Herald of Steel

The citadel or the acropolis was a kind of huge castle or temple, usually built on a hill that was used as a last resort to hide inside if the city was taken.

The idea was to barricade the narrowly designed entrance and wait for reinforcement while taking refuge inside the tower which would typically be always stocked with food and water for the citizens or at least the nobles to last for weeks.

Such as now, where the Adhanian main army was said to be just a few hundred kilometers from the city, and even if bad road conditions were taken into account, they would be here in at most a month.

Regarding the citadel, Adhan was special because it didn't have a citadel like the other cities per se.

Instead, the royalty had turned s small part of the city into a permanent fortress, for the nobles to stay in and enjoy themselves.

This massive enclosed structure housed all the important buildings of the city- the palace, the Temple of Ramuh, lots of noble houses, and the various administrative buildings and was called the inner ring.

The six-meter high walls that barricade the land, its tops manned by sentries, had the important job of keeping out the common rubble from mixing with the noble blood as much as it had the job of keeping out any external threats- which it had yet to face in its recent history.

Until now.

Because for the first time in three hundred years, an external threat had appeared.

And that external threat was now devising a way to get past the last line of defense and enter the soft underbelly of the city.

"Remus, I leave the job of guarding this gate to you. You will have two hundred men to do this and tell Menicus to head straight for the inner ring the moment he arrives," Alexander first addressed the boy.

"Yes, commander!" Remus quickly replied, finding the prospect of fighting two thousand men with only two hundred horsemen not a problem, as the former had turned to a fleeing mob.

Then Alexander turned to Grahtos and asked "Can you speak Azhak?"

And he got an affirmative reply.

"Good, we will charge straight towards that building." Alexander pointed to the spire of the palace, "And you are to shout 'The king is coming, the king is coming, open the gates on the way. Got it?"

"Yes, commander!" The strong, chiseled man was shaking with excitement at being a part of this clandestine operation.

"Good, order twenty men to get around me and the rest are to follow me behind as if they were chasing me!" Alexander intended to give the wall defenders the impression that their king was being chased through the city and urge them to open the doors as quickly as possible without asking too many questions.

Alexander did fear the real king might have made his way inside by now and intended to use the chase, his armor, and the royal seal to bluff his way inside.

'Please let it work!' Alexander prayed in his heart.

Then he blew his trumpet signaling to all nearby cavalrymen to disengage with the enemy and rally towards him.

And soon the scenery of a group of twenty horsemen being 'chased' by thirteen hundred Cantagenan cavalry manifested itself on the narrow streets of Adhan, as they made their way straight towards the spire in the horizon, following a simple straight road that led there.

'The king is coming, the king is coming, open the gates'. This phrase soon entered the ears of the guarding soldiers who ran up the walls and witnessed their 'king' clad in golden being chased by what seemed to be a cloud of dust being driven up by an imponderable number of horsemen.

The man in golden armor ran while the very ground underneath him shook under the trembling hoofs of so many horsemen, as he held up a small golden round thing, which looked like the famed royal seal high up in the sky.

"His Majesty! His Majesty! Open the gates quickly, His Majesty is coming!" Some of the men shouted in surprise and started to open the gates as they had practiced doing.

But some of the sharper ones, particularly a young boy called out, "Wait, we just let in a group of nobles just now. And we were sternly told not to open the gates for anyone."

"Bah, snort-nosed brat," The leader of the watch, a wrinkled, veteran, shut the boy down.

"Don't you get it, those nobles turned tail and ran from the battle, leaving their liege behind. And now they want to cover their own asses," He who had put up with a lot of the noble's bullshit over his long career thought he had figured it all out.

But one of the reasons the nobles had not shown Amenhearaft to the guards was because the guards were unlikely to recognize the king even if they saw him.

How many knew what the king actually looked like?

Another reason was they felt no need for it, as according to them the soldiers had been given orders and they were expected to follow them. To the poor soldiers what difference was there between a high lord and a king?

And the final and biggest reason Amenheraft had not shown himself to them was because he didn't trust them.

Ptolomy's rebellion had ended just a few days ago, and he had switched and killed a lot of royalist watchmen to gain hold of the city, resulting in a manpower shortage that Amenheraft had not been able to fully make up within the short time, thus resulting in many guards with unknown allegiance still keeping their post.

'I should have been faster with the purges.' Amenheraft swore in his heart, berating him for spending the last few days being too busy punishing the nobles, readying the farmers to reclaim the farmlands that had fallen to the wayside, and reorganizing the army.

So, he didn't know who to trust and hence kept his identity secret, lest any of the watchmen got any stupid ideas.

"But, leader, they say the king is dead!" The young boy tried to reason.

"*Smach*" And he got a gut punch for his efforts.

"The king is eternal, you got! There..there is the proof" The religious old man shouted frantically, pointing his wizened arm toward Alexander.

He spoke with religious fervor, "If been said the king is immortal. Even if he is slain he can rise again. Look, he even has the royal seal! How can an imposter get that?"

And his sentiment was also shared by his deputy who joined, "Look, the king is riding on a different horse." He pointed to the fact Alexander's horse was not draped in gold canvas.

And offered his own hypotheses, "His Majesty's horse must have died. And the nobles and the soldiers must have then thought he was killed."

Then he barked, "What's the holdup? Didn't you hear the leader? Open the gates quickly!"

And so, to Alexander's utter glee, he could see the strong bronze doors five meters high open themselves to invite him in as he felt the approach of the crossroads of fate behind those gates.

'Once I cross that gate, my destiny will irrecoverably change.' He swore in his heart.

And to catch that new fate, Alexander rode like the wind and at last, passed the last hurdle.

He was in!

"Ohhhh." Him and his surrounding soldiers let out triumphant cries of joy which the surrounding soldiers took it to being a result of having escaped the enemy and joined them in cheer.

But the very next second, the latters' enraptured cries turned to wails of horror as Alexander smoothly pierced the throat of the veteran leader sprinting to greet his king and screamed, "For King Ptolomy!"

Then without stopping to listen to the sweet dread-filled cries of the Adhanians, he bashed his shield against another soldier, while his horse stood up on his hind legs to kick a man who stood right in front of it.

"Enemies! They are enemies!" Finally realizing what had happened, the young boy screamed in terror and then heroically turned tail and ran.

And following this model soldier's retreat, and under the bloodthirst spear points of the aggressive soldiers, others ran too and the gate was secured within seconds.

'These Adhanians have no spine! Only fighting fiercely when they are winning and running the moment things go a bit south for them,' Alexander sneered in his heart.

The watchmen here considerably outnumbered his paltry force of twenty and could have put up a decent fight if they tried.

But instead, they ran, treasuring their own life for a few more precious seconds, not understanding that the soldiers they ran from would destroy his city and then most likely kill them later.

"*Hoooonk*" Alexander blew the trumpet once again to signal to the rest of the cavalrymen to meet up with him and when they assembled he ordered, "Fifty men are to guard the gates."

Then he turned to the Sycarian, "Grahtos, take five hundred men and storm the palace. Kill anything that moves. And if you want to keep your head, keep shouting, "By King Ptolomy's orders!' all along the way."

The intelligent noble immediately understood what Alexander meant by that, that he could kill, ****, and plunder with impunity if he did it in the king's name and thus shift all responsibility to him.

So, he returned a gleeful grin, "By the blessed of Gaia's command."

"Um, just be careful of Ptolomy's wife and children. Anyone claiming to be related to Ptolomy is to be spared. And no fires. Besides that you can do whatever else you want inside the palace," Alexander gave a very ominous permission which got an immediate cheer from the men.

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