Herald of Steel

Coming back to the meeting where Alexander was discussing the fate of the prisoners of war, once the fate of the mercenaries was decided, Alexander then moved on to decide the fate of the peasants- the forced levies.

And here also Alexander had his way.

It was concluded that the roundabout 10,000 captured would be forcefully displaced along with their families.

And this surprisingly produced very little objection from the nobles.

This was because, One- these men were peasants, so who cared?

And two because none of these were their men, i.e.- the subjects of the men in the room.

Perseus had recruited these men mostly from the southern part of the country and there was no noble from that part of the country representing themselves in this meeting.

They were busy being locked up in the mansion under house arrest.

Thus Alexander was able to push his agenda through relatively easily, before quickly going to the nitty gritty logistics of the whole thing.

This took a bit of time, but ultimately he ended up appointing Lord Theony in charge of the whole event, leaving him with a legion to help him properly carry out the job.

These armed men would be tasked with tallying the locations of all the families of the prisoners, collecting them from the various cities, and then safely delivering them to Zanzan.

And it was due to the last two things, i.e.- collecting them from lands that might belong to nobles, and then safely delivering them, i.e.- making sure they did not run into bandits or slave traders that Alexander decided to keep such a large force behind.

To deter any miscreants.

With this done, Alexander then lastly came to the discussion regarding the captured nobles.

"My lord, they should be ransomed and freed. Just like the normal rules of war." And when asked about their opinion, the strongest opinion was this, mostly coming from the Tibian nobles.

With one voice stating this, another also chimed, "Yes. I too agree my lord. They did nothing wrong. They only responded to their king's order."

Followed by a third one, "Mmm. I know many of the men there. They are diligent and honorable people who only follow their oath. I'm sure they will do the same for you too my lord."

This voice tried to show Alexander there was value in sparing them.

However, Alexander was skeptical about all their claim.

Thus he frankly revealed in a curt voice, "I do not think so. I have personally seen these men fight and they fought like tigers. Particularly at the battle of Lilybee."

"They are more than just oathbound. They are fanatics. They follow Perseus out of respect and their own desire. Not because they bent the knee and swore some empty words."

"They will not follow me!"

Alexander clenched his fist and swung it slightly as he finished, his eyes fixed and steely.

"......." And hearing the words and seeing his countenance, the others had little to counter.

Even if Alexander was wrong about his assessment, the surrounding lords understood the young man had made up his mind, and understanding what Alexander might be hinting at, many's face fell.

Until a brave man tentatively asked to try and confirm if Alexander was really thinking what they thought he was thinking.

"Then what do you propose my lord?" The man made the innocuous query with shifty eyes, as he was afraid to hear the confirmation of their guess, i.e.- executing the nobles.

For killing nobles was a big no no in both Tibias and Adhania.

So all the nobles prayed that their new boss did not panache for such macabre affairs.

Or they might have problems.

"......." It was now Alexander's turn to produce a silent pause, as he momentarily refrained from answering, only producing a loo of limpid eyes.

"Let's shelve the matter for another time. We can discuss it again when we get to the capital," Until he proposed so, which drew a heavy breath of relief from the nobles, as they were reassured they were not dealing with a power hungry crazy lord.

While Alexander ignored these men and started to make his thoughts swim on thoughts of how to process these men.

Letting them return to their fief and act like nothing happened was of course out of the question.

This last batch of men was Perseus's most zealous and staunch supporters and they needed to be neutralized.

Which was of course the easiest to do by killing them, but Alexander upon ruminating a bit also quickly found many, many alternatives.

He thought about making these men abdicate their position and converting them into priests for his temple, employing them as teachers for his schools or other grassroots administrators, as foremen in some of the less critical industries, or any of the many other numerous civilian tasks he had in his hands.

But perhaps the best plan that he came up with was to try and use them to erode the royal family's remaining prestige.

As for how, well for that they needed to reach the capital- Pathenigh.

Thus the nobles' fate was left in the balance for now, while Alexander rejected all personnel wishing to see him in regards to their ransom.

And with these two of the most pressing concerns finished, Alexander felt he was almost ready to leave the city.

So he started to concentrate on wrapping up the last few bits and pieces.

For one, he paid the defecting Thesians all the coin they were owed, just as he promised.

There were around 3,000 of them, and although the original deal had been for Alexander to pay for 5,000 of them, he had managed to haggle the number down to 4,000.

Then since Perseus had owned the men six months of pay at a monthly rate equivalent to 250 ropals, the total came out to a total of 6 million.

Alexander did feel a tiny bit peeved when paying his sum, especially since he never got to use them against Perseus in that promised betrayal, as the king lost before he could get another pitched battle.

But Alexander ultimately soothed his heart by convincing himself that without their intel, he might not have used the strategy of denying the king battle and forcing him to chase him.

Meaning the battle of Kalimat might not have ever happened and the whole ending could have looked very different.

There was indeed once a time when Alexander had seriously contemplated taking Perseus's peace deal.

Thus when he thought about it like that, Alexander did not feel too bad about giving the money.

Having paid them, Alexander then also offered them an escort of 1,000 men to Lilybee to help charter ships for them.

But the men informed him when they were there, they had found that the city, due to the threat of war, did not have enough ships to take so many of them at once.

This surprised Alexander a bit as the number of ships that would be needed to take 3,000 men was not much, 10 to 15 would do depending on the size.

But it seemed many of the merchants feared Alexander would breach the city and torch or seize the docked vessels.

Thus they left in advance.

Hence Alexander offered the Thesians the chance to charter ships from Zanzan letting them accompany him there.

This was loose end number one.

The next and last one was choosing the 'lucky' legion who were meant to stay behind and accomplish the task of sending the prisoners' families to Zanzan.

Alexander also made sure to give them proper instructions on how to do so, such as asking them to select a few prisoners belonging to each city or village who could then show them the way, as the bulk of the prisoners traveled with Alexander to Zanzan ahead.

He also made enough money to cover the cost of transporting so many men, women, and children.

Alexander estimated that by the completion of the immigration, there would be around 120,000 to 150,000 more men in Zanzan!

This number might sound too huge to be the family of just 10,000 men, but it was actually very reasonable.

A farmer could easily have more than 10 children, and if you counted the fact many of them lived with their extended families with uncles, granduncles, nephews, etc, each of these 'family' could easily reach from 30 or even 50 people!

Dom would be proud.

And it was very much possible that when the soldiers would go to escort those families, the other joined ones might follow suit too in search of work and opportunity.

Thus, not only was Alexander overestimating the numbers here, but in fact, he might even be undercounting a bit here.

But whether that be the case, he decided to leave that problem to Lord Theony to solve.

Thus it was with that conclusion that Alexander decided to finally leave the small city of Kalimat, the place which had seen the fateful conclusion of an epic battle, and more importantly, the end of an era.

Tibias as an independent country had fallen here, and Alexander's domination over it had begun.

And when thinking about it as such, Alexander felt even a bit reluctant to leave.

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