Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Chapter 330: Truth behind the snow

Chapter 330: Truth behind the snow

It was an indisputable triumph, a victory that would be sung in taverns and courts. Three thousand Imperial soldiers had crushed an unruly horde of six thousand barbarians. None could deny the significance of the day

For a fleeting moment, Emperor Mavius allowed himself to gaze back through the corridors of history, perhaps the recent victory against an enemy that had not walked south for three hundred years, caused him to draw correlation with the past.

In his mind's eye, he thought of the days when the Empire was but a the kingdom of the Hand, its reach confined to the southern slopes of the God's Hand Mountains. Those peaks, towering and austere, had once marked the line between civilization and untamed savagery.

It was Vritiux Rotorxoroctano, who had first dared to challenge that line. Known as the Slayer of Rotors,was the one that started what the priest called the Great War ,leading war parties everywhere outside the lands he inherited, seeking to expand his dominion.

The God's Fingers, those impregnable castles perched along the mountain passes, became his stepping stones, not only protecting his realm but also serving as a bridge that only he could walk to the wild lands beyond.

With the resolve of a conqueror, Vritiux led his forces through the crags and valleys, purging the barbarian tribes that dared to defy him. He didn't merely conquer; he assimilated, folding the defeated into the fabric of his growing kingdom, accepting thier warrior in his armies and marrying the tribe's leader daughters to southern nobles.