Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Chapter 353: Behold my stuff(2)

Chapter 353: Behold my stuff(2)

For most, life began and ended in the same place. Generations toiled on the same patch of earth, their lives linked to the familiar fields and villages where their ancestors had lived and died. Even among the free men of the Confederation—those rare wanderers of the seas who sought plunder and glory—true wonders remained elusive. Their raids might bring fleeting glimpses of lions or wolves, creatures of myth to most, but such beasts were distant shadows, more often heard of in tales than seen with their own eyes.

Yet nothing in their experience—neither the humble lives of villagers nor the storied exploits of seafaring raiders—could have prepared the gathered free lords and their retinues for what Blake Elio revealed upon the Call. It was not Blake himself, though his commanding presence drew attention like iron to a lodestone,as he was the man who had led the rise of the free people, the one that had conquered the island of Harmway renewing the golden age of the Confederation, but what amazed was instead the sight that followed him. What he brought was no mere oddity; it was an impossibility made flesh, so outlandish and extraordinary that even the hardest and most battle-worn among them were struck silent in its wake.

He rode tall on the back of an animal unlike anything most had ever seen—a creature with long, spindly legs and a humped back that rose high above the heads of even the tallest men. Its gait was strange, a swaying, loping motion that seemed almost unnatural, yet Blake sat atop it as if he were born to command such a beast. 

Behind Blake trailed a procession that defied the imagination. Towering birds, easily as tall as a man and broader still, stalked forward on powerful legs. Their long necks stretched skyward, their feathers shimmering in the sunlight with hues of gray and cream. Their piercing eyes, set in sleek heads, scanned their surroundings with curiosity.

A massive cage followed, hauled by a team of men straining against its weight. Inside, a lion lounged with a dark mane that gleamed like polished obsidian, its amber eyes fixed lazily on the crowd as though it deemed them unworthy of its full attention. When it yawned, its cavernous mouth revealed rows of dagger-like teeth.

And then there was the dog—or what the onlookers first assumed to be a dog. Its body was sleek yet muscular, its coat a mesmerizing pattern of black and gold spots that rippled with its every movement. A small, scruffy mane adorned its neck, giving it a savage, untamed appearance. Its shoulders sloped forward, its gait lopsided .