Herald of Steel

855 The Tibian Nobles (Part-1)

After Alexander entered the capital, he quickly got to work getting to know about the latest situation.

With his first and most immediate inquiry being - "Where is Perseus now?"

"The scouts have located the king four days west of here. But at the moment he seems to be moving south." Menes quickly reported, aware of such a thing because he had sent a detachment based on Lord Theony's intel.

Hearing Perseus was on the move, made sense to Alexander, as he felt he could understand Perseus's line of thinking.

Alexander had been told the entire truthful story of Lord Theony's coup d'etat, and one of the conclusions that Alexander came to hearing that was surely the Crown Prince had already reached his father or at least managed to send a message, informing him of the loss of their capital.

Thus, with the capital lost, and the northern half of the country under the enemy's control, if Perseus should want to continue fighting, Alexander figured there really was no other option for the king other than to head south in this peninsula of a landmass, which was the furthest distance from Alexander as he tried to regroup and reconstitute his army.

"Should we give chase?" And hearing the king on the move, some of Alexander's officers then eagerly asked, itching for a fight.

They did not want to give Perseus a moment's respite.

"...Hmmm...." And to this, Alexander put a thoughtful face.

It was not like there was no merit to this suggestion.

If possible, Alexander would definitely love to catch up to Perseus and force him to a decisive battle,thereby finishing the threat as soon as possible.

After all, who knew if the king would magically get another round of reinforcements that Alexander had no idea about?

Perhaps with the larger army, the man would then be able to turn things around and force Alexander to get on the back foot.

And even if that did not happen, even if Perseus was to only hole himself inside a city and fight to the death, well a long siege too would be a pain to deal with.

So cutting the head of the snake as soon as possible certainly felt like a good idea.

But all this hinged on Alexander being able to actually catch up to the Perseus in the first place- an endeavor that was quite difficult given the latter already had a head start and certainly knew the terrain better than him.

So Alexander feared he would end up chasing after Perseus's illusory tail and simply tiring out his army with nothing to show for it.

"How many men does Perseus still have?" Whilst trying to come up with the decision, Alexander then asked this, wanting to know the strength he would be facing.

He reasoned that if Perseus was weak enough, then the gamble might be worth taking, reasoning that even if his army were to become tired or fall into any kind of unforeseen trap by Perseus,they would simply be able to bulldoze through it through raw muscle power.

"The scouts report around 33,000 to 35,000 men are moving with Perseus."

But Grahtos's report smashed any such optimism, as that number put both sides on nearly equal footing, with Perseus even coming out somewhat on the top.

On Alexander's side, even with the one extra legion that he brought, due to the injuries and death the army had prior suffered, Alexander only managed to bring up his strength to around thirty one thousand, 31,000 men.

But hearing such a large number for Perseus surprised Alexander.

"Didn't you say Perseus only had forty thousand, 40,000 men at the start of the battle? Didn't we win our last battle? How come he has still so much?" Alexander shot this curious query towards the man in charge of the scouts.

"That… ummm," Grahtos was at first a bit embarrassed to answer this as it nakedly revealed their mistakes, but sensing Alexander's expectant eyes, knew there was no hiding it.

So ultimately revealed all the various reasons behind this phenomenon.

Which were- due to the uneven terrain that made chasing men harder, the long fight that had exhausted the soldiers, and most importantly the lack of discipline among the men.

All this had contributed to the failure to properly capitalize on that opportunity and letting much of the query escape and even taking many avoidable losses.

It was because of that that Perseus only had around 3,000 dead, most killed inside their camp, and another 2,000 captured, with some more deserters.

"But we made sure to punish all of the involved my lord." Then as if like a silver lining, ended his recount by this promise, a bit scared by the pensive but unimpressed face Alexander had assumed by that point.

"Okay. Good." And it was only after Alexander got to know what that punishment was that he decided not to punish anyone.

Later on, he would even send a gift to Remus, who, like Menes had promised, was indeed given the credit for coming up with the optimum level of punishment.

But Grahtos's report also dashed Alexander's plan for chasing Perseus as there was the very real possibility that in the midst of doing it, Perseus might suddenly ambush Alexander or even just turn around and force Alexander's tired, smaller army to fight.

Hence Alexander decided to wait and let Perseus run to his heart's desire to wherever he wanted, intending to give him battle once the latter had pitched his camp.

In the meantime, Alexander started to consolidate his hold over the new territories and bolstered his forces.

An endeavor made a bit easier by the fact that both were mutually inclusive.

Because both required making the nobles cooperate.

And Alexander had already thought of how to do that.

That was also why he had brought many of the nobles from Thesalie with him!

All to show them the few Zanzan nobles under Matbar (Marquis) Kyaum that he had managed to capture in front of them.

On one bright morning, Alexander had taken a large entourage of nobles to view the enclosed pens where they were being kept, pointing to them and saying,

"My lords, look! Look at these men! I'm sure I do not need to tell you of their true identity."

"Why don't you ask them why they are here? Hear the truth for yourself!"

Alexander graciously presented.

And being presented with this irrefutable evidence right in front of their eyes, many Tibian nobles who had only bowed down to Alexander out of fear and powerless but still harbored hatred were shocked.

There was no doubt in their mind that these men were authentic Zanzan nobles, as their unique armor and accent made it apparent where they were from.

While the expensive gear they wore, such as gold plated sword handles and ivory sword sheathes gave credence to their high statues.

Even their simple mannerism was very refined, much different from a peasant's.

And if that was not enough, there was also the fact that many carried their family's personal seal with them.

Thus soon a crowd of flustered nobles took rapid turns to churn out many inquisitive questions such as- who are you, why are you here, how many of you are there, why you were fighting for His Majesty, etc.

And all the responses confirmed Alexander's allegations and even added weight to the young lord.

Especially that last 'Why you were fighting for His Majesty?' which got a very interesting response.

When asked this, stepping up, one of the captured lords pronounced, "We were sent here by our lord Matbar (Marquis) Kyaum under His Majesty's Archpriest Manuk's instructions."

"We were told that a secret agreement between Tibias and His Eminence Manuk had been reached where it was determined that in return for us helping the Tibian king defeat the Lord of Zanzan, the northern half of Tibias would become ours!"

This was of course a lie, something Alexander had concocted himself.

How?

Well the day prior, when Alexander had gone to see the prisoners for himself, he twisted the nobles' arms.

During this visit, one of the captured lords seeing Alexander dressed in full armor asked him about the progress of their ransom

"Ransom? What ransom?" And Alexander had pretended to be surprised by the mere notion of it, and revealed with a light smile,

"We have received no diplomatic messages concerning your release. Neither from your family or your lord."

"How can that be? His Eminence Manuk should have surely sent word on our behalf!" And this message was greeted with such shock as more than enough time had passed for the message to have reached Alexander.

Some even cried this in disbelief,

"Pasha Alexander, are you sure you are not lying?"

That particular statement got a resounding rebuke from one of Alexander's surrounding entourage, while Alexander revealed with a slightly malicious grin,

"Something has happened between your dear Eminence Manuk and the king. Their alliance hasbroken apart."

"Manuk has already left Tibias, leaving you to die in this ditch."

"So you see, with no one to prove your identity and no one here to ransom you, you are nobodies!"

After that implicit threat, it did not take Alexander long to make them sing the tune he wanted.

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