Herald of Steel

Alexander finally felt the exhaustion catch up to him as the burden of his existential crisis was at last lifted.

With him reasonably confident that Damious and Aristotle would soon die, he decided it was time to make his exit.

"Well leader Melodias, I will leave the mistress to you." Alexander cheerfully bid his goodbye and casually picked up the wooden tray with the drinking pot and cups, eager to get rid of the evidence as soon as possible.

"Don't worry, you can leave her to me!" Melodias thumped his chest in reply. "But are you sure you don't want to stay a little longer? Have something to drink?" Melodias politely offered.

"No, I am too tired and can barely keep my eyes open," Alexander revealed his exhaustion with a wry smile.

And he was not alone.

Almost everyone had been awake for close to forty hours, forced to march, fight, soak and run.

​ The fact that these men could still operate at such extremes was a testament to their peak physical fitness and how bullishly strong they were.

But now even these men seemed to have reached their limits.

"Yeah, me too. Don't know how much guarding I can do." Melodias frankly revealed he too was at the end of his ropes.

"Say, Melodias," Alexander softly called out, dragging Melodias to the side," how much food does your group have? Cause my group has run out."

"Well, brother, don't worry. All of us know how hard your group has worked to provide all the medicine for us. You will not go hungry while we have even one scrap of food." Melodias solemnly promised, thinking Alexander was asking for food.

"I very much appreciate your offer, but that's not what I meant." Alexander corrected. "What I mean is that how long will our food last? Can we make it out of Cantagena with what we have?" He posed the grave question.

"Oh, that!" Melodias exclaimed with a smile."Yes, your quartermaster Thecoles bought up the exact issue with leader Damious a while back. He suggested we send some of our soldiers in the night to scavenge some horse meat to make something called smoked sausage."

This news surprised Alexander because he was once again reminded he might be the most knowledgeable fish in the pond, but likely not the smartest.

Other people could too come up with ingenious and creative ideas to solve a problem.

Melodias paused after saying this. swinging his head to see if anyone was eavesdropping and resumed, "I am not supposed to say this because apparently there are a lot of spies within our ranks but what the heck, I trust you."

He then revealed a secret, "Remember when I told you I was organizing patrols? Well, I was actually assembling men to get some meat. And just now we got some of the meat coming in. That's what I was reporting to Damious. It seems that the Adhanians were too tired and too busy with their ritual to notice our men."

"And if they were not, we would be dead," Alexander quipped.

"Yes, but maybe were saved because the son of Gaia blessed us." Melodias strangely commented with a small smile.

But Alexander treated it as if he had not heard it and reminded, "Well if you do go to sleep, please remember to switch your watch with someone."

"Your mistress will be safe with me." Melodias thumped and reassured Alexander for the second time.

Then Alexander turned to the bloodthirsty warrior and holding the wooden tray with one hand, he placed his right hand on the boy's shoulder and apologized, "Sorry, I made you keep awake all night. I promise you can sleep all day tomorrow."

Though the reason Alexander had chosen him was because Bartholomew had slept the entire afternoon and was now likely as awake as a night owl.

"I am just disappointed I could not kill anyone today." Came the fierce reply.

Bartholomew's 'father' said that he had found the boy amongst a pack of wolves who had attacked his caravan at night and was left behind because he fell off the wolf he was riding on. He claimed to vividly remember the naked boy riding on a wolf, smiling and giggling all the way, nary a concern for himself as the bloodthirsty beast charged at them,

And even though, a lot of the sharp edges had been smoothed out after joining the mercenary group and spending time with Alexander, his raw animalistic thirst for violence seemed to have remained.

Or it could just be that Bartho is by birth an aggressive individual.

Who can tell?

"Well, you can kill as many as you want as we scoot. I doubt the Adhanians will just let us go." Alexander offered some weird words of comfort.

Usually, an army chasing after you was not a pleasant thought.

But this seemed to cheer the long-haired warrior up, who grinned and nodded.

As Alexander was leaving, Cambyses too decided to make herself scarce.

"All of you," she turned to address the medical staff still frantically running around, and as their boss, she commanded, "stop everything, have a bite to eat, and then go to sleep. If you work any harder, you will die before the patients do."

This order seemed like a divine revelation of salvation from the heavens above and the slaves, servants, and volunteers all quickened their pace to finish their immediate job at hand and then get some shut eyes.

Many were up until now running on pure sheer will and likely on the verge of collapse, so this instruction came in the nick of time.

After delivering this, Cambyses almost regally said to her assigned four guards, "I too am sleepy. Escort me to my tent."

Then she addressed her slave, "And Alexander, send Mean to me."

'You are getting into your role a bit too much Cam.' Alexander grumbled in his heart.

He did not miss how Cambyses chose not to use the word 'please' when addressing the guards or how dismissively she called him.

But he still played the role of a perfect servant, bowing and saying, "I will find her right away."

"Madam, we have a few slaves master has specifically prepared for you." Gratz offered.

But faced a quick rejection.

"No need." Came Cambyses's almost reflexive answer.

"Wait, send the most beautiful one." Suddenly Cambyses changed her mind.

This last sentence produced an almost imperceptible twitch in Alexander's face as he swore, 'Cam, the deal was you could sleep with Mean anytime you want. Not every other woman!'

Alexander suddenly remembered a funny saying he heard he could not exactly recall where, 'If a woman turns lesbian, it's the man's fault.'

Though Cambyses's own reason for changing her mind was far more altruistic.

She simply feared that after a hard day's fighting, these soldiers might choose to vent their desires onto the slaves and female servants.

Cambyses did not have the power or the space in her tent to save all of them.

And she, shaped by the thoughts of her time, also believed some rewards like sexual relief should be given to the soldiers.

So she chose to save the most beautiful one, which in her eyes was the most valuable and was thus most worth saving.

"Then I will send all and madam can choose to her liking." Gratz cleverly proposed.

This pleased Cambyses and she felt this Gratz might not be a half-bad slave.

But she ruefully remembered the man was a freeman and she had just killed his master who he is fiercely loyal to.

Not a prime candidate for a loyal slave.

And then she suddenly started looking forward to seeing how Alexander would gain their loyalty and make them follow him.

Alexander watched with a placid look as the girl left the tent under the care of four strong men and then casting his glance one last time at the 'bear', whose chest Alexander could no longer see moving, he along with Theocles made their exit.

As the duo walked out of earshot range of all prying ears, Alexander congratulated, "Melodias has told me how you solved our food crisis. You have proved to the son of Gaia why you deserve to be quartermaster."

"It was only through the wisdom Gaia bestowed me." Theocles humbly bowed.

"I am very pleased. But there's something I would like you to do." Alexander then handed the tray with the drinking pot and cups to Theocles and said, "Destroy the pot. Smash it into as small a piece as you can and bury the pieces separately over different places. Then retrieve the identical-looking piece from Nestoras's tent and bring it to me."

Being assigned this little job sent Theocles over the moon.

Because he finally understood it.

He had been strangely silent during the second part of the meeting with Damious because he wanted to see how the son of Gaia would overcome this titanic challenge.

And now he understood that the answer lay with the drinking pot.

Theocles had no idea how but he was sure somehow, some kind of poison had been delivered using this.

And then he remembered the identical-looking one in Nestoras's room, which until now he thought was this one and understood just how far back the boy started planning it and a chill went down his back.

But this was not a chill of fear, but a chill of ecstasy.

Pure, undiluted pleasure at being trusted with such a crucial information and at being able to serve such a competent master.

'He intended to switch this special pot with the ordinary one all those years back!' Theocles excitedly thought.

He made up his mind then and there to sell his daughter as a slave to Alexander or to Cambyses or if that was not possible even to Mean!

Selling a freewoman as a slave to a slave!

How ludicrous!

Theocles swore, "Unless a god comes down to earth, no one can find the smallest traces of it. If I fail, may I be smitten out of existence," then disappeared into the night.

But why did Alexander not discard the evidence himself?

Because the one downside of being considered divine was the constant presence of the 'paparazzi' i.e- the common soldier dying to get a look at him.

Even this particular secluded spot only existed because most of the soldiers were out scavenging horse meat, but Alexander would bet anything once he went somewhere suitable where he could bury the pottery, a thousand eyes would greet him.

So, delegating his task to the much less conspicuous Theocles, Alexander made his way to the outer medical camp to look for Mean and after a bit of asking around found out she had gone to another camp, to supervise the curing of the meat into smoked sausages.

That's why he didn't meet her last time and that was also why she did not yet get the news about her mistress's marriage and kick up a storm.

Following Cambyses's order, Alexander thus sent a messenger to Mean, telling her to return to her mistress's side as soon as possible.

While he was there, Alexander coincidentally saw his mistress stopping to admire the earthen pot and then as if noticing him even through the night's dark background, flashed him a big, happy grin.

Cambyses stopped there because as she was passing the large earthen pot, she was struck by a sudden realization.

The realization that Alexander had sent her to get the beetroot all the way back then just to set the stage for his ultimate play.

And the comprehension of just how competent her husband was sent the girl's heart reeling and she felt herself wet her pants in excitement.

And as fate would have it, her eyes by coincidence caught hold of the man in question, and so she involuntarily grinned, her smile hidden from the guards behind her.

Yet, Alexander did not quite understand the meaning of this but deciding it was finally time to get some sleep, and determining anything and everything else could wait till sunrise, he made his way to his tent to get some much-needed shut-eye.

He was dog-tired and he had a big day tomorrow.