The King's throne room was a place of arrogant confidence. The air was thick with the scent of fine wine and the chatter of nobles who had gathered to celebrate an imagined victory. The King, a man in the prime of his life with a face of stern, cold authority, sat on his throne, basking in the glory of a war he was sure he had already won. His generals and councilors spoke of the Vexin alliance as a minor inconvenience, a bug to be crushed on the road to victory.
The celebration was shattered by the sound of the great hall's doors bursting open. A messenger, his armor battered and his face a mask of shock and exhaustion, stumbled into the room. He was a lone figure, a grim testament to a battle no one had seen. He fell to one knee, his head bowed, his body trembling.
"My King," he said, his voice a hoarse, broken whisper. "The army is gone."
The silence in the room was a palpable, terrible thing. The King's face, a mask of cold confidence a moment before, was now a mask of pure disbelief. "What did you say?" he asked, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
"The army," the messenger repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "The Vexin... they used a trap. The mercenaries were delayed. They defeated our guards... and the foreign army... they're all gone, My King. The army is shattered. We were routed."
The King stood, his face a whirlwind of rage and disbelief. He had lost 8,000 men to a force he had believed was a minor inconvenience. His confidence, his arrogance, had been shattered by a single, defiant alliance. The rage in his eyes was a terrible thing to behold, a fire that would consume all in its path.
"The mercenaries," the King said, his voice now a cold, dangerous whisper. "They broke through. They will find the Vexin. Send a new order. Give them a new reward. Tell their commander that he will be given a dukedom... if he brings me the heads of Damon and the Vexin's leaders. The Vexin will pay for this arrogance. They will be ground into the dust, and their victory will be a distant, bitter memory."
The King's fury was a cold, focused thing. His initial shock had been replaced by a grim, vengeful resolve. He had lost a battle, but he would not lose the war. The Vexin had won a great victory, but they had just made themselves a target for a far greater, more personal vengeance.