Herald of Steel

The day to leave for Zanzan came on the first week of October, with the party first making toward Agnirat.

The huge possession consisted of more than forty thousand people, consisting of the twenty-two thousand (22,000) slaves Alexander bought, four thousand (4,000) mercenaries, and one thousand (1,000) Cantagena soldiers who decided to move to him to Zanzan, the five thousand (5,000) freed Canteganan slaves and servants, the seven thousand (7,000) free Adhanians and around one thousand artisans (1,000) and their families..

There were also enough supplies to last them almost a year, with ten thousand tonnes of grain, five thousand animals, and many tonnes of other miscellaneous goods.

“Please take care of yourself, Your Majesty,” Alexander bowed to Ptolomy as he said his farewell. ．

“Um, I’ll leave Hellma’s and the Queen mother’s safety to you. Please take care of them,” Ptolomy had a sulky, reluctant tone to his voice.

“Rest assured your Majesty, I will protect them to my last dying breath,” Alexander thumped his chest in assurance as he flashed a smile to his liege.

And then he reminded, “This is only temporary my king. The princess and her mother will be allowed to stay with you for six months after the Jtaama. So, please have patience.”

This cheered up Ptolomy a lot and he nodded his head vigorously to show his support.

The reason for this change was because after that incident, where Alexander came to understand a bit about Ptolomy’s craze for his sister, and fearing he might do something stupid, Alexander promised him that instead of the agreed upon five years, they will now split the time with Alexander and Ptolomy, with Nanazin and her daughters taking their place.

Ptolomy naturally was overjoyed by this and quickly accepted.

Alexander then turned to Pasha Farzah who was standing beside Ptolomy, “Prime minister please rest assured Azira and Azura are in good hands.”

“Hehe…” Only a slight chuckle rang from the man-made prime minister as he knew he didn’t need to say anything.

Alexander was smart enough to understand what that smile meant and for the first time in his life, Alexander appreciated just how much meaning a single laugh could carry.

Done with the pleasantries, Alexander, with his entourage finally made their way towards Agnirat, where a hundred ships awaited them to take them to Zanzan.

As Agrinat was a major port city, the hundred-and-fifty-kilometer road between the two cities was very well maintained. Alexander crossed the journey in five days, averaging thirty kilometers a day.

Lady Inayah too had traveled with them to return to her city and acted as a generous host to Alexander and co.

Like Adhan, Agnirat seemed to have suffered its share of the drought and the scars of empty. desolate streets, abandoned farmlands, and general ruin laid bare for all to see.

But Alexander did not pay much attention to this, instead more focusing on overseeing the unloading of men and cargo into the ships awaiting at the port.

It took two days, working night and day to get everything onto the ships, and then, bidding farewell to their host, Alexander stepped on board the ship and seven days later finished the three thousand kilometer journey.

Because of the strong northerly wind, the ship traveled almost twice its average speed, and although the journey was choppy and bumpy, it was relatively uneventful.

Alexander spent most of the time in his cabin with Cambyses, while also making various plans and lists of what to do once he reached Zanzan.

As Alexander approached Zanzan’s harbor at around dawn, he found it desolate and empty, but surprisingly in pristine condition, not at all like the shabby, decrepit, ruined structure Lady Inayah had once described it as.

Alexander would later find the reason for this discrepancy was because this port had been used as a major supply hub for Adhania against Tibias during the two-year war and was thus renovated to fit the logistics requirement of the hundred thousand troops.

But for now, Alexander didn’t seem too concerned about why the harbor condition was so good and instead told his men to lay anchor and moor their ships to the harbor.

And thus soon, the ships were unloading their cargo, assisted by the twenty thousand, mostly native Zanzan slaves.

Alexander also tasked a thousand men to go inside the city and see what was the situation there as a hundred ships coming to port and not causing a ruckus was definitely strange.

There was not even a dock worker in the harbor, which only added to the strangeness.

“Plague, commander! It’s the plague!” Soon the frightened cries of the men Alexander sent to gather news.

It seemed that because of the massive recruitment carried out where almost every able-bodied man was conscripted into the army, there was no one to take care of the town’s sanitation and this induced a plague outbreak.

And Alexander’s heart sank when he heard this news.

‘The goddess of fate really loves fucking me,’ Alexander cursed and swore in his heart.

He had barely taken his first step and was already hit with such a massive challenge.

The news of the plague spread like wildfire among his rank and file and with it so did panic.

“Plague! It’s the plague!”

“Run, we gotta run.”

“My family, what about my family.”

“Leave, let’s leave.”

Hysterical frightened shouts echoed across the harbor as many wanted to turn around and board the ships immediately while some of the natives wanted to run in the opposite direction, into the city and to meet their families.

Even the royal ladies panicked and approached Alexander to ask him to hastily retreat to Adhan.

‘Joke, if I go back to Adhan, Ptolomy will be laughing for days,’ Alexander blew off these concerns in his heart.

But openly, he comforted, “Rest assured, Your Highnesses. My medical skills can deal with this plague no problem.”

But to side with caution, he quickly escorted the ladies on a ship and had it sail twenty kilometers off the coast of Zanzan, well out of any infection range.

The women were promised that they would only be called back to land once the plague had subsided or be set free after two weeks.

Afterward, he gave Menes a short command, “Menes, get the soldiers and calm the people down.”

Menes didn’t need any further command, as being the experienced commander he was, he skillfully ordered the four thousand mercenaries to restore order to the harbor.

The panicking slaves became quiet after a few hits with the wooden parts of the spears, while the freedmen were comforted with tales of Alexander’s past experiences and the sight of a medical camp being built right on the wharf.

Cambyses led the construction of the camp and using her experienced crew, she got it up and running by next day.

In the meantime, Alexander gave out several orders.

First and foremost he ordered the men to secure safe drinking water, which was quickly obtained from a few nearby wells.

Thankfully the plague started due to sewage left in the open and not because it had seeped into the underground drinking water.

Even then as a precaution, Alexander ordered all drinking water to be boiled.

To facilitate this, he issued a few thousand slaves to cut the nearby trees and get firewood while huge burning open stoves were set up at various points in the camp, to be used not only for boiling water but also for cooking.

The camp was ordered to be set up by the rest of the slaves, who led by the artisans had tents up all around the huge harbor, along with the most important feature – designated restrooms along the sides..

This was revolutionary for its time, though they were just huge pits in the ground with a shed around them, covered by a wooden plank with a hole in them.

But the most innovative feature of the camp was the creation of so-called soap points- which were just bowls of ash placed at regular intervals with a bucket of water next to them.

The idea was to have the men regularly wash their hands using the ash which was strongly alkaline and thus kill any germs.

In fact, ash and water mixed to make an almost causative liquid that could ruin the skin and was not recommended to use long term.

But when there was a plague going on, a little rough skin was a negligible price to pay.

Of course, Alexander and the higher-ups had access to market soap, and didn’t need to use this low-quality soap.

In this way, by promoting cleanliness, Alexander hoped to stymie the spread of the plague as he didn’t know the exact cure for the plague, the disease been driven to extinction by his time.

Thus, with all these preparations done, ended Alexander’s first day after his ‘conquest of Zanzan’, while Alexander lampooned, ‘If this the first day, I wonder what lays ahead’.