Herald of Steel

The group of leaders soon confirmed what Ptolomy said by asking around a bit and after a bit of discussion came to the same conclusion as Ptolomy- they had to march north if they wanted to leave Adhania anytime soon as the winds would only change directions back around March- April, where it was now was just the start of September.

Agnirat was also only hundred fifty kilometers northwest of their current position as opposed to Acme, which was around three hundred fifty kilometers southwest of them.

So, although the leaders and Alexander found Ptolomy not very reliable, they begrudgingly accepted his request to escort him in exchange for him helping them charter ships.

The other extreme alternatives were to march literally a few thousand kilometers on foot to reach Cantagena or take over a city that has a port and force the sailors to sail them there.

Neither very appealing options.

As Alexander escorted the king to the former tent of Agapios, he asked in an offhand manner, “Who’s the girl?”

“She’s my slave Nu…..she’s my sister Hellma,” Ptomoly deciding that lying to this sharp mercenary was a bad idea, came clean.

“I see. She has a high fever. I hope she gets well soon,” Alexander offered some general words of comfort as he wondered why he escaped with his sister in particular.

Making sure Ptolomy was comfortable in his tent, Alexander did not retire to his quarters but called Camius to get the interrogation reports.

And he personally went over them one by one, looking for any discrepancies.

And although he noticed some trivial ones, what bothered him most were how the questions were all over the place, jumping from topic to topic and not following through on the answers.

Like someone answered the question, ‘How many days were you out?’ with ‘Two days.’

This was not possible, but instead of following through and asking further questions like, ‘The king won four days ago, what did you do the extra two days?’, the interrogator just wrote the answer and moved on to the topic of what food they ate for which meal.

‘Haaah, I will need to make a standard questionnaire for interrogations or at least teach them some basic conversational techniques.’ Alexander sighed in his heart and then called Camius to show him some of the flaws with the questions asked and how they were asked.

“I will need to arrange for someone to turn your street knowledge into a book to teach new spies,” Alexander was already making plans to form his security service.

‘You do you doc,’ Camius lampooned at the thought of even more paperwork.

It took quite a while for Alexander to read the transcripts of all fourteen people (Hellma and Ptolomy included made sixteen) and cross reference and gleam the truth out of them, after filtering out the lies.

And by the time he was done, it was already midnight and he was ready to turn himself in when a golden glint hit his eyes- the royal seal.

Melodias had taken it from Ptolomy when he searched him and then passed it on to him.

Alexander picked up the smooth, round, solid piece of gold, intricately decorated with the sword and thunder coat arms of the Adhanian royal family on one side, and the engraving of Life Sea on the other.

‘I too will one day become king!’ Alexander’s heart burned with pure ambition.

As Alexander was psyching himself up to one day sit on a throne, a herald suddenly called out to him in the dead middle of the night to say that a messenger from Adhania was here to see him.

‘Ptolomy’s location got revealed so quickly? Fuck! How many spies do we have among ourselves?’ Alexander could write it in gold why the messenger- most likely Arazadm was here.

But for once, Alexander was wrong in his deduction on how the Adhanians knew where Ptolomy was.

Because the horsemen that were chased off reported to their higher-ups that it was the mercenaries that got in their way of killing Ptolomy.

And this quickly made up its way to the ears of the highest levels of power in Adhania and soon reach the ears of the most powerful man in the country, Amenheraft, who could not sit still for a second knowing the murderer of his father was just a few kilometers in front of him.

He immediately ordered the deployment of twenty thousand of his twenty-five thousand army in the middle of the night and ordered Arazadm to go bring Ptolomy from the mercenaries and retrieve the royal seal or declare war.

“Esteemed noble Arazadm, such night calls are unbecoming of a man of your status, hehe” Alexander mocked the moment he saw the familiar mustached tall tanned man.

“You…..” Arazadm hated this mercenary to his guts and wanted to go off on a tirade but held his tongue, knowing his mission.

“You are guilty of hiding the royal traitor, Hand him over along with the royal seal,” His voice was peremptory and absolute.

“Ptolomy? We do have a soldier by that name, but why does Adhania want a low-level grunt?” Alexander played dumb.

“Our soldiers confirmed that you attacked them when they were about to capture Ptolomy. I know he’s here. Don’t play dumb.” Arazadm was still a bit cranky at having been woken up in the middle of the night and forced to go talk with that abominable brat.

He thought the mercenaries’ heads had to have been eaten to shit to choose this milk-dripping pup as their leader.

And the incessant rain on the way did not help improve his mood.

“Haah, ..wait, and let me get the other mercenary leaders. We will decide on it together.” Alexander felt any further flowery talk was just dumb.

They knew what they wanted and had come to him with the full intention of getting it.

“What’s there to talk about? Give him to us or there will be war?” Arazadm gave the ultimate.

But Alexander remained calm and told him to wait.

And soon the leaders were woken up and made to seek an audience Alexander, where they meet Arazadm.

“This is Arazadm, he is here to demand Ptolomy from us?” Alexander told the gist of the situation which made all the leaders frown.

“What does the esteemed lord have to exchange him with?” Menicus, who had years of experience negotiating with people politely asked.

But this soft tone fell on deaf ears as Arazadm only snarled, “Heh, we not simply killing you for harboring god’s enemy on earth is compensation enough. Don’t get greedy, you pigs!”

Menicus was very well respected by the mercenary leaders and this rude behavior angered many, though they kept their mouths shut.

“Hehe, please calm down esteem messenger. We are not saying we will not hand this Ptolomy you claim we have over. But we are interested in knowing what he has done. If he is really a rebel as you say, we will hand him over. Going against a god’s will is the greatest sin on earth and we certainly will not associate ourselves with him if what you say is true.” Alexander was trying to get Arazadm to talk so that he could form an emotional bond with him.

‘If I had known this I would have been nicer to him,’ Alexander regretted his earlier cavalier taunts.

And Alexander too was now learning about the bitter pill called regret.

“Everyone knows about the rebel, Stop wasting my time.” Arazadm only screamed.

The reason for his drastic change in behavior compared to the first was because the king had deployed twenty thousand men against the mercenaries if negotiations failed.

So Arazadm- who already hated the mercenaries, had little incentive to negotiate.

But Alexander still tried, “I am sure they do. But great lord, we are only illiterate mercenaries from foreign lands. Mindless brutes who only came here drawn in by the smell of coin. So please enlighten us.”

Alexander even fully bowed to the noble.

‘Wow, Alexander sure can oil when the situation calls for it.’ Melodias smirked in his heart, while Heliptos sneered, ‘The commander is a better ass-licker than me.’ ．

Seeing the insolent brat debase and lower himself before him, Arazadm felt his heart cool a bit and so spoke, “Ptolomy attempted a coup and failed. Now he needs to stand trial.”

This concise answer was not what Alexander was looking for and asked, “Ahem, high noble sir, perhaps you could tell us a bit how he did it, what atrocities he committed while becoming a rebel, and how this man escaped the clutches of justice this long.”

Seeing Alexander describe Ptolomy in this negative light, Arazadm’s mouth loosened a bit and he started his recount.

And although he was reluctant at first, but under Alexander’s cajoling, he revealed the entire rebellion plot as seen through the lens of the other party.

And though the events were decorated and told differently, like how according to him the actions of Amenheraft’s father were right, how the nobles simply did not have the money to pay for the food the populace needed, and how the nobles were just living mouth to mouth and could not afford to lower taxes, the general information about the rebellion was consistent with Ptolomy’s version.

Though there were additions like the involvement of Cantagena and Tibias long before Ptolomy called for them and how Ptolomy tried to burn down all three granaries of the city and succeeded in two, while the third attempt failed, but instead spreading fire to the nearby houses, mostly housing by nobles and killing close to a thousand of them.

He also framed the drought not as a punishment but as a test from Ramuh to separate the chaff from the wheat, the believers from the non-believers, and those that remained steadfast would be granted eternal residence in Aaru.

‘Wow, you guys are really selling the religious thing seriously huh?’ This reminded Alexander of the exact things some people in his previous life used to say when disaster hit them.

“So, are you satisfied with the reason now?” Arazadm was running out of patience.

“Okay, we will hand over Ptolomy.” Alexander nodded, managing to eke out a tiny smile from Arazadm.