Herald of Steel

863 Perseus's State of MInd

The fortifications of the city of Lilybee could not be said to be bad based on the time when it was built.

At a time when catapults did not exist, the almost two story high, two meters thick walls could indeed pose quite a significant threat to any attacking enemy if they were properly manned and garrisoned.

But unfortunately, this furthest port city of Tibias had been unable to keep up with the times.

Defenses that were once considered pretty decent now seemed to be lacking in luster.

It was because of this that even though one of the reasons why Perseus had come here was indeed due to the city's famed defenses, upon actually seeing the state of it for himself, he could not help but lampoon its deficiencies when compared with a city like Thesalie.

And even that city had fallen despite it being a few times bigger and there even being two walls instead of Lilybee's single one.

So Perseus would have indeed been foolish to try and frustrate Alexander with simply such rudimentary fortifications.

"If we defend using the walls, we will simply be ground to dust by Alexander. And this is if we are lucky and do not starve ourselves to death first!" Perseus shot this to the few officers and nobles who were in favor of such a strategy.

And the latter was indeed another reason why Perseus could not afford a long siege.

Because if one recalled, his camp was broken into and looted by Menes in the previous battle, meaning Perseus had lost all his supplies in one fell swoop.

Fortunately, it was around mid spring when that loss had occurred, meaning the earth was filled with life by then and so Perseus had been able to live off the land by simply foraging, asking the nearby towns and cities to contribute, as well as receiving some grains from the capital.

The problem of food still existed but it was not that extreme.

But the other matter that certainly was extreme, one that Perseus decided not to bring up openly- was the matter of pay.

Especially the mercenaries pay!

Because the camp had contained not only food and gold too!

Gold that was meant to be paid to the soldiers and especially the mercenaries as their salaries.

In fact, during the sacking of the camp, MN found not only the gold that was meant to be paid in the future, but also the gold that had been already paid to the soldiers, as almost all the men stored their pay in their tents, which was also inside the camp.

Hence not only had the soldiers lost all their previous months' pay but they were also told that they were going to have to keep fighting for several foreseeable months without any sign of coin.

The fact that this produced an unpleasant reaction did not need to be stated.

The situation with the regular grunts was still manageable, even if it was exactly easy.

Perseus was able to use his authority as king and as well as by asking the men to devote their lives to their country to keep dissatisfaction to a minimum.

"Men! Remember what you are fighting for. It is not gold! It is your family! Your land! Your king! Your ancestors!"

"Remember what the enemy will do if they conquer us! You will lose everything!"

Inspiring speeches like this given by Perseus had those good natured countryfolk fooled.

Besides, they truly did fear what Alexander's men would do once they were conquered as the gossip about the fate of Thesalie had spread far and wide, some accurate, but most of them hyperbolics- like how Alexander was a devil who had slaughtered the entire city and then roasted the corpses over a fire before eating them as barbeque.

Most of the stories were idiotic, but they did work, as it made most of the peasants turned soldiers very afraid of Alexander, and thus conversely very obedient towards Perseus.

However, although the fifteen thousand, 17,000 peasants were easy enough to swindle,such patriotic sacrifices were far harder to ask for from the two groups of mercenaries-Kaiser family mercenaries who numbered around two thousand five hundred, 2,500 and Petricuno and the other Thesians who were currently sitting around eight thousand five hundred, 8500.

Not to mention the remnants of Matbar (Marquess) Kyaum's forces.

Among those 8,000 men that Manuk had brought, there were still about 7,000 of such men with Perseus, as they were still not made aware of Manuk's falling out with Perseus.

Manuk did not have the means to reach them, and Perseus saw no reason to reveal this and lose so many highly experienced men.

So he just kept them, simply telling the men that due to their loss, Manuk had gone to try and get more men.

However, Perseus did not know how long that ruse would last and thus was even somewhat fearful that if he were to try and outlast a siege with Alexander, these men might somehow get wind of the real situation in the meantime and rebel against him from the inside.

That would truly be disastrous.

But that really was a secondary concern as Perseus's true worry came in the form of their pay, as these eighteen thousand 18,000 demanded a fair bit of pay, with the average cost coming up to 300 ropals every month per head.

This was close to five and a half million ropals, and although that value included food for the men as well as the feed of their horse or draft animal, meaning Perseus did not have actually produce so much in pure gold, it was still an astronomical sum to the pauper king.

But he also could not 'not pay' literally half his army.

So Perseus really had only one trick up his sleeve.

Beg!

He revealed his current difficulties and promised the three parties very rich rewards if they fought for him, even swearing land and titles for some of the higher officers.

And this mostly soothed the higher ups

As for the rest of the more than seventeen thousand, 17,000 regular footsoldiers who were not promised such guarantees, well, Perseus let these bloodthirsty men sack a few nearby cities as they passed along the way, turning a complete blind eye to the atrocities being committed in front of him.

Thus the mercenaries were allowed to recompense themselves by taking the coins from the people and sating their greed as well as enjoying the surrounding women to sate their lust.

It was an act that Perseus felt ashamed even thinking about now and the guilt of how he had turned a blind eye towards such an act being committed on the very people he was meant to protect ate him up from the inside.

And it was not just him shedding crocodile tears either.

For the guilt, combined with all the stress over so many problems and worry of losing his throne and everything he held dear literally changed Perseus physically.

He currently looked, much slimmer as the man had lost quite a bit of weight, and much haggard, with sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks, emitting an aura of desolateness.

So adding to the lack of fortification, inadequate stock of food, and no money to pay his soldiers, there was also Perseus's current mindset, which simply did not want to engage in a prolonged battle.

Whatever happened, he wanted to be done with it as soon as possible.

It was due to all these combined reasons, that pulling his spine straight, he had sworn with a martyr like voice, "If I'm destined to die, I'm going to die on the battlefield! Not like a coward hiding behind a wall!"

"Let us go out in a bloody, blaze of glory!"

And in his decision, the king received the unconditional support of his sons and his closest and biggest retainer Mithriditus.

Thus it was this last roll of the die that was chosen to be their final move.

As for what would a defeat here mean for them here?

Well, Absolute annihilation.

And what would a win here mean?

Well, certainly not the end to the war and complete recapture of all territory.

It would be foolish to even think so.

For even if Perseus was able to pull off something incredible like Hannibal did at Cannae and virtually destroy Alexander completely, it was unlikely the latter was going to simply pack up and leave Tibias, abandoning his all gains.

But perhaps if Perseus managed to win and it was grand enough, he would be able to obtain another fighting chance, another chance to fight.

And if he could snowball from there, well perhaps the situation would develop to a point that it would force Alexander to the negotiating table and enable Perseus to extract some sort of concessions from the man.

Because up until now, Alexander had seen no reason to negotiate, for he had not lost any battle and genuinely he thought he could take all of Tibias.

And this was Perseus's one last chance to change that.

Thus it was with such great optimistic hopes and with their backs to the walls thoughts that Perseus started to prepare his army, eyeing the 40,000 opposing mass with infinite hostility.

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