Herald of Steel

Alexander did not feel like explaining himself why he killed the nobles.

The real reason why he did so was so that he could take over their lands without any contending, or at least strong contending claims against him.

While Ptolomy might have preferred these nobles because they would be more loyal to him than

Alexander, which was the cause of Seelima’s displeasure.

And as for killing Maizdy, not to mention his rotten nature, Alexander had already snatched Muazz’s most precious son from him, the city of Zanzan.

This made the two men unable to live under the same sky, so why be lenient now?

Hence, Alexander simply decided to move on, and got down to remind the table of the real problem here,

“The nobles said that a 40,000-50,000 army which has 10,000 Jahal mercenaries will be attacking Zanzan. And they seemed pretty scared of this unit. So do My Ladies know anything about them?”

Alexander posed this question particularly to Mikaya.

Because he remembered that Pasha Djose’s wife was probably her sister or aunt (Pasha Farzah’s sister), though he could not exactly remember which.

But it seemed that there was no need for Mikaya to answer.

“The Jahal mercenaries are Djose’s personal elite troops! I knew this would happen when you two id…you two killed Fatrak,” The frustration and anger in the Queen mother’s voice was palpable as she could barely stop herself from calling Alexander an idiot.

When initially she had learned of what Ptolomy had done, she had spent a good two hours lambasting him in her private chambers, calling him some very choice words.

“Haha, well I guess there is no point crying over spilled milk,’ But Alexander appeared unaffected by their rage, chuckling the reply.

Which appeared to incense Seelima more, as she shouted out, “No point crying over spilled milk? No point crying over spilled milk, you say? You didn’t spill milk just once, you spilled it many times!”

She then proceeded to list the number of times Alexander spilled the milk,

“You looted the Grand Temple and killed its priests, you killed all the nobles in Adhan, then you killed more on the battlefield, after that you killed more priests from the Zanzan temple, and now your latest achievement was destroying Jabel and its nobles.”

“And all that was in the last three months! Give you a year and Adhania will likely have nothing have peasants!” Seelima’s tirade went on to show just how angry she was with some of Alexander’s actions.

And she barely stopped herself from saying, ‘The only thing you seem to not like killing are the peasants, you peasant living scum of the earth.’

‘Hahaha, well that is the plan,’ Alexander lightly chuckled at the harangue, thinking Adhania would certainly be a better place without the nobles.

While outwardly he put out a light smile, showing no remorse for his actions, for he did what he thought would be best for him and his family.

“…..” Seelima’s vituperation had bought the feast to a screeching halt, as everyone looked across the table with fear and trepidation.

The atmosphere was certainly not what you would call merry.

And it was Mikaya, who had the best relationship with the Queen mother who tried to soothe her, “Okay, okay, whatever done is done. Let us now focus on the problem at hand. We can discuss whose fault it was later.”

But Seelima’s flames were not to be smoldered just yet as she even hissed at her good friend, “Discuss that? We already know whose fault it was. If he had not killed so many people, if so many nobles have not banded together to get revenge, would such a large army even be possible?”

The Queen mother at last massaged her wrinkled temple as she finished with a sigh, “By this point, I’m not even sure Djose has anything to do with it! Because if those idiots pool whatever they have, even if they are broke, together they might get the coin to hire the Jahal mercenaries.”

“…..” The room entered an awkward silence at Seelima’s frank revelation.

To say that the current course of events had nothing to do with Alexander would be grossly inaccurate as expressed by Seelima’s half-opinion that the army about to attack them was actually Alexander’s fault.

Even Cambyses had blushed a bit when Seelima tallied Alexander’s achievement of the last three months, silently saying in her heart, ‘This is what swinging your sword left and right mindlessly gets you.’

While Alexander said to himself, ‘Perhaps I was a bit too eager to resort to the sword in some circumstances.’

Finally, as time passed The Queen mother calmed down after her screed, taking a large gulp of diluted wine to cool her smoldering temper in the process.

‘I wonder if its that time of the month for her? Or if she’s just pent up,’ Alexander rolled his eyes at the furious woman one last time, before turning to Mikaya and asking some real question, “I would like to know about the Jahal mercenaries. They seem to be famous.”

And Mikaya recounted mostly the same thing as the nobles did, except for one very important thing, “They are expert raiders, using their camel and expert archery to wreak havoc and destruction!”

“Camel archers? Are you sure?” Alexander’s eyes widened upon hearing this.

Camels were bad news.

“Yes. The Jahal mercenaries famously use camels,” Mikaya said with a nod, adding, “In fact, camels are not native to Kuleef. But Pasha Djose imports them from Abu Hamam as he has good relations with the Pasha there. He does it because he says camels scare off horses in battles and that they are easier to train and maintain.”

Well the Pasha was indeed right that camels scared off horses in battle.

Their bigger size frightened horses, and their smell made the horse irritated and not want to obey commands.

With the few downsides to camels being one- they preferred dry climate, be it hot or cold, and generally did not deal with humidity too well.

And two, they did not hooves.

Instead, a soft layer of skin protected their soft legs, which made them deploying them on hard surfaces difficult, for the beasts preferred sand.

But these disadvantages could be made up in certain conditions, such as with Alexander, who had a coastal city with sprawling sandy beaches and since it was winter, humidity was naturally low.

‘Fuck, that means my cavalry is mostly useless,’ Alexander’s original plan was to have his much more heavily armored cavalry with their lances and greater lance smash into the enemy cavalry and destroy them head-on.

But now it seemed that he would now have to find a new way to neutralize this threat.

“Thank you, your information was most helpful,” Alexander politely thanked Mikaya with a smile, while cursing the nobles for leaving this vital information out.

If he had learned this only after his scouts reported it to him, Alexander might not have had enough time to prepare countermeasures.

“No problem,” Mikaya sweetly returned the gesture, before asking, “So, what do we do now?”

As she asked, both she and Alexander turned to the most experienced woman in the room, The Queen mother, who had finally gotten her nerves together.

She would frankly admit she had lost her calm a while back.

“…..We can write a letter to the king, informing him of this. Then hopefully he can put some diplomatic pressure on Amenheraft.” Seelima answered after a bit of thinking, adding, “The remunerations of the treaty have not been paid yet after all. Perhaps this way the war can be avoided.”

And though she posed this proposal, even the twins picked up on the uncertainty, commenting, “Grand..Aunt does not sound too hopeful.”

By relation, Seelima was their step- grandmother, but the young thirty-two-year-old hated that word, much more preferring to be called Mother or Aunt. 𝗼𝘃𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

“…” Seelima remained silent, as Mikaya for once decided to play the role of an aunt and explained, “Because so many nobles have been killed, there is likely there is no way to stop the war.”

She then expounded, “If they have been only captured, then it might have been possible. We could have used them as leverage, and maybe even have some of them testify, thus putting more pressure on the other side.

“But just that paper alone will not get us much further. Because they could easily say it was forged. Or worse, since this paper is a new invention, if shameless enough, they could even say the thing written on it does not count. And that only statements written on papyrus matters.” The fact that Mikaya could even consider this unlikely play so quickly went to show the Matrak princess’s intellect.

If she had been born a boy, she could have easily fought her father for influence in the royal court.

And now this intelligent girl was also in the same boat as Seelima, thinking Alexander killing so many useful nobles as a great waste.

They would have been much more useful alive.

“That’s not fair! They are the ones planning to attack. And Alex was just defending himself. So why should the treaty protect them and not Alex?” At last, Cambyses cried out in indignation.

But Mikaya simply said, “Of course, it is not. But given that so many nobles have died Amenheraft is unable to stop his men even if the treaty is at risk of shattering.”

“And there is also the chance that he, thinking that Alexander is unable to get reinforcement, might just double down and attack anyway when he was the upper hand,”

“So, this war is inevitable!” Mikaya finally declared.