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I couldn't help but to look out on the horizon. Not when so much of it was covered up by the fortress that lay before us. Castle Marseden was its name, with perriers on the towers and springalds placed on the gatehouse towers, looking out towards us. The gate out front was a deceptive target, for though it had been smashed open, the iron-backed oaken portcullis yet remained, with two further springalds placed on the castle-grounds ready to shoot through the criss-crossing bars. Staff-slingers and crossbowmen were stationed on her walls and by number of population inside the gates, we guessed there were two or three hundred men of fighting age, with an unknown number of neighbouring villeins boolstering those numbers.

But that was not so important. Not as important as what lay to my right.

There he was, sitting down with his dark brown hair, his red silk tunic, his red mantle-cloak, his blue hose, his yellowed leather boots, his unshaven visage, his slightly thinning frame, thinned from military food which he was not used to.

I used to think he would not be worth much. I have changed my opinion of him.

Now here was a teenage boy one could fight for and serve… because he was intelligent for his age and well-read. Unlike many teenage nobles, he was not a cunt-seeking boy jumping at every opportunity for a quick fuck with the servant girls. Unlike most squires, he could not only recite poetry, he could also cite figures that were very important to people like me. Numbers, figures, facts, plans, known in the human tongue as logistics and strategy. What he lacked was experience.

Whilst he had complete control in final decisions concerning the overall strategy throughout the entire campaign, my tactical considerations were important to him because he lacked first-hand experience leading men, at the group level and at the company level. The mercenaries who he paid for did not like to listen to his commands due to his lack of experience and so they deferred to me. This, of course, lead to some conflicts.

“You may mock me, Teslaz."

I frowned for a moment, hearing that retort. I did not expect him to hear me, not when he was so keenly focused on his carving. It was a strange thing, to see the prince of man, carving what seemed to be some form of toy. On the grass in front of him was another toy, a completed model which he could compare his current work to.

“Prince?" I answered… in a way that made it sound as though it were a question, but was not. He was a tragic person in many of the ways in which that word could be used to describe a person. He usually appeared happy with a smile, but that was a deception. He was a quiet person, more happy to listen to others' conversations than to join in himself.

For this, I could not blame him. Not when the man who killed his father, A minotaur just like me, was now his 'father'. I did not know the full story, but I knew enough to know that the relationship was not exactly well fostered.

“You have mocked me once, when I told you to keep an eye on your minotaurs."

The prince set his carving down for a moment as he turned to face me. With a dramatic swaying of his hands he spoke up again. “You said you would keep them in line. Instead, they rushed forwards, and though they broke open the front gate they were rewarded with rocks and red-hot sand thrown from the murderholes… and at the other side of the portcullis, they took springald bolts to their bodies, dying in vain for no purpose. When they routed, the staff-slingers on the walls pelted them with big… fucking… rocks."

The prince paused for a moment. “Seven, that is the number of minotaurs, slain. Slain, for fuck's sake!"

The prince turned around, pointing towards the burned out remains of the siege tower that he had ordered to be built. “I could build one of those for the cost of two good minotaurs. Two of them!"

The prince kicked at the flowers near him. “You can mock me for that, Teslaz. I should have expected that a sortie might be mounted. It was far-enough away from perrier fire… But those damned staff-slingers sortieing out and hurling incendiaries in the night, I did not expect that."

A brief pause...

“Don't forget how you mocked me for a second time, when I hired slingers and crossbowmen after your failed assault. You thought them cowardly, but they have saved your ass several times over. Who kept the garrison's heads down with slingstones and bolts when they were about to shoot you?"

The prince liked his theatrics.

After an awkward silence between us, the boy turned around and looked me in the eye for a moment. Sometimes, I thought he could read my thoughts, because I saw the prince reach for his coin purse. “Money is the most important thing to you, is it not?" The prince then threw the bag at me. I caught it with a smile, I could feel the weight inside and I knew it was my payday. “Go buy your whores, your wine, brag about your victories, your 'pride', go mock me behind my back. But remember that your loyalty lies with me."

I could hear a threat when I heard one. What was left unsaid, was about betrayal. The boy seemed innocent once upon a time. But in a short span of time, seeing war first-hand, he had begun to change. What was left unsaid, was how he would kill me if I ever forget where my loyalties lay.

I was there when he first saw the devastation of war. I remember, and will always remember that sight. Not because seeing it had damaged me, because I have been exposed to real warfare since I was young, but because of what it did to him. Seeing it occur in the eyes of the inexperienced is the most unsettling thing, that damned stare, the same in beastmen and human.

It is easy to be swayed by idealistic intent, when you are young and naive. You do not realize that the people you lead are not often spurred by a righteous cause, but are lead on by the prospect of plunder and rape. And rape is what he saw being done to the innocent and guilty alike, in raids. The prince had heard about raiding, rape, knew that it was always an element of warfare, but he had never encountered it himself.

I could remember being shocked when his fists clenched, when he almost charged down his own men, but I stopped him. Shocked, because what I thought was normal, was utterly abhorrent to a teenager brought up on idealised fantasies of honour and stories of chivalry. That is not what 'real' war looks like. Yet, this is the reality, thrust violently into his face, which forced him to see how things truly were.

And when I stopped him from riding down his mercenaries, I bore the misplaced anger of the prince that week. And as he looked on at me in fury, I knew I had done my job as protector, because he did not understand that if he had struck down his own men, his men would turn on him. Things between us have been soured ever since.

Or when the enemy burned villages, killed cattle and raped women and children before slaying those too? He saw the aftermath, and I saw how that sight affected the prince. The clenched fists, the prince's vow of spreading 'justice', which I knew would not be justice, because justice does not exist in this world. Justice is merely the hippocras-mulled byword that covers untasteful words like revenge, And I have seen plenty of that In my life.

The prince has misunderstood me when he first hired me, and he has misunderstood me now. I have no intention of simply buying whores or wine, I had done that for most of my young life, for that was the life of a mercenary. Now, I have every intention of earning lands and titles. Why remain a mercenary, when I could be a knight?… or better yet, A lord? What would be best towards attaining this goal, than to serve a prince?

There would be no betrayal, because like the prince, I have something to fight for. Something I was willing to die for. Something to protect.

The Kingdom of Lontar.

There would be plenty of fighting, I was assured of that. Civil wars had a tendency of being bloody affairs, and with the bloodletting came opportunity for power-mongers.