Herald of Steel

Chapter 876 A Slight Lull

Chapter 876

In the following days after the battle, Alexander was in his camp finding himself inundated with a whole lot of work.

First and foremost, he had come to the conclusion that the ox pulled wagon strategy was a bust.

Which did somewhat put a bit of a damper on the man.

He had been quite excited by this idea when he first thought about it, thinking he had found a real life hack.

If it did work as he had intended, he would not have had to use infantry to protect the vulnerable crossbow units, but let the wooden wagon act like the shields, making them impassable for the enemy and freeing up his legionaries for use elsewhere.

But although a sound theory, when that met reality, well, the tactic did not pan out as Alexander had thought in his head.

Welp.

After that, Alexander had to come to an agreement about what to do with Hemicus and that last minute heavy charge the man made against his orders.

Which posed a bit of a dilemma for Alexander, as given on one hand the attack clearly showed its results, with a great many dead, while on the other hand, just because it worked this time did not mean it would work every other time.

It only took one failure to ruin the past ten successes and Alexander did not want his officers to be taking such great risks on their own whims.

But credit to Hemicus, when he was asked by Alexander to explain his reasoning, he presented his case very cleverly, not pointing to the result of his charge because the man had known Alexander long enough, but instead the reason behind it, saying that it was a move designed to ‘help the legionaries retreat by preemptively destroying the enemy.’

That was a novel phrase coming out of Hemicus.

So, impressed by this articulate presentation, although Alexander knew this was more an excuse rather than a reason, he decided to let the man off with a knowing smirk and a simple warning, “If you are going to do something like this in the future, be sure to tell me beforehand. Do not do such things on your own.”

Although Alexander was able to overlook Hemicus’s little act, one other very important thing that he could not let off so easily was the Tibian nobles breaking and running away during the battle, despite the urging of Lord Theony.

That matter was indeed very grave.

And Alexander did have meetings questioning the nobles about it.

But in those sessions, the men vehemently denied any such ‘slanders’ of cowardice but instead turned their fingers to deficiencies of the ox pulled wagons and handlers, claiming it was them that ran first.

“With our front screens gone, we then asked for reinforcements from you, my lord. But unfortunately, we have received no such help. Thus as you can see we had no other option other than to retreat lest we be overrun!”

One of the nobles cleverly took credit for Lord Theony’s decision, which got a huge rise from the latter, but the man was unable to change the other side’s narrative.

And then to further bolster their claim, the interrogated men also pointed to Alexander’s other flank to show that that side too had suffered a similar fate, thus justifying their act.

From a purely ‘on paper’ report, these men did indeed make a strong case for themselves.

It was also because of that that although Alexander knew the nobles here were only making excuses, with multiple accounts from independent sources saying the nobles deserted the field rather than being routed, for the time being, Alexander decided to pretend to buy this rhetoric.

He was still at war and thus wanted to be under more favorable circumstances before picking a fight with his newly conquered nobles, lest rebellions sprout up like mushrooms all over the country.

But that also did not mean Alexander let these men roam scot free all around the camp.

He put many of the suspected nobles, especially the most vocal one under house arrest, or perhaps more appropriately, since they were on a campaign, ‘tent arrest’.

But at the same time to maintain peace in the camp, he also promised the loyal troops and bodyguards of those men that their lords were fine and unharmed and that they were only being investigated for incompetence in battle.

Alexander even allowed a select few of the captured relatives to interact with them, to let them verify that what he said was indeed true.

After that, Alexander came to the matter regarding Lord Theony, and the loss of his newly appointed heir- Gnaeus.

It was said that when the man had first seen the cold, lifeless body with the bolt still struck through the throat, Lord Theony had not broken down into tears in grief, but instead flew into an uncontrollable rage, even threatening to kill his right hand man Jupiter right then and there for failing to protect his precious son.

In fact, if Menes had not been close by and forcefully stopped this friendly fire using his great strength, Lord Theony might have indeed succeeded and Jupiter could have been no more.

Following that, Lord Theony had for the next two days retreated into his tent with a very dark face, constantly rebuking himself for placing his son in the jaws of danger.

Here, he could not even blame Alexander because it was he who had asked the Pasha to give the boy that task.

‘It’s all my fault. I should have never asked him to come to the battlefield. He would have been so much better off back home.’ Lord Theony found himself pooling in regret.

Letting his son die as his house’s steward did not seem like such a bad idea right now, given the alternative was death on the battlefield.

Alexander had gone to offer his personal condolence for the loss, giving the man some time off from many of the duties required of him.

He had not also discussed the matter of succession to him, which would involve reinstating the post to Theony, leaving that eventuality for later.

Aside from these discussions and analysis, Alexander also went to see the wounded and injured, visiting the camp clinic to see how the men were doing and what types of new procedures had the doctors there been able to come up with.

The clinic was composed of a series of very large tents, each dedicated to different stages of medical care as the injured men were laid on makeshift cots, their faces etched with both pain and gratitude for the aid they were receiving.

The atmosphere inside was a juxtaposition of agony and hope, the moans of the wounded being punctuated by the soft-

spoken words of caregivers offering reassurance.

As Alexander entered, his nose was with a sharp stench made of blood, gore, herbal medicine, and soap, with the first thing he saw when he entered were many slaves with mops and buckets of soapy water constantly cleaning the floor.

His arrival caused a multitude of cheers, smiles, and even just grateful looks for the more injured to emanate from the vicinity, and here Alexander spent some time talking to and asking for the well being of the men, bringing great solace to these individuals,

They felt blessed to be able to personally talk to a man as high up the ladder as Alexander, with the more religious type even feeling like they were talking to a blessed of the gods.

Along with the injured of course, Alexander also roamed across the clinic observing and asking the various doctors about the ins and outs of their operation, how well they had been performing, and if there were any shortages of any herbs and medicines.

Alexander even watched a few ‘surgeons’ work on the more severely injured, although calling them butchers might have been more appropriate given the nature of their work.

Surgery usually consisted of one thing, cutting something off, which was always gruesome.

The procedure usually involved holding the person down with several strong men, putting a gag in his mouth so that he did not accidentally bite his tongue off, and then hacking the part off as fast as possible with a saw as sharp as possible.

To that effect these patiently were aided, by whatever small amount, by the fact the medical camp had access to Alexander’s high quality steel, and thus were able to make tools such as saws sharper than anything out there, thus reducing the cutting time. 𝘪𝘳.𝘤𝑜

It was not much, but when you are being literally cut apart, every single microsecond helped.

And speaking of tools, Alexander got to see a whole of them, some old, but many new.

The most impressive thing that Alxx got to see was the implementation of a new kind of forceps, called Hemostatic Forceps, which were specially designed to literally clamp down on any severed blood vessel and stop the bleeding.

This practice was based on their newly found knowledge of blood vessels, as they discovered that blood flowed through the body in specialized ‘tunnels’ called blood vessels, and not at all like how it was previously imagined- which was that it flowed like the ebbs and tides of the sea. 𝘳.𝑐𝘰

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