Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king
Chapter 594: Goodbyes(2)

Chapter 594: Goodbyes(2)

A hand, firm and steady, settled on Alpheo’s shoulder, the weight of it shaking him gently back to the present.He turned slightly to find Egil standing beside him, the man’s scarred face bearing the faintest of smiles.

“You’ve been silent for a good while, Alph” Egil murmured, his voice low but not unkind, like a brother rousing another from a deep, necessary dream.

Alpheo blinked once, then twice, the faces of his men, the sweep of the sky, the distant murmur of the crowd — all rushing back to him at once, sharp and vibrant.He took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the crisp, clean air that smelled faintly of the sea and the blossoming gardens surrounding the keep.

He stepped forward, the old wood creaking beneath his boots, and turned to face his gathered men.Behind them, sprawling beyond the pavilion, the gardens of the keep rolled in rich waves of green , the late sun casting the world in a golden hue.Flowers he did not know the names of danced gently in the breeze and great trees offered shade like open arms.

He allowed himself a small, tight smile —how strange, he thought, that after so many years of mud, sand, and blood, their farewell would be set against such beauty.

He squared his shoulders and spoke, his voice carrying clearly over the gathered warriors, cutting through the warm afternoon like a blade through silk.

“I thought,” he began, the words rough but steady, “that this day would never come.”

A hush fell, the men leaning in, every ear straining to catch the words that felt as if they might be carved into the marrow of history.

Alpheo turned his gaze slowly over the assembled faces, letting his eyes touch them each in turn —the old, the scarred, the young hardened too soon —men who had marched with him across barren deserts and broken plains, who had risen from the dust like a storm the world had never seen coming.

“I thought that I would die before it,” he continued, his voice growing stronger with every word, “lost somewhere on the road between dreams and despair.”

He paused, turning slightly, letting his gaze sweep over the lush garden outside the keep, drinking it in —a symbol of what they had fought for, perhaps, though none had dared to imagine it could truly exist.

“I never thought,” he said, his voice softening for a breath, “that I would have the honor of standing before you today…of saying goodbye to you — the brothers who, through sweat and blood, through wounds seen and unseen, achieved what none of us would have ever thought possible.”

He let the silence settle after those words, a silence heavy with memory and meaning,before he lifted his chin slightly, his voice now firm as iron:

“You carved a place for yourselves in a world that wished to grind you into nothing.You bore scars not as shame but as banners of your triumph.You gave life to a dream born in the filth , and you made it soar higher than any could have dared to hope.”

The breeze stirred again, carrying the scent of flowers and salt across the open pavilion,as Alpheo stood tall, every word he spoke hammering into the hearts of the men who had followed him from the first breath of rebellion to the twilight of victory.

“Before I speak further,” he said, steadying himself with a breath, “there is something that weighs upon my heart and back heavier than any armor I have ever worn.”

The pavilion, open to the soft winds and the scents of the spring garden, seemed to lean inward, holding its breath.

“In the eyes of men and gods,” Alpheo continued, his voice growing firmer, “I must beg your forgiveness for the great insult — the great betrayal — that I have dealt each and every one of you.

Each of you had earned your peace.

You had paid for it with your blood, your years, your very souls, and it was yours by right. You should have been allowed to live it months ago, to lay down your arms, to return to the fields, the cities, the homes you dreamed of through endless marches and battles. Yet I — driven by greed, by fear, by an unwillingness to let go of what we had bled to build — denied you what was yours.For that I must apologise”

He swept his hand slowly across the gathered soldiers, many standing now with heads lowered, others fixing their gaze on him, their faces set hard against the tide of emotion swelling within them.

“I will not,” Alpheo said, voice steady, “stand here and heap praises on your courage. Though statues should rise in your likeness and songs should be written until even the mountains remember your names, I will not speak of your valor as if it were something cheap enough to be captured in words.

Nor will I honor the fallen with hollow speeches. They are not merely names to carve into stones or to call out during feasts. They were brothers. Sons. Fathers. Friends. Torn from us before their time by a war they fought not for glory, but for something far greater.”

His throat tightened, and he paused only to swallow the rising knot of grief.

“My heart is pained when I see your faces,” he continued, “marked by wounds that no man should have borne. It bleeds when I think of those not standing among you now, those whose voices are silent forever, swallowed by the cruel hand of death. And I cannot forget — will not forget — that they gave up everything for the simple right for us to stand here now, breathing freely under the sun.”

A tremor passed among the men, hard men, many of them veterans of endless campaigns, but no amount of armor or discipline could shield them from the weight of his words.

“I could,” Alpheo said, voice rising slightly, “point my finger at those who brought war upon us. I could curse the hundreds who thirsted for power and spilled blood like water. I could spit on their names for all the suffering they caused. But that would be a lie.”

He let the silence stretch for a moment before driving the truth home.

“It was I,” he said, every syllable like iron striking iron, “who lacked the strength to walk the path alone. It was I who dragged you into battle after battle because I could not bear to lose what we had built. It was I who could not let go, even when the gods themselves whispered that the time for peace had come.”

The tears brimmed openly in his eyes now, unchecked, a mirror of the quiet sobs beginning to break among the ranks.

“And for that,” Alpheo said, his voice raw but unbreaking, “I apologize. To each and every one of you.For those that lived and those that did not.”

For a moment he seemed almost to collapse under the weight of his own words, but he straightened his back and pressed on.

“I denied many of you the chance to go home in time to see children grow, to become a father before age took you, to see a wife waiting for you at home. I denied you the simple joys that should have been yours by right — a family’s laughter, the peace of a hearth unshadowed by fear. And that,” he said, a bitter smile touching his lips, “will be a sin I shall carry with me until my bones are dust and my name forgotten.”

Across the pavilion, men who had once jeered at death on the battlefield now wiped at their faces with trembling hands. Some bowed their heads low, others stared at him with reddened, glistening eyes, sharing between them a bond beyond the reach of any song or tale.

Alpheo drew in another breath, steadier now, and let his voice swell with the conviction of all they had fought for.

“Every man who fell along the way,” he said, “did not give his life for gold, nor for banners, nor even for me. They gave their lives so that each of you could hold in your hands the right to live freely, to love freely, to walk without fear.

They gave their lives for the children who can now laugh under open skies, for the fathers who will not be cut down before their time, for the women who will not suffer under the hands of beasts wearing the faces of men.”

He took a step forward, and the gathering seemed to lean closer, as if drawn by some invisible current that passed from heart to heart.

“They gave their lives,” Alpheo said, voice thick with emotion, “so that we could build something greater than ourselves . They bought this peace with the full price of their own blood, and it is now our sacred duty to honor it, not with words, but with the lives we live because of them.”

Silence reigned after his final words, a silence so complete it seemed even the wind held its breath. Then, slowly, almost reverently, the soldiers began to raise their hands to their hearts, the old salute they had shared when they had nothing but firelight and promises.

Alpheo let the silence linger, allowing his men to soak in the gravity of the moment. Then, lifting his head, his voice rose again.

“A new chapter awaits each of you,” he said, his eyes sweeping across the sea of faces — some worn and scarred, others still young but having lost so much from that little time they could have sertved, forever marked by what they had endured. “A chapter where the road ahead will not be paved by orders shouted over the din of battle, nor by the steady march of war drums behind your steps.”

He paused, breathing deeply of the fresh air, a contrast to the smoke and blood that had so often filled his lungs.

“Until this day, we lived among brothers,” Alpheo went on, his voice rich with memory. “We trained together, ate together, fought and bled together. We lived under one banner, one purpose, one dream — bound tighter than blood. But now, ahead of each of you, lies something far more daunting… and at the same time, far sweeter than any victory we ever seized from an enemy’s hands.”

He let the weight of the words settle before speaking the truth they all knew but had barely dared to name.

“Freedom.”

The word seemed to hang in the air like a blessing, heavy and luminous.

“You now have the freedom to live your lives as you wish,” Alpheo continued, a faint, wistful smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “No master shall command your steps. No tyrant shall demand your sword. The burdens you carry now will be yours alone to bear — and yours alone to cast aside if you choose.”

He stepped forward once more, hand pressed lightly over his heart, as though steadying it against the storm of emotion rising within him.

“I tell you now,” he said, voice firm, “death is less frightening than a life that is never truly lived. A blade through the heart is quick and clean… but a spirit that is chained by fear, by regret, by the weight of ‘what could have been’ — that is a death far crueler.”

He paused, letting his gaze touch each man, as though branding the moment into their memory.

“And so, from the bottom of my heart,” Alpheo said, voice thick but unyielding, “I pray — no, I demand — that you live. Live as you have never lived before. Chase the dreams you spoke of around those dying campfires.

Build the homes you drew in the dust when you thought no one watched. Find the families you lost or create new ones of your own. Love fiercely. Laugh without fear. Stand in the sun and drink in the life that you bought with blood, with pain, with brotherhood.”

A murmur rose from the ranks, not of confusion or dissent, but the soft, unmistakable stirrings of a shared resolve.

“You owe it,” Alpheo said, voice growing louder, surer, “not to me. Not to the White Army. But to yourselves. To the ones who cannot be here today. To the promises made in darkness and honored in the light.”

He exhaled slowly, a man unburdening his soul before those who had carried it with him through the worst of the world.

“You are free now,” he said simply. “Truly free. And may the gods curse me if I ever forget the faces of the men who carved that freedom out of stone and ash.”

For a heartbeat longer, there was only silence — deep, profound. Then, as if answering a call felt but not spoken, the first cheer rose from the back ranks, raw and fierce. Another joined it. Then another.

“And yet,” Alpheo said interrupting the cheering “words alone, no matter how true, are poor coins to pay for the price you have borne.”

He paused, sweeping his gaze across the men once more — seeing not soldiers, not warriors, but human beings who had given everything for something greater than themselves.

“The only thing I can still offer you,” he went on, voice growing stronger, “is to accompany you into this new journey as best I can, to honor the bond that cannot be broken, even by peace.”

Alpheo straightened his back, the weight of command heavy on his shoulders, and yet it no longer crushed him — it lifted him, for it was shared among them all.

“And so,” he declared, the sunlight catching the proud lines of his weathered face, “it is now that I hereby decree: each of you shall continue to receive your full pay for the next four months, as though you still stood in service — every coin you earned, every bonus promised, shall be yours, to aid you in your decisions for your futures.”

A murmur, sharp and sudden, ran through the gathered soldiers, their eyes going wide, exchanging astonished glances. Some whispered under their breath in disbelief, others merely stared, mouths agape, as if fearing to wake from a dream too kind to be true.

But Alpheo lifted his hand again, bidding them listen, for he was not yet done.

“Moreover,” he said, “from this day forward, each of you shall be free of tax for as long as you shall live. No hand of the collector shall fall upon your doors, no burden shall weigh your shoulders as you seek to build anew.”

The murmur grew louder, rippling like a tide among them, men who had never known such generosity in all their hardened lives.

“And,” Alpheo pressed on, the words a balm to old wounds, “for those who would seize new dreams, new ventures, know this: in time to come, when bodies of finance and trade are born in these lands, you shall have the right to seek loans without the heavy chain of interest, without fear that a single failure shall cast you into ruin or despair if you fail to pay it back.”

He stepped forward once more, his hands spread wide, as if offering the very world itself to those who had bled to create it.

“You poised your lives on the blade’s edge for me, for a dream that was not yet even born. It is only right — only just — that I give back to you what little I can, for no gold, no privilege, can truly repay the debt I owe.”

For a moment, the soldiers said nothing. A heavy, awed silence wrapped around them, each man grappling with the magnitude of the gift, the recognition, the honor bestowed upon them — not with hollow medals, not with empty parades, but with the very tools of freedom.

Alpheo’s own voice trembled slightly as he pressed a fist to his heart.

“From the deepest marrow of my bones, from the sincerest blood of my soul, I thank you,” he said, his words rich with feeling. “May fortune, love, and the mercy of the gods follow each and every one of you, wherever your roads may lead.”

And as he spoke the final words, Alpheo felt a strange warmth upon his cheeks. To his astonishment, when he lifted his hand, he found tears there — honest, unashamed tears.

He was not alone.

Across the pavilion, hardened men — veterans of a hundred battles, killers who had stared death in the eye without flinching — wept openly. Some hid their faces in their hands; others let the tears fall freely, no longer ashamed to show the deep, raw emotion that Alpheo’s words had unleashed in their chests.

And as they cried, they saluted him — not as a king, not as a general — but as a brother who had walked the long road with them, and who now, at the journey’s end, stood by them one last time.

The garden around them seemed almost to shimmer under the afternoon sun, the world itself pausing, breathless, to honor the bond sealed by fire, blood, and dreams.

Thus ended the speech — not with the roar of trumpets, but with the silent, sacred communion of men who had given all they were and were now free to live, love, and remember.

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