Herald of Steel

“Esteemed lady, my lords, His Majesty is a generous and benevolent lord.”

“He will not treat you unjustly. Please accept it!”

“I strongly urge you!”

This loud pronouncement was made by the peace delegate whom Perseus had sent, with the man being met in the hall room of Alexander’s manor in the presence of Cambyses and the other council members, where he read out the terms Tibias was willing to offer.

Which basically said that Tibias was willing to spare the city and its inhabitants, and allow safe to anyone who wanted to leave if they surrendered the city.

“Hmm, I remember the last time it was a man named Leosydas. Where is he?” Sitting at the head of the table, a place where Alexander usually sat, was a stone-faced, somber Cambysis, who asked so very coldly.

In fact, the words sounded more like she was making an observation rather than an actual inquiry.

“Lord Leosydas is busy preparing the army for the siege. That is why I’m here.” The delegate quickly answered as such, hiding the fact Leosydas was injured, and instead trying to pressure the other side with the word ‘siege’

“Why is he preparing the army? What happened to your king?” But inadvertently this caused Cambyses to follow her question with the following, her eyes narrowing into a slant arc.

And the delegate could only unconvincingly mumble this, “They are both preparing the army.”

Which made everyone at the table ask themselves, ‘Both were so busy that one of them could not be spared even for a peace deal that could end the war?’

This could obviously not be true, and as they thought as such, the delegate keenly noticed a subtle change to a more confident posture among the people in front of him, for they thought the Tibian army might not be doing too well/

‘Or why come with such favorable terms?’ They felt the bait was too sweet and tempting.

Hence Menes said this.

“I remember that your left flank collapsed when there was the rumor of your king dying.”

“Is he dead? Is Leosydas in charge of the army now?”

“Tell the truth!”

The giant black general was very pointed and gruff in his tone as asked this question, pretty sure that the king was really dead.

But still it was not a hundred percent certainly as though he had seen an ornate helmet with a head being paraded by the soldiers in front, he did not get a good look at the face and could not determine that had been really Perseus.

Not that that would have helped anyway as Menes had no idea what Perseus looked like anyway.

As for the helmet, that he was very sure did belong to Perseus, but a small part of him still reasoned that if Amenheraft could switch armor with Kefka if Alexander could do it with Hemicus, it was certainly possible for Perseus to do it with someone else.

And there was the compelling evidence of Perseus’s army not dissolving when he quote unquote died.

Because usually when a king died, his army routed.

And given that clearly had not happened, Menes could never be sure.

So he tried using his speech and body language to try and intimidate the man into saying the truth and hopefully a yes.

But naturally, the answer he got was no.

Because Perseus was indeed not dead.

He was very much alive and kicking.

So instead, like a cat whose tail had been steeped on, that Tibian man almost jumped up in anger at the accusation, shouting, “What! You dare say about His Majesty?” before pointing at the peace deal and saying,

“Who do you think wrote this peace deal? Whose personal seal is this? Who ordered me here!”

You dare call us frauds!”

The man flashed the bright red seal near the end of the papyrus and waived it around as he made his defense.

Perseus was generally quite beloved by his soldiers, and so when the enemy made such a remark, the man was unable to control his temper.

But though his outburst was very genuine, it did not really convince Alexander’s retainers.

Because the man had not actually answered their question.

As for showing the royal seal as proof, well if the king died, anyone could use it.

Not to mention Cambyses and the others did not even know if it was real or not given they had never seen it before.

So they only thought the offer was only a sham by the weakened Tibian army whose king might be dead or at least injured to trick them into giving up the city without a fight.

Hence the council, who had already decided to not surrender, saw even more reason not to.

Who knew that the innocent actions of the peace delegate who just wanted to keep Leosydas’s injury a secret would lead to this?

But it did.

“We are interested in exchanging our prisoners. Name your price and we will pay.” So Cambyses made this out-of-context statement, which also implicitly declined the peace offer.

And the delegate certainly understood that, for he flushed a bit before trying one last time.

The reason being that he knew that if could get this deal done, it would be a great achievement, and the king would surely reward him handsomely.

Hence, turning his head away from Cambyses to the other men in the room, he loudly said,

“My lords it would be prudent for you to think over the offer.”

“Zanzan has fought a good fight.”

“You have shown your courage and valor in battle.”

“You have won our respect.”

“But you have also ultimately lost. There is no shame in that.”

“Admit defeat! ”

“This is your best chance to achieve peace and avoid bloodshed.”

“I urge you to look at the faces of your people, men, women, and children who will have to die for your actions and reconsider.”

The peace delegate said this in a very warm, sincere tone, addressing to particularly the men in the room, hoping to appeal to them instead of a girl.

In fact when he first saw that a girl was leading the meeting, the man had an urge to point and laugh out loud at the men for allowing this.

Because it was common knowledge that women could never lead.

Hence he hoped that the men would come to a more sensible decision,

But naturally, he was met with a wall of silence.

The decision had been made.

In fact it had been made the day after Menes returned.

And so after a while Cambyses ended the meet with this sarcastic retort.

“When leaving the city, have a look at our walls.”

“And then when you meet your king tell him that we urge him to look faces of his men, and the faces of their subsequent widowed wives and orphaned children so that he might reconsider his choices.”

Cambyses had returned the man’s offer to his face almost word for word.

Which caused the man, seeing negotiations had broken down, to shed his gentle, cordial face and hysterically shout, “You think you can fight us! You think you puny walls can stop our army!”

“We ahve 50,000 men outisde your gate!”

“The fury of our men and their merciless steel will tear down your wall with a single smash.”

“And then where will you go?”

“Where will you hide?”

“What good will your walls do?” the man lambasted, before threatening,

“We will set fire to your city.”

“Slaughter all your men! Rape your women! And sell your children to the cruelest slavers!”

As he said so, his enraged face then turned into a mocking taunt, for he turned to the males sitting there and said with a disparaging sneer,

“I say, men! What men!” .

“All I see are some pansies pretending to be men!”

“Taking orders from a girl! Why don’t you start wearing gowns? That will be more appropriate.”

“Hmmp! I always knew there were no real men in Adhania.”

“But seeing his truly believing!”

“Cockless eunuchs!”

The man loudly and vulgarly swore before turning his heel and arrogantly stomping off, but not before abruptly stopping near the door and then turned his head back to add one last thing jeer,

“Oh about the prisoner exchange.”

“Heh! Why bother?”

“They will end up in our hands you anyway!”

Saying this, the man finally exited the building and hoping on his horse, quickly made his way out of the city, feeling salty that he was not able to accomplish his king’s orders.

But nevertheless, he rode quickly, eager to inform his king of the result.

And he was let out of the city without any incident, even after his outburst.

And as the man rode back, he could not help but playback what had happened in his head, and then remembering Cambyses’s last taunt, he could not help but subconsciously look back to take a good look at the city’s walls.

And though he hated to admit it, the structure he saw forced him to recognize they were very impressive indeed.

Strong, thick, and stable, the walls seemed to exude a sense of strength and safety for all those inside it.

‘Did Zanzan always have such impressive walls? They might be even more impressive than the walls of Thesalie’ The man could help but gasp a bit in awe, but that feeling only lasted a while.

For he knew the secret weapon they had bought with them, and after seeing its power in demonstrations, the man felt not even the doors of heaven would be able to stand against it.