Herald of Steel

As Tepin made his escape under the moonless cover of darkness, his absence went largely unnoticed by the rest tribe.

This might be quite absurd to think about given his high post and prestige, him being a very shaman and judge, but these days it seemed anything and everything was possible among the Helvati.

The reason for this gross oversight was because the following few days, the entire Helvati tribe was in a state of absolute reverie and euphoria, as Metztil had finally confirmed the floating rumors.

Although the people had heard of this news long ago, this was the first time Metztil had officially admitted its veracity.

Thus when they heard the speech from the horse's mouth and got to know the general details of the deal with the outsiders, their happiness reached such a fever pitch that not only they forget about Tepin, they even did not care that they were being asked to go to war.

Instead of feeling fearful of dying, to them such a prospect appeared like a great honor.

After all, what was there to feel sad about when giving up one's life for such a grand cause?

Thus, the afternoon of the day Metztil announced this, the recruitment lines to join the army ran nearly from one end of the tribe to the other, with almost every single available youth wishing to sign up.

Many were even joined by entire families- fathers, uncles, brothers, and cousins, all excitedly jumping up and down to get their hands on that elusive shield and spear.

While mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters excitedly cheered their men, showing not an iota of concern that they were seeing them off for war.

In fact, judging by the wide grinning faces and ruddy complex, any outsiders would have thought these men were going off some kind of celebrations or sports events.

But this was the culture of the time.

The very incarnation of traditional values, men who went off to war and died were seen as heroes and the perfect role models.

Wives and children would brag to their friends about how their husbands or father died heroically in that famous battle.

While anyone who hid or refused to take part in the fight would be labeled as a coward and waste, looked down upon even by the slaves.

Their worth in the eyes of the Helvati would be less than these presumably inanimate objects.

In fact, although deserting and refusing to fight was not a capital offense in of itself in the Helvati tribe, denying such a thing openly indeed was. Even a lowly slave was allowed to kill them if they refuted it.

Hence when Metztil called for all willing youths to join the army, the only ones who did not were the lame, the weak, the sick, and the insane.

Now, these people were naturally exempt from service by law.

Even if the Helvati were insane warmongers, they would not take these physically unfit people if for nothing but the fact that they would be little more than burdens.

Not taking them was a greater boon.

Yet the societal structure of the tribe was such that many of these handicapped people could be seen literally crying by the streets, lamenting how their brothers and friends got to go on such a glorious 'adventure' while they could only stay behind like cowards.

Even some of the mothers and wives joined them, too ashamed to show their faces.

Now it would be wrong to assume all the men who were joining the army were doing so out of the pure, altruistic goodness of their hearts, for the betterment of their tribe.

It was of course one of the reasons, but many also signed up for many other things.

One of the main ones being simply for the adventure.

This might sound foolish, but think about it- you are a peasant who has never even left your village.

So when you hear your friends and families are going off to fight far away, naturally you would be curious.

And then if you were told that if you performed well enough in battle, you could even snatch for yourself a little bit of plot to call home, what force could be there to stop you?

Metztil had done exactly this under his wife's advice, promising to grant those who prove themselves to be heroes in the war land in the newly conquered territory.

He of course made no guarantee to the individual soldier and no one really knew what made one a 'hero', but even only that was enough for all these gullible people to lose their minds over.

Not to mention in addition to the undeniable lure of taking new land, there was also the absolute greed of looting those rich outsiders for everything they were worth.

And the Helvati was not only talking about raiding Lord Parker's camp after he was defeated.

That was of course a given/

But they even set their greedy sights on the surrounding local population, people who were presumably their allies.

And this time, Alexander had tacitly approved that Metztil and his men could raid the countryside for whatever food they needed as they made their way towards him.

This for sure meant good quality grain for the entire army, the kind that was only reserved for the nobles of the tribe, for the grain the Helvati produced in these hard soil met perhaps only the barest standard for human consumption.

In addition to this, there was the promise of generous amounts of meat from cows, chickens, pigs, goats, and sheep, all 'donated' by the kind village folks.

After all, the Helvati were there to 'save' them from the cruel clutches of the Heeats, so it was only natural that the weak villagers expressed their gratitude in this way… free of charge.

For the majority of the poor, impoverished, Helvati people who only got to taste such delicacies once or twice a year, just the offered food was enough to make them stake their lives on the line.=, forget the land.

And this was not the end of the list of perks for joining the army either.

For instance, it was common for a marching army to steal from the surrounding populace as they passed, be it gold, jewellery, clothes, metal equipment, shoes… basically anything and everything that was not nailed down and could be easily carried.

As long as the soldiers could take it without causing a major incident such as murder, they would swindle the folks of their possession basically without any repercussions.

Hence it was quite frequent to hear stories from the common people about how they were beaten up or threatened by their own marching army when they refused to give up their last possessions.

Tragically, even they could be said to be the luckier ones when compared to another group. A group that would have their women folk taken for the night.

It was also very common for the marching soldiers of the army to knock on the doors of surrounding towns and villages and demand a certain number of girls for the night.

After a long day's march, they all wished for a little bit of warmth and entertainment.

In fact, most of the time, the village elders or town's mayor would just arrange a contingent of women the moment they detected the huge marching army several hours if not several days ago, and quickly send them to the camp as soon as the army stopped.

In this way, they hoped to stop these armed, unruly men from entering their settlements and causing trouble.

And this was also here where the tragedy would begin.

Because there was no way most of the small towns or villages would have enough 'working women' to please the needs of thousands or tens of thousands of men.

Even a huge city struggled to meet their needs.

Hence the only way for the lords of the place to please the army commanders would be to pressure the peasants to send out their daughters and even wives to make up the numbers.

And no matter how angry the men felt about this, they knew they had little choice except to comply.

Because it was either this or being hung for disobeying the lord.

And even that was assuming the angry army did not get to them first, raping and killing their family before razing their entire village to the ground for not giving what they wanted.

The records of allied armies destroying their own population were as old as the human civilization itself.

Thus those unlucky could only pray that they would be able to keep their unmarried daughters while sending their 'more experienced' folks out.

Sometimes these women would get paid for their service, such as during the case of Alexander's conquest of Tibias, where he had a separate fund dedicated to precisely such entertainment.

Although the man abhorred it and rejected all gifts sent by the surrounding towns, he knew he would have a mutiny within a week if he outright banned the practice.

So the best he could do was try and mitigate the tragedy.

But Alexander's example was once in a blue moon occurrence

Most army commanders would pay zilch, and any gifts be up to the whims of the served soldiers.

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