> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ashenmarch.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Sellswords > Hired steel in full: the defensive garrison and offensive company, the Sellsword's Mark, upkeep, and the caps that keep bought power bounded — never pay-to-win. Gold can buy you steel. A **sellsword** is a company of hired soldiers you pay in Gold to strengthen one fight — a holding you're defending, or an invasion you're running yourself. This is the only thing Gold buys anywhere in Ashenmarch that touches **power**; everything else in the [Market](/en/the-market) is cosmetic or convenience. And because it touches power, it is bounded on every side: a sellsword is help, never a substitute for the road. The governing law is simple — a mercenary **augments a real action, never replaces it**, exactly like a War Banner. Hired steel makes a march you actually ran hit harder, or a hold you actively keep stand longer. It never fights on its own, and it can never out-fight steel you earned by running. Find the authoritative costs on the [Game Reference](/en/reference#sellswords-mercenaries). ## The two kinds of steel Reinforces **one holding** for the length of the contract. Bolsters that holding's defence against invaders — and it *can* be hired for a holding already under siege. Strengthens **one invasion march you actually run**. It rides a real route you complete that crosses into the target's ground — it never marches on its own. ### The defensive garrison Hire a garrison for one holding and, for the length of the contract, it adds to that holding's defence — extra bite an invader has to grind through before the land changes hands. Think of it as paid reinforcements standing the wall while you're away. Crucially, you **can** hire a garrison for a holding that is *already* under siege. That's the intuitive moment to want defenders — someone is at your gates. A mid-siege garrison starts blunting the in-progress invasion from the next tick onward. But by design it's a *modest* reinforcement, never a rescue: its strength is clamped below your own weakest earned wall (see [the caps](#the-caps-that-keep-it-fair) below), so it buys you time, not immunity. The way to actually break a siege is still to lace up and [run your contested ground](/en/war#defending). ### The offensive company An offensive company sharpens an attack **you carry out yourself**. You hire the company, then go run a qualifying invasion march — a real route, of at least the minimum distance, that crosses into the target holding's ground. When that activity syncs, the company's strength is added to the effort your run brings to the siege. It's consumed on use. The company never launches an attack on its own. No hire ever results in an autonomous strike while you sit still — it only amplifies a march **you ran** that already overlaps the target. Effort is the trigger; the sellsword is the multiplier on top. ## The Sellsword's Mark The moment you hire — offence or defence — your house takes the **Sellsword's Mark**, and everyone can see it. A visible **pennant** flies over your holdings, and the **Herald** announces to the realm that your house has taken foreign steel. While the Mark stands, rivals who strike your holdings loot a **scaled bounty** on top of their usual spoils. The Mark clears roughly a day after your **last** contract ends. The Mark has two layers, and the first is guaranteed: * **Visibility, always.** Buying power is never secret. The pennant on the map and the Herald's tiding are the flat, certain social cost of hired steel — you've announced to every rival that you leaned on Gold, and that alone invites retaliation. * **A bounty that scales with the heat.** While marked, your holdings are a slightly richer target — rivals who capture from you loot a bonus (find the current ceiling on the [Reference](/en/reference#sellswords-mercenaries)), and it **self-scales with how contested your ground already is**. Hire steel on a hot, hotly-circled front and the bounty bites — you painted a target exactly where rivals were already gathering. Hire a quiet garrison in a calm corner and the bounty is negligible. The Mark punishes leaning on Gold *where it matters*, not a careful defensive hire out of harm's way. The Mark is deliberate: it's the counterweight that makes bought power a gamble rather than a dominant move. Using it invites exactly the retaliation it advertises. ## Upkeep — feeding your steel Sellswords don't fight for one payment. Beyond the hire price, a company costs **Gold per day** to keep, drawn from your coffers for as long as the contract runs (the daily rate is on the [Reference](/en/reference#sellswords-mercenaries)). Upkeep is the leash. Gold flows in from your holdings faster the more land you hold, but only *sublinearly* — while upkeep is flat, every day, per company. So there's no standing army to be had: keep too much steel on the payroll and the daily drain outruns your tribute. Sellswords are for a fight in front of you, not a permanent garrison you forget about. ## The caps that keep it fair Ashenmarch is **not pay-to-win**. Gold itself is earned by running — it's never purchasable with real money — so literal pay-to-win is off the table before we start. These caps close the *internal* risk: that a wealthy house could simply out-spend a hungry one. A sellsword's strength is always capped **strictly below your own weakest earned wall**. Whatever you've built with real kilometres outranks anything you can hire. Steel bought with Gold is, by construction, never as strong as steel you earned on the road — so no amount of spending buys a defence that effort couldn't beat. The **inverse-holdings equalizer**: a sellsword's effect scales *inversely* with how much land you already hold. A small, struggling house gets a real, meaningful punch from a hire; a sprawling juggernaut gets almost nothing for the same Gold. Gold-to-power is deliberately **regressive** — a lever for the underdog, not a steamroll for the dominant. Mercenaries are **non-giftable and non-tradeable**. Unlike cosmetic items in the Market, you can never buy a company and hand it to an ally. Power stays with the house that earned the Gold and ran the march — you can fund a friend's *crest*, never their army. Between the below-the-wall clamp, the equalizer, upkeep, and the Mark, a hire is a *bounded* advantage: strongest for the house that needs it most, weakest for the house that needs it least, always beatable by effort, and always visible. ## Counterplay If a rival flies the tarnished pennant, they've told you two things: they felt they needed help, and they're **worth more to raid**. A Marked house carries a bounty for whoever strikes it, richest where the ground is already hot. Reading the map for Marks (see [Reading the map](/en/war#reading-the-map)) is real intelligence — it points you at houses that are both pressured and profitable. And against a garrison at your own gates, the answer never changes: **run**. Any genuine defensive march restores more than a clamped garrison holds, and the garrison was capped below your weakest wall to begin with. There is no siege you can be spent out of — only one you can be out-run in. Effort is the floor no purse can buy past. Hired steel is worth reaching for when a real fight is in front of you and the odds are close — a besieged holding you can't get to today, or an invasion you want to land in one hard push. It is never worth keeping on the payroll "just in case": that's all upkeep and a standing Mark, for power you aren't using.