Herald of Steel



Ptolomy knew Pasha Farzah to be a man of action.

And not the type to take a beating laying down.

"Hehehe," Hearing this assertive demand, at first the aged but strong man gave a little chuckle, confirming he indeed did a plan.

"Well, although we cannot reinforce Alexander, we can certainly take advantage of the situation and make Amenheraft pay. For example, there are a lot of nobles around here who follow Amenheraft. We could 'persuade' them to switch sides." Pasha Farzah made the cunning suggestion.

"Persuade? You mean kill! Revenge for Alexander?" Ptolomy's eyes did not glow with excitement, but wary.

Killing nobles was a bad thing, a very bad thing.

"Of course not. We are not like wild dogs!" And Pasha Farzah seemed to agree as he uncategorically rejected going so extreme.

It would set a catastrophic precedent following which nobles could start killing each other in broad daylight.

No one wanted to see that happen.

So he expounded on what he really meant, "I meant we could use the army to force some of the nobles to swear loyalty to us."

Making one swear loyalty under the sword and then expect them to follow it might sound flawed, but in this time period, swears and promises were similar to binding contracts.

If you sign it, willing or not, you generally had to go through with it, willing or not.

"Oh? Can it be done? Is the army ready?" Ptolomy was certainly interested to erode Amenheraft's influence when it was right next to his base of operations.

But Adhan's army was still in shambles.

Whatever improvements had been made by Alexander, he was sure to demolish it then he left, such as taking a large part of the officer corp with him to Zanzan, and severely crippling the weapon manufacturing capacity of the city.

But even without those the army still would not have been much better as what made that army prevail against Amenheraft's army was the strict disciple and competent officer corp formed by the experienced, veteran mercenaries.

It was those people who maintained the cohesion and morale of the army.

And even they eventually left, the army crumbled into a loose pile of sand.

And given that that battle was just three months ago, naturally Ptolomy had had no time to fix all these glaring issues.

"The army should be adequate. And the peasants have nothing to do anyway," Pasha Farzah reported confidently.

He meant that though the army was in no condition to fight against a peer opponent, it could still take on the small fishes around Adhan.

After all, even a skinny, starving camel was larger than a horse.

And given that it was smack down in the middle of the winter, this skinny camel could be fattened up as a large number of peasants who had nothing to do could be easily gathered to simply overwhelm the other side using sheer mass.

"Then let's. I will choose the nobles to target, and you get the army ready," Ptolomy hence very happily agreed.

"Okay,... let us end here," Pasha Farzah accepted the order with a deep nod as he felt that the meeting was over.

Instead, his thoughts ran back to the army, and who should be appointed to what.

Because currently, the only permanent fighting force was Pasha Farzah's own personal soldiers, who would be now responsible for training the peasants on the bare basics.

Also, as a side note, given that most of the officers were coming from his personal guards, it was pretty evident that Ptolomy's army was actually Pasha Farzah's.

'Well, I will need to send conscription notices all across the city,' Pasha Farzah was already thinking about his next task as he got up from the comfy sofa, the image of distributing messengers around Adhan appearing in his mind.

And accompanying it surfaced the vision of the city itself, Adhan in its all its grandeur.

Adhan was still that city Alexander left it, with beautiful imposing architecture striking up into the horizon, marbled walkways leading up to them, and the magnificent, pink waters of the Life Sea dazzling in the gentle winter sunlight.

But it was also somehow superimposed with the dilapidated, crumbling, and shambling ruined parts of the city, where people still lived miserable lives, in much contrast to those residents of the much more fanciful residences.

'A sick old man dressed in immaculate clothes.' Was the comment Pasha Farzah made about Adhan's current state.

Most of the people were still cold, hungry, and miserable, with the recent hot war settling into a cold war hampering the proper recovery of the economy as Amenheraft's nobles put trade barriers against Adhan.

Some vitality did return to the city after Pasha Farzah started distributing food, but it was nowhere near enough in its scale to be very impactful.

This was because,

One- a lot of the grains were purchased by Alexander.

Two- a lot of it were used for planting, acting as seeds for the spring harvest.

And Three- inefficiency in distributing the food, caused by both incompetence and corruption, something that was almost absent in Alexander's time because of how he used his army to do everything.

Now, to be fair, Alexander could not have done that for too long, as if Pasha Farzah foolishly copied his successful predecessor, he would make the army too powerful, with jurisdiction over both military and civilian aspects of the city.

But whatever the reason, it did not change the fact that because of it people were still lacking the basic necessities to survive, meaning they could not work, meaning they could not afford the basic necessities, meaning no work, meaning….it was a vicious cycle.

So the city hobbled on, fueled by man's innate tenacity to keep on living, even when it was mired in the shadow of the drought, and its residents suffered from its effects.

For the people were hopeful of a better tomorrow, even though they struggled to get through the biting winter without proper provisions.

Whereas in contrast, Zanzan had already forgotten that a drought had happened and was getting stronger and stronger exponentially every day, its people having not a second to catch a breath.

A large part of it was Alexander's food drive to enable the workers to work, the invention of several large industries that sucked up a huge number of laborers, eliminating unemployment, and lastly, Alexander generously dumping tens of millions of ropals out of his own pocket just in the last three months to jump-start the economy.

The last part was something that both Pasha Farzah and Ptolomy could have done but were not willing to.

Pasha Farzah did not because it was not his city.

And Ptolomy did not because one, he was dead broke.

And two, which was the more important reason, because he did not have that economic knowledge.

To him, this was how a city always looked after a disaster, and recovery always took time.

According to him, once the spring harvest came, things would improve, and over the next two to three years, the devastation would fix itself.

And he was true in that, for the grass root people would work to make their lives better even through all the hardship.

But without a coordinated, centralized command, this would take time.

Time in which, the ruler of the city could use the downtrodden, desperate people in their military adventures, almost in a cruel, machiavellian move.

For example, Pasha Farzah had no doubt that when the notices for the levies went out, there would be no shortage of volunteers.

For the poor souls were desperate to earn coin.

And a glut of labor supply meant cheaper wages, which drew a smile on the aged noble's face.

'This war should not cost us a lot,' He was relieved.

But his ruminations were interrupted by Ptolomy's sharp call, "Wait!" as the new king then posed, "Seelima and Hellma! Will they be alright? Djose's men won't do anything to them right?"

The question had panic and fear draped all over it, as Ptolomy cursed himself for forgetting about the most important people in his life in exchange for Alexander.

And the reason for this was not simply forgetfulness or Ptolomy's lower intellect.

It was because of habit.

Because he grew up with the maxim - 'Nobles are never harmed'.

A maxim that Alexander seemed to challenge and even threaten to shatter.

And so he was afraid that once Zanzan was captured, the nobles might harm the royal ladies in revenge for Ptolomy appointing a butcher like Alexander.

And that thought mortified him, as Ptolomy, even without listening to Pasha Farzah's response, attempted to rush to write a letter to the Queen mother, telling her to take a ship out of Zanzan this very second.

"Djose will not harm The Queen mother or the Imperial Princess. Everyone is not like Alexander." But Pasha Farzah was there to placate Ptolomy instantly, saying, "Seelima is still his Imperial mother, and Hellma his sister. So his men will have strict orders to not touch them. Rest assured."

Pasha Farzah was damn sure about this.

Sure Alexander's women would get butchered or worse when Zanzan fell, but nothing would happen to the other noble ladies.

Pasha Farzah knew Djose and knew he would not raise his blades against them.

Because that was not who Djose was.

He was going there to punish Alexander, not the other guest ladies.

And also because doing so would break the 'no killing nobles' contract, risking this civil war escalating to a conflict that destroys Adhania.

Djose would not do that.

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