So this is how it feels, Alpheo mused, marching at the head of his men toward an unkown destiny.
To lead. To hear the quiet song of steel swaying in its scabbards behind you, and to know that every last inch of it comes out on your word and nobody else's.
What a beautiful sound that was.
Behind him, half a thousand men walked.
They did not look that good of a warrior.
Most wore simple chainmail and dented helmets, though a fortunate few had scavenged proper armoured boots out of the camp and were insufferable about it to their comrades. They carried swords and shields and lances, everything the soldiers had not thought worth taking to battle with them, which was now theirs by the oldest law there is.
Still, their weapons mattered a great deal less than the look their faces carried.
These were men who had tasted freedom once and would not be handing it back. Like starving dogs standing over a scrap of meat, they would bare their teeth at any hand that came for it, however finely gloved.
From a distance, the ragged column almost resembled a true army.Provided one closed his eyes enough.
Give boys sticks and they will call themselves soldiers by supper, Alpheo thought playing the general with a straight face.
Some of them were small, bodies stunted by years of hunger and toil, and though a few good meals would begin to mend that, Alpheo held no confidence in their skill as soldiers.
It was one thing to butcher some dozens of disjointed and disorganized rutts, another to face an army that was waiting for them with steel about.
I will give them that much. He needed warriors, not walking skeletons liable to fold at the first proper clash of steel. He would feed them, train them, arm them. No ration would be cut short while he still had the coin to prevent it.
At the centre of the column the few numeber of horses they had moved in tight ranks, guarding the hard won prize as if they were the royal guard charged of the ruling family.
Last night Alpheo had counted every coin of it himself, twice: fifteen aureii and one hundred and twenty silverii. Enough for very few weapons, even less armour, and, but at the least and far importantly, it was enough for food to keep five hundred men walking south.
But the supplies were thinning fast. A day, perhaps two, before hunger began asking questions he could not answer.
Fortunately, salvation lay ahead of them.
A modest salvation.
Two hundred souls at the most. No walls, no defences, no guards. Simple folk tending their fields, entirely unaware of what was walking toward them across the flat.
Of course that was fertiled ground for many different ideas.
"In my tribe's day," Egil murmured, breaking a long silence, nostalgia thick in his voice as he recalled of times that only he could find warmth in, "we'd have raided four of these in a week. Five, in a good week."
He closed his eyes a moment, savouring the ghost of it. The wind in his hair, the thunder of hooves, the cries of people realising far too late what the dust on the horizon meant. Then he turned to Alpheo with a smirk.
"You certain you don't want this one? They look a shade too well fed to deserve the mercy."
His gaze lingered, hunting for an answer.
Alpheo gave him none. He simply met the look, steady and silent and unyielding, because he had already given his reason once and did not intend to spend it twice.Especially during aimless blubber.
Egil sighed. "Just asking, you are most used to changing your minds for shitty whims. How is it you never do when you should? " he muttered, and stepped away.
Alpheo adjusted the chainmail across his shoulders and made himself ready for business.
The outskirt of the village rose just ahead,promising and waiting like a woman in a bed with her cheeks parted for the thrust.
"Ready?" he asked, turning to the giant at his back.
Jarza nodded once.
With a flick of his wrist, Alpheo sent them forward.
Negotiation is always simplest when the other party understands both the stakes and the alternatives. First you show them the steel. Then you show them the coin.
Then you let them decide for themselves which of the two they would rather handle.
Speak softly and carry a large stick, as some forgotten man had once put it, and you will go far.
Or something close enough to that.
They halted just beyond the outskirts of the village.
It was empty.
Not a soul in sight. No wary farmer in a doorway, no frightened child peering round a fence post. Only the quiet hum of wind moving through the fields.
Alpheo was not remotely surprised. Five hundred armed men walking across open country is not a thing a village of this size fails to notice.
He was pleased, though, that they had possessed the good sense not to come out with hoes and pitchforks in their hands. Had they done that, he was not entirely certain he could have stopped what followed.
"They already know we're here," Clio observed, scanning the horizon, contributing nothing whatsoever.
There was no movement for a long time, until at last something stirred.
An old man, slow of step, hunched over a wooden cane. He walked out toward five hundred armed strangers with deliberate care, his wrinkled face giving up nothing at all,except that of a face spent on a long life of hard work.
The village head, most likely, Alpheo thought, tilting his own head at the sight of the man coming alone.
The elder stopped a few paces short and spoke.
The words meant nothing to Alpheo. Arlanian, or was it Azanian? He spoke neither, and had never had cause to.
He turned to the man , probably the only one, who did.
Jarza stepped up and listened carefully before translating. "He asks why we've come. Says his lord must have already paid us, and that we should take any complaint to him." A pause. "The old bastard thinks we're soldiers.Though he is looking around..."
Alpheo smirked. That works nicely.
He leaned slightly toward Jarza, his voice smooth and measured.
"Tell him this. '' He cleared his throat ''My good man, we mean no harm to you or yours. We were sent to buy food and water, and we are more than willing to pay for both. Assure him there is no cause for concern. So long as we are treated with respect, the steel stays where it is."
A beat, then a small grin. "And ask after some oats for the horses. The beasts eat too, and they complain more than the men."
Jarza relayed it all.
The elder's face stayed unreadable, but his stance hardened, and his next words came out with a harder edge.
Jarza sighed before translating. "He asks who we are. Says he sees no banner."
Alpheo chuckled. Of course. That was careless of me.
Well. The stick, then.
His grin widened, and nothing warm came with it.
"Tell him to close his mouth and open his granary. Advise him that we are still asking nicely and still offering payment, and that both of those things are conditions of the afternoon, which may yet change.''
''On a whim at that!'' Egil shouted splutterig with laughter.
Alpheo sighed ''Assure him again that we will not cheat him. And let us keep this transaction pleasant for everybody involved."
The old man hesitated a long moment.
His reply came slower this time, and more careful. Jarza listened, nodded, and turned back.
"He wants to know how much food and water you need."
Alpheo reached into his coat and drew out a small pouch. Forty silverii. Enough to buy a week of grain for five hundred men.
They would demand a discount, naturally. Everyone does.
With a flick of the wrist he tossed the pouch so that it landed in the dirt at the old man's feet.
"Tell him sixty bushels of grain and thirty of oats. And urns. We'll want those for the water."
The elder frowned down at the pouch and made no move at all to pick it up. He muttered something low and wary instead.
Jarza exhaled sharply through his nose. "He says it isn't enough."
Alpheo let out a slow and weary sigh.
He stepped forward.
Not quickly. There was no call for quickly. One hand settled on the hilt of his sword as he came to a stop directly in front of the old man, close enough to be heard without raising his voice at all.
And then, with no anger in it and no malice either, only a quiet and total certainty, he said:
"Tell him that perhaps he ought to count again.And if he is short perhaps he'd accept steel instead of silver"
The elder stiffened when the words came. His fingers twitched once against the cane.
He did not need another word translated from the look of it. The message had crossed the language just fine on its own.
Precise men, Alpheo had always noticed, had a habit of coming to unfortunate ends.
He was only now beginning to understand exactly why that was.
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Map of the continent: