suns and starless skies, and now — at last — peace loomed on the horizon like a long-forgotten lover returning home.

The oldest core, the ones who had marched alongside their prince when all he had to offer was a dream and a broken sword, awaited the words that would set them free.

A silence fell, deep and reverent, as Alpheo stepped to the front of the stage.

And the world itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the prince of steel and sorrow to speak.

His gaze drifted over the sea of faces before him — the scarred and the weary, the proud and the broken — the living ledger of a journey written not with ink but with blood and sweat.

Some among them had come out of this last war maimed, limbs missing or bandages covering places that would never recover fully.

This was the final day — the last time they would stand together as they had stood countless times before: shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, against the storm.

And just as Alpheo’s eyes found them, so too did theirs find him — a bridge between souls built without a single word spoken.

He saw it then — clear and raw — in the depths of their gazes.The tiredness, deeper than any mere fatigue of body, carved into the hard lines of their faces.

It was the tiredness of men who had trudged for years across the shifting sands of the unknown, never knowing if the next day would bring a meal or a massacre, a shelter or a grave.

He who had thought himself hardened by all these years, who had buried sentiment deep beneath the armor of necessity, felt a terrible tightening in his chest.

He was no sentimental fool , he was after all a pragmatist, yet now, as he stood under the golden light of a world they had fought to reclaim, he knew with a painful certainty that if he dared to look too long, to think too deeply, he might weep in front of his men.

And that would certainly be for a poor sight.

There was something in their faces — something terrible and beautiful — that threatened to break him.They were no longer just soldiers.

They were memories of fire-lit nights when their bellies were empty but their hearts full of fierce hope; of whispered dreams around dying embers, when all they had to warm them were each other’s company and the stubborn, ragged hope that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be better.

That tomorrow had finally come.

And now, these same men — the last of the first — looked at him not as a prince, not as a sovereign draped in titles and victories, but exactly as they had three years ago:A leader forged by desperation and bound to them by loyalty, suffering, and a dream they had dared to share.

The wind stirred the pavilion’s banners overhead, snapping them like the wings of some great departing bird.It carried with it the sharp scent of pine and salt, the fragrances of a world they had won — and, perhaps, a world they would soon have to let go.

Alpheo inhaled slowly, steadying himself, feeling the ancient weight of the moment settle over his shoulders like a mantle.

A day he had once thought might never come.

More than once, in the long nights of his youth, he had half-convinced himself that he would end his days chasing that ambitious dream he had forged in the fires of misery —the dream that had first bloomed in the dirt and blood of a Romelian slave camp, when he was less a man and more a shadow of one, toiling beneath a master’s lash.

He had broken that lash, and many other followed that example throwing their lot with a cause without future and without past.

Now they made the future and that horrible past? They threw away as a chapter that they would never come back to.

His eyes drifted across the gathered men, drawn like iron filings to old memories —to a face, weathered and cracked by sun and war, a face he only half-remembered from the early days, from when he had huddled around a guttering fire, sharing a crust of bread and the heavy burden of fear with comrades who were little more than strangers bound by desperation.

That man had been there when Alpheo was nothing more than a whisper of a leader, when power was not yet his, only the fragile thread of trust spun between the lost and the damned.

Then his gaze found another figure — a man who leaned heavily upon a crude wooden crutch,a fresh wound where once had been a strong leg, now replaced with a wooden limb attached to his waist through a belt, trembling as he fought to stand proud, to defy the cruel hand fate had dealt him.

His mouth was twisted in a sneer, but Alpheo knew it was not directed at him.It was a rage hurled silently at the heavens themselves — a fury born from knowing that, in the end, the gods had demanded a price for the victory they had won.

Every man before him bore some mark — visible or hidden — of the years they had bled together.

And as he looked upon them, Alpheo felt the unvarnished truth pierce him like a blade:He could gaze at each and every soul assembled here and know without doubt that their stories —their pain, their triumphs, their sacrifices — were far more worthy of song and memory than anything he might claim for himself.

He, who now stood clad in titles and honor, knew full well that what he had achieved was not truly his own.It had been built on their shoulders —the hundreds who had believed when there was nothing to believe in,who had fought when the world had already buried them.

It was their blood that had watered the roots of his dream,their broken bodies that paved the road from slave to sovereign.

No crown, no keep, no triumph could ever be enough to repay that debt.

The thought wrapped around his heart like a chain, heavy and unbreakable.

Above them, the sky stretched out in endless blue, vast and eternal , the same sky that had watched them rise from the ashes and carve their names into history with fire and steel.

And beneath it, Alpheo stood ready, not to command, but to honor.Ready to speak the words that would close this chapter of their lives —a chapter not of kings and crowns, but of brothers.

Brothers who had dared to dream together.Brothers who had won together.Brothers who would, today, be set free to pursue their own right to happiness.