Herald of Steel



Alexander had already guessed that the men were here for such talks.

And so now, he was thinking of how to squeeze the most out of them.

The few thousand infantry he caught were not negligible, but neither were they vital to his city, particularly if some much more lucrative alternative deals could be made through them.

Hence, Alexander looked forward to the negotiations.

Soon the group was allowed into the rear of the army and their horses slowly trotted until finally they reached Alexander, who sat perched atop his horse surrounded by his bodyguards with crossbows at the ready.

They were ready to respond to any sudden attacks, like if any stupid nobles wanted to charge Alexander and commit double suicide in an attempt at some kind of revenge.

"Pasha Alexander, greetings, my name is Shordar (Baron) Prantik," The man to first introduce himself was the same man who had pleaded to Menes, as he broke protocol to step forward in front of his other noble colleagues, many of whom had higher peerages than him.

This show of eager servility and servitude displeased many of his peers, who furrowed their brows and turned their heads in disgust.

But ultimately all held their tongue for the time being as they still needed to negotiate a price with Alexander for the release of their men.

And so following Lor dPrantik's lead, each of the other nobles got to introducing themselves, starting from the lower peerages, until finally the last introduced himself as,

"Greetings Lord Alexander, I'm Jamider (Earl) Bahram. It is an honor to meet you at last. My fiefdom is around the Wari county, north of here. And I hope you would visit it one day."

This was the same person who had contributed most of the soldiers.

'Maybe once I conquer it,' Alexander smirked in his mind at the thought, as he was sure he would be pretty much dead if he visited the place any time soon.

And then decided to formally introduce himself.

"I'm Alexander. Pasha of Zanzan and ruler of the province, as appointed by the true king of Adhania, His Majesty Ptolomy." He grandly declared, deciding to use Ptolomy's name to boost his image, while also subtly hinting that they were all technically his retainers.

This was a topic that had been left undecided and so many of the nobles simply decided not to engage in the conversation by cleverly feigning they had not even heard Alexander's little speech.

While Jamider (Earl) Bahram being the leader of the group cleverly said this, "Haha, yes your lordship is the ruler of Zanzan according to some. While others claim it to belong to another man. But we lesser men are neither strong nor clever enough to know which is which."

The man had learned from Menes's attitude that adopting a strong stanch was useless, and so decided to try the soft, putty method.

But even then he at least tried to vaguely show his support for Amenheraft by subtly denying the statement about Ptolomy's status, while also attempting to please Alexander.

This was a three-way balancing act that the veteran lord tried to perform to the best of his abilities but found it very hard.

In fact such an act would be hard for anyone.

Noticing this, and speaking from a position of strength, Alexander hence decided to press on with this narrative, asking, "What is there to be confused about? Adhan is the capital of Adhania. And His Majesty Ptolomy controls it. Thus he controls Adhania. Pretty simple I think."

Alexander's logic naturally had huge flaws, but the nobles knew they could not nitpick here, especially not when they were here to negotiate.

So Lord Bahram only said, "Yes, that is certainly one way to look at it. While others might say since His Majesty Amenheraft controls nine of the twelve provinces, he is the king. But who can say?"

He shrugged his shoulders and then quickly added the following before Alexander could twist the words further, "But that is a discussion for another time. For now, perhaps we can discuss the issue at hand?"

Alexander put on a disinterested face hearing this, and then pursed his lips to simply ask, "What is there to discuss? You guys launched an unprovoked attack against me and then lost. Now I have some of your men. And they are my prize."

Lord Bahram's lips almost imperceptibly at Alexander's nonchalance, feeling like getting anything out of this man would be very hard.

So he first tried to ease the situation.

"Ahem, my lord, the reasons for the attack we can discuss at length later."

"But for now, maybe your men could lower their new bows? I know they are superb weapons but there is no need to point them at us, is there, hahaha?"

Lord Bahram tried very hard to keep a straight, jolly face while being pointed at by a weapon.

This was the utmost insult for a noble, being treated as if they were ravenous dogs.

But instead of easing the situation, it seemed to somehow incense Alexander, who almost snarled, "I think there is a need. Especially against people who destroy all conventions and etiquettes and kill messengers."

Alexander was still very angry Vespay- the man was a good soldier.

"And in retaliation, you killed Lord Nafi who was our champion, tit for tat," Lord Bahram instantly shot back, but then quickly tried to placate the situation by saying, "So it seems trust has been eroded on both sides. And it is our hope that we can rebuild it again. Starting right now."

The man seemed to be genuinely trying to negotiate.

But Alexander could not bite so easily.

"Haah! How can those two actions be remotely considered the same?" He angrily snapped, raising his clutched knuckles and pointing out, "What I did was simply respond in kind. A reciprocal gesture."

"While it was you who came to my land unprovoked, killed my messenger whom I only sent to dissertate why you came, and then attacked me without any rhyme or reason. And now you are saying I'm at fault?"

Finishing this Alexander then raised his chin as a way of looking down on the nobles and asked in a mocking tone, "Tell me, did all that happen as I just said? Or was it all my imagination? Perhaps I'm wrong and have invaded your land instead?"

Alexander's dripping sarcasm was not lost on anyone.

"......." There was a silence that followed afterward, as Lord Bahram's facial countenance changed quite a few times in the meantime.

He was still trying very hard to make Alexander a bit amicable to their cause while also trying to douce his hatred for the man.

'Bastard kills my sister and nephews, burns them to death, and then has the balls to say we attacked him unprovoked. Fucking scoundrel! Bastard! Mothe…'

Lord Bahram cussed Alexander using some very choice words while trying as hard as he could to not show it on his face.

But the issue about Jabel was not bought up as Alexander had already published his reason.

And the official reason given for the complete overnight destruction of Jabel and the death of all its inhabitants was a simple, unimaginative one- A deadly storm.

Yes, according to Alexander, there was a fierce thunderstorm that day around Jabel, and one of the innumerable lighting strikes had unfortunately struck one of the many wooden structures present and set fire to it.

Which then the strong, gale-like winds carried all across the city, spreading it like wildfire, and soon the small residence was engulfed in a fiery tornado that burnt everything down to crips, and with it all its citizens.

Truly a tragedy.

And such a thing presumably happened according to Alexander even though the fact remained that none of the nearby settlements were the least bit affected by this supposed 'one in a lifetime' huge, brutal storm.

And neither were any other houses outside the small town blown away or even damaged in the slightest.

And in fact, none of the people living around even witnessed the storm, as they also reported the complete opposite, saying that the sky was clear that day, with nary a cloud in sight.

And this was further without the fact that many of the bodies had sword and arrow wounds on them, and while also none of the bodies had any valuables on them.

One might be even forgiven for thinking that the wind had just picked up all the precious things for itself when it came as dictated by Alexander.

All these discrepancies made Alexander's official story look almost like a joke, as he did not even really try to hide his involvement.

As such, given that he had chosen to say these ridiculous things anyway, many nobles saw this as Alexander treating the death and murder of their kin and relatives as a kind of farce or entertainment, something to laugh over as they received the news.

And what made it worse was that it was not Alexander who delivered the news, but the letter came using Ptlomy's channels.

Meaning the so-called king had sanctioned this.

And the reason why the way the whole thing worked like that was because Alexander lacked the connections and infrastructure to send his messenger all around Zanzan by himself.

So he first sent Ptolomy the 'official' reason for the tragedy at Jable.

Then it was Ptolomy who used the Ramuh temples scattered throughout the entire empire to distribute this message.

This was also how Bahrim got his message, who had torn apart the letter moments after reading

it, and was considering trying to do the same to Alexander.