Herald of Steel

The reason why Alexander had a foraging party such a distance behind his main army was mainly due to the fact that although the man provided the men with the basic food rations, i.e.- grain for bread and vegetables, with meat, egg, and fish once a meal once a week, sometimes the soldiers wanted something a bit more variety to their meals.

So they often went out hunting for ingredients, be it various herbs to add to the stew fruits or vegetables, eggs from nearby farms, or even meat, hunted from local wildlife or 'collected' from domestic animals.

With the reason for air quotes in the word collected being there due to the fact that although Alexander made it law that the soldiers should always pay for the food they acquired during such trips, well it was much easier to make the poor peasants 'donate them in the name of their lord' rather than taking out their hard earned gold to pay for them.

A nice shiny armor and a sharp sword tended to do that.

And even though Alexander was aware of such practices, he turned a blind eye to it, for it was too hard to enforce as well as the fact that he was not going to antagonize the men who fought and died for him for some unknown peasants.

Thus the tacit rule was that as long as the men did not harass the local populace too much, Alexander would pretend that all was well.

And Grahtos was covertly here to also make sure that exact rule was followed, that the 5,000 men around the vicinity did not make a hash of the surrounding.

Which then inadvertently led to landing himself upon this great chance.

To Grahtos's inquiry of why he was betraying his kin, Papando had cleverly left out his grudge with his father in fear of appearing unfilial, and only dressed up his intentions as being altruistic, with the city and people in mind, in the process painting Perseus with a negative light and showing himself to be a true believer of the Zanzan lord's propaganda.

And much to the delight of Papando, it worked, as Grahtos with a nod promised to enter the city if the gates were opened.

"Sir I will send a scout letting the lord know."

As Papando quickly rode back to the city, garbed in a full body cloak so as to hide his identity from any prying eyes, one of Grahtos's officers quickly offered this suggestion, wanting to let Alexander in on this critical reveal.

"No. it could be a trap designed by Perseus to get us to come closer." However, contrary to his very trusting facade in front of Papando, once he was gone, Grahtos revealed his internal suspicion and rejected the proposal, fearing it to be a ploy hatched by Perseus to force them into a decisive battle.

After all, over the past few days, the king had revealed signs of such desperation.

Thus, not wanting to let Alexander get caught in this possibility, no matter how small, Grahtos declared, "If the numbers man said is true, we will be able to do it with just the men we have."

"And given the narrow streets of a city, more number might not necessarily be better."

"So we will do it with the hands we have."

This reason sounded good enough to the officers, who thus nodded and waited for dark fall, keeping an anticipating eye on the large wooden western side gate.

As Papando's thoughts returned to the present, feeling giddy about the things soon to come, and seeing his father and the king unaware of the execution he had arranged for them, the man took a large sip of the wine, savoring the taste and humming to himself, 'Enjoy the last few hours of your life, hehe."

However, things for Papando would not unveil as he had hoped.

And he had the mercenaries to thank for that.

"Bah! Stupid bar wrench! You dare reject this daddy!"

It all started with this loud, boisterous curse in one of the five taverns the city had to offer, as one of the rough mercenaries tried to grab the butt of a working maid but was immediately hit on the hand with the wooden mug she was carrying, thus rejecting him.

"Fuck you you drunken brute! I'm married. Find a whore to suck your smelly dick, motherf***ing swine."

The maid there was not one to back down easily either, snarling at the man with her slightly yellow teeth and glaring down him with naked hostilities.

In her mid twenties, this mother of two had been doing this business long enough to know that any perceived weakness during such harassments would only lead to greater escalations.

Thus the strong admonishment.

But this time the woman had made a mistake in her response.

She had forgotten that these men were not her usual clients- i.e.- timid peasants and drunken geezers who would sometimes let the alcohol get to their head and let their hands slip, but instantly scuttle back to their shell with just one glare from this domineering woman.

In much contrast to those mild mannered, honest hard working men, these mercenaries were hot blooded and fierce.

They hated their looked down on and when a woman rejected them, they took it as a challenge.

"*Bang!* What! You filthy…****.... ***... ****...." Thus contrary to the usual reaction the woman had expected what came out was a string of curses, each one more explicative than the last, as the man's eyes turned bloodshot.

Given the drunken state of the man, all that was now needed was a spark to set it all off.

And that soon came.

In the form of a taunt.

"Hahaha, look everybody! Hayd is getting chewed up by a bar wrench. Hahaha, pathetic."

It was unknown if the taunting drunk man simply did not like this Hayd, or was just making fun of a friend.

However, that did not matter, as the following chorus of laughter that soon followed afterward was like a shockwave, instantly destroying the fragile self control the mercenary had and

"Ahhh!" With a great roar, he roared and jumped onto the lady, pinning her down.

And then what followed could easily be imagined, as the lady screamed her lungs out while she felt her clothes being torn apart, quickly exposing herself.

"Please! Don't! She didn't mean anything by it. Get off…*bang* *thud*!"

And while seeing this her husband had tried to intervene, bolting out of the counter and trying to push the man on top of his wife away, he found himself too overmatched.

And then quickly lost consciousness as he was brutally struck on the back of his head with a chair by another drunken mercenary.

In fact, this heavy wooden structure hit him with such force that the leg was cracked and bent, and dyed matt red, while the man rolled his eyes inside and instantly fell to the floor, a fountain of blood quickly forming from his wound.

"Nooooo!" And it was unknown if the lady screamed upon seeing her husband like this, or because she felt herself beginning to be violated.

Not that her cry did anything to help her.

If anything it might have made things worse for her, as her cry almost acted as a siren call for the other men, who quickly began to gather upon the wounded prey like a pack of hyenas.

This was not the first time they had done something like this, and these men certainly knew how to share their prize.

And as if to egg these men, one of the men from the back, who was dressed a bit more flamboyantly, showing his greater standing among the group, quickly stood up and shouted at the top of his voice,

"That's right men! This city has nothing! No wine! No whores! No gold! If we want to have something, we need to take it."

"We saved these wenches' lives. It's time they showed some gratitude."

And saying so, as if to lead by example, he grabbed another maid who was nearby and started to violently tear her clothes off too, despite the screaming protest, before throwing the bare girl onto a table and pushing himself in, making the girl produce large tears of unimaginable agony.

And soon the other drunk men followed, grabbing all the women and even children serving nearby and violating them, all of them multiple times in a gangr**efest.

These poor women were taken by multiple men and when their numbers proved utterly inadequate to sate the huge demand posed by so many men, driven by lust and alcohol, these unruly mercenaries began to spill out of the tavern and take their merriments into the nearby houses.

Given it was night, these armed men hit the jackpot, finding the women all nicely tucked in bed right in front of them, so assaulting them proved as easy as taking candy from a baby.

And like how a forest fire starts from a single spark, seeing their comrades looting, sacking, and ra*ping the city, the rest of the drunk mercenaries started doing it too, and thus in that dark night, unforeseen by anyone, the sacking of Kalimat had begun.

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