Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Chapter 283: The matter of ruling(1)

Chapter 283: The matter of ruling(1)

Geowulf sat heavily on the throne, the faint creak of the wood beneath him a far cry from the majesty the seat once held. Once adorned with gold and fine engravings, the throne had been stripped of its grandeur, the precious metals and jewels looted during the city's fall. Now, it was nothing more than a weathered frame of dark wood, its splendor traded for the spoils of conquest.

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands dangling loosely as he stared at the ground beneath his boots. The stone floor was smooth and cold, unmarred by blood or dirt—the kind of surface that felt strange to a man who had spent most of his life on snow-covered plains and frozen cadavers. His gaze lingered there, on the scuffed leather of his boots, as if they held the answers to questions he dared not voice.

Geowulf sighed, a long, deep breath that seemed to carry the weight of years. His broad shoulders sagged under an invisible burden, and for a moment, the Great Knotur, the conqueror of Sarlan, looked merely like a tired man.

I'm getting old, he thought, the admission heavy in his mind. Once, he would have dismissed such a notion with a snarl and a sharp laugh, but not now. Now, the truth of it was inescapable.

He closed his eyes and remembered the man he had been—young, fierce, and unstoppable. He thought of the battles he had fought, the enemies he had crushed beneath his axe, all the female that he bedded in the night after a battle . There had been a time when he could have killed three men like Klarik without breaking a sweat,and bedded triple the women afterward.