Herald of Steel

As Cambyses and her entourage made their way through the various winding corridors, hurriedly advancing toward a remote part of the manor that led to the secret passages connecting a passage to the outside, suddenly Cambyses felt an idea birth inside her.

She got this from looking at all the burning candles on the walls and chandeliers which she walked past on her way, all of whom worked to illuminate all the expensive carpets, the embroidered currents, and the beautifully crafted furniture that laid inside this magnificent manor.

And as she looked at them, seeing all these exquisite items flash before her, quickly made the girl’s heartache as she understand that all this was about to fall into the enemy’s hands.

Never even mind the huge stockpiles of gold they had in their treasury, which Cambyses had already given up any hope on saving, plus all those expensive paintings of Pasha Muazz stored with them that Alexander intended to sell at auctions.

Cambyses even wished that giving that all up would save her and her city’s life.

‘Why let them have it?’ But suddenly, on her way, Cambyses found a voice inside her asking this question.

And as she gazed at all the candles and burning lamps, watching the flame on them sway and flicker innocently, she repeated the question to herself, and with each repeat her eyes became sharper and sharper.

‘Yes! Why let them have everything? Why leave anything in fact?’ And the more she thought about it, the more she saw no point in doing so.

Until finally, with a sudden booming flash, an idea thundered inside her.

‘Let’s burn everything! Let’s burn everything and kill as many of those bastards as possible,’ Cambyses came to the conclusion as her eyes then began to stare with a crazy fascination at all the burning flames around her.

And as she made up her mind, she abruptly stopped, which caused the entire group to halt too, for both she was their leader and was also leading them as only she knew where the secret passages were.

“Mi…My lady…why have we stopped? Is something the matter? Did you forget anything?” Even the usually solid Menicus found himself currently a bit jumpy, as things were looking pretty precarious for them.

Hence the alarmed inquiry.

“No, I just want to set the manor on fire!” But Cambyses only cooly replied this back to the aged man, her neutral, almost non-chantant tone betraying the gravity of what she was about to do.

“Wha…what?” And this answer naturally made the three lords stunned.

They had not even dared to think of setting fire to their own lord’s house.

“M..y…My lady what are you saying? How can we set fire to the manor! It is Lord Alexander’s abode! It is where the council meets every day! And we have not lost it yet!” Harun was the first to shout his objection at the idea, the incredulity palpable in his voice.

He was not saying those sentences as questions but as reminders.

And he was immediately followed by Grahtos, who repeated, ．𝙘𝙤𝙢

“Yes, yes. The manor is not lost yet.” before pointing toward where they came from and saying, “And Lord Menes should be here any moment. So even if the enemy takes the house, it will be for but only a moment. And then it will be back in our hands again!”

“Mmm, the two lords are right,” And Menicus too joined with a nod, showing his support as he believed Cambyses was under too much stress and saying things without thinking properly.

So he further added to point to her, “I also believe that it would be premature to set fire to the manor just now. Because remember that currently there are a lot of women and children inside too.”

“And it is possible very much possible that the Tibians will choose to spare them or capture them as slaves. So with lord Menes’s imminent arrival, there is a large possibility we can still rescue most of them.”

“I urge my lady not to be brash.”

Menicus’s said the last words with great sincerity and seriousness, and his clean bearing really showcased why he was considered the leader of the council members.

And all these points made perfect sense.

But whereas any other time Cambyses would have listened to this advice with respect and sobriety, even if she did not agree with it, her recent change made it not so any longer.

“It is my house, it is my order. Now obey!”

Hence Cambyses gave an answer that shocked the men, where she snapped the word ‘obey’ with a hard, almost cruel emphasis.

And this made the men think this was not the girl they knew.

Normally, even if Cambyses did not agree with them, she would have definitely tried to reason with them, perhaps arguing about how the women would be maybe better off dead than having to live with the scar of what the soldiers were about to soon do to them,

Or perhaps she would argue that the manor was actually lost and that they should now focus on killing the Tibians rather than trying to save the already doomed souls.

She might have even reasoned that it was all to prevent the enemy from getting to the treasury that was in the basement.

In wartime, all these would have been valid points.

But Cambyses did nothing of that sort.

Her answer was only a simple, short order for she saw had made up her mind and saw no reason to waste time arguing with others.

And backed by her onyx eyes that seemed to radiate an oppressive pressure not even Alexander was capable of producing, the three council members and the twenty or so odd trailing bodyguards all somehow began to feel much smaller in front of her, even though Cambyses was actually the shortest person there.

It was like Cambyses was somehow glaring down at them.

“….” So following her command, a few, very tense seconds passed, with each passing moment feeling like an eternity under those glaring eyes.

The men felt like they were wax puppets under the blazing sun, and a part of them urged to say yes just so the scorching heat would subside.

But while Menicus and Grahtos managed to hold off that pressure and fight against Cambyses, hoping to make her back down, the other man finally cracked.

It was the civilian minister Harun.

Though this was very predictable given the other two were veteran survivors of the battlefield who were also long-time leaders of their own and had many times even looked at the eyes of their superiors and directly said no.

While Harun was a civilian till very recently and his past experience and also the society he grew up in cultivated a practice of following any command from a ‘real’ nobleman or noble lady without question.

“…Gazum, do as the madam says,” Hence hearing Cambyses’s order he transferred the command of his bodyguards to her.

To which Cambyses immediately produced a light nod and slight smile, before turning her gaze to the three men who had stepped up and instructed them,

“Take the burning candle and lamps you see on the walls and start to first light the curtains on fire. Once they start burning properly, the rest will follow.”

Cambyses sounded eerily calm at ordering this act of arson on her own house, and even perhaps a bit excited.

“Yes, ma’am,” And the three men instantly replied with a loud chorus, before going around to doing just that, taking off the candle from the candlestands that were lighting their way and placing the bright flames near the edges of the curtains.

Though at first the curtains actually proved to be quite fire resistant, for they were made specifically as so, in order to prevent any accident like the wind blowing them over onto the lit fire and quickly turning the entire manor into a blazing inferno.

So for the initial few tries, the three men only saw the edges catch fire and burn, before quickly sputtering out on their own, leaving only a black spot on the eye-wateringly expensive fabric as a trace.

But under their mistress’s ever-watchful eyes, the three men were not deterred, and seeing they were unable to start a sizable fire individually, the three pooled their candles together and started to attack the same point, even douching the curtain with some oil from one of the nearby lamps to help them get it going.

And a while later it began to have results, as the flame started to slowly grow from a light ember to a bright glow, and then to a huge burning mass covering half the curtain.

Following which it just kept on growing and growing.

While Cambyses turned her attention to the other idle men, who, now facing her, and seeing one of theirs had already started to follow her, felt the pressure being multiplied by magnitudes.

There was really no other pressure like peer pressure.

“*Sigh*…you guys follow Lady Cambyses too….Go!” So seeing the writing on the wall Grahtos flipped too, and a while later so did Menicus.

Thus unbeknownst to almost anyone, a group of twenty-odd men got to work setting a remote, currently completely deserted part of the manor on fire, starting with first the curtains, which then spread to the carpets before lastly moving onto the wooden structures such as the doors, windows and the furniture.

While seeing this all Cambyses did was produce a crazy smile as she made her way towards her escape.