Herald of Steel



As the days went on, the outcome of the siege seemed to become clearer and clear to Perseus.

And when a particularly hard blizzard hit them around the first week of December, the same one that made Alxx stop his journey, the attacks stopped completely.

The weather was too serious and visibility too poor to conduct any type of offensives.

And so Perseus simply sat in his tent with his chin on his palm, thinking and ruminating, all wrapped up in thick clothing and even a fur blanket, while a raging fire burned inside the room to make it a bit more bearable to live in.

But even then it was quite cold.

Though the chilly temperature did nothing to alleviate the hot temper of the man as he was predictably in a bad good.

His 'divine weapons' were proving to be less than effective, he had a bunch of dead bodies with nothing to show for it, while his soldiers mostly sat around in their tents, doing nothing.

Well, nothing useful anyway, as they ate, slept, performed bodily functions, and drank to pass the time, with some even breaking military disciple and doing things like playing dice and other types of gambling.

Perseus was of course quite a bit aware of what was going on in his camp, and seeing around 35,000 men sit and go nothing, while his supplies and food rations depleted at an alarming rate as it was winter and everyone was hungrier than usual, for the body burnt far more calories than usual to try and stay warm, he was internally quite incensed

But ultimately chose to turn a blind eye anyway.

He understood the soldiers were doing this mainly because they were bored and had nothing to do to spend the time and since he also had no way of motivating them to do anything either way, this infraction was allowed to pass.

'Well at least they are visiting the brothels' Perseus half-joked, actually somewhat happy that there was no nearby large settlement from where the soldiers would be able to get this illicit pleasure.

And so as they waited for the storm to pass, for the time being, Perseus retreated to his tent as he tried to think of a new strategy to tackle this problem.

And to help him to do that, he asked for the advice of his most trusted man- Leosydas, inviting him into his tent.

"So how are your wounds?" The king first and foremost asked the worry in his clear.

"Stings like hell in the cold!" And Leosydas sourly spat back.

This weather really made him understand just how bad it was to have an open wound in the cold.

It constantly ached, and on particularly cold nights, which was every single night, the pain would get so bad that he would have to have hot bags of water placed on his wound just to reduce it a little bit, just enough so that he could at least get some sleep.

It was quite the torture.

And even now, even as he sat in front of a warm hearth, the wound still gave off a throbbing pain.

Hearing his friend's bitter tone and seeing him be in significant pain, Perseus did not offer any words of comfort.

He knew his friend was too proud to take it anyway.

Instead, producing a teasing smirk he suddenly asked him in a joking tone, "By the way, did you know we captured the man who tried to kill you."

"His name is apparently Layksah. Is there anything you would like to do to him?"

Perseus sent Leosydas a very knowing look, his innuendo being clear.

And given the amount of pain that the enemy rider had caused him, it would not be strange for Leosydas to want some revenge.

Even if he did not outright kill Laykash, just denying one of his meals of the day, or making his accommodation a bit more unforgettable would work wonders in making the man's life quite difficult in this weather.

But Leosydas, hearing this, only turned to look at Perseus's smirk, and put on a very serious and stoic face, to only loudly say, "Stop joking! What would I want to do with him? Why would I want to do anything to him?"

"We are at war. And I tried to kill him as much as he wanted to kill me."

Leosydas genuinely felt offended at Perseus's suggestion, feeling it would soil all his honor and dignity if he were to extract some sort of petty vengeance on the enemy soldier just for hurting him.

Because according to him and most military people of the time, whatever wounds and injuries one suffered during a war were a sort of mark of pride and manliness.

And as for the ones inflicting that damage, well they were just soldiers obeying orders, or people defending their lands.

There was no sin in that.

So in a way, it was a 'what happened on a battlefield, stayed on a battlefield' kind of like thing.

Strange for sure, but these were strange times indeed.

"Hahaha," And Perseus of course knew this mindset, which was why he had asked the question with a teasing smile, his intention being only to lighten the mood.

As he then additionally informed his friend,

"The man says he was the leader of the enemy's right wing."

"*Whistle* quite a high officer…a big fish. We should be able to get quite the ransom for him."

The eagerness in the king's voice was palpable.

And Leosydas chimed in with his thoughts as well, saying,

"Mmm, that is indeed a good idea. The siege is proving difficult, and the opposite side has already expressed interest in the prisoner exchange. So we should try and keep as many of them alive as possible."

The math here was simple, more alive prisoners meant more money.

And Leosydas further urged Perseus,

"Make sure to keep them in good tents given the weather. And that they are properly fed and clothed. Dying because of a cold or fever would be quite a loss for us."

If someone from the outside were to hear Leosydas speak now they would think he was the king, but this was the type of bond Perseus and he shared, and thus the former diligently nodded to the latter's suggestion even though their ranks were in reality the opposite, while Leosydas finished by saying,

"Also that officer named Laykash. He told that he had broken his broken and it hurt quite bad in the cold. Arrange for a slave to take care of that."

The man seemed to be quite concerned about his big prize losing its value.

And hearing his news, Perseus was naturally surprised and could help but exclaim, "So you have already talked to the prisoner! That explains it!" as he then felt his previous offer had been quite moot.

And after this, Perseus nodding in tune with his friend commented,

"I already have done much of what you asked. And I will have that Laykash be well taken care of, rest assured." before saying with a slight sigh, "Haaah. hopefully, we can get back part of our campaign cost from this."

Perseus's lament was over the fact that since they even had to discuss this, even if only privately, it still went to show at least tacitly just how little confident they were in being able to actually win the siege.

"*Sigh*, it seems we have underestimated the difficulty in taking Zanzan. Their walls are really something," Perseus hence added a second sigh quickly after his first, bitterly saying,

"It feels like punching a mountain. Not even Thesalie's walls might be as sturdy as this."

Perseus subconsciously crunched up his eyebrows as he said this, trying to think whether that was really true or if was just him imagining things as he was looking at something some distance away.

But Perseus swear the sound the stones made when they hit the Zanzan walls was distinctly different from when they were tested against other walls.

They were much lower and muted, with a duller thud, as if it was hitting a much denser stuff with much less air or emptiness inside.

Perseus could not quite put his finger on it, but he certainly felt like Zanzan's walls were much more solid.

And he was absolutely right.

Zanzan's walls were indeed different from the others of the time.

And the fact that the man standing quite a far away was able to determine this went to show how sharp the sense and intuition of this king were.

Now to understand the difference between Zanzan's walls and the rest, one had to know how the other walls were made.

And these primitive walls were made using a rubble core, using a technique, very unimaginatively called 'rubble masonry'.

The way this type of construction worked was after laying the foundation, first, a primary structure would be made of stones and other masonries.

They would be stacked atop of each other in courses or layers, in quite a haphazard way, with them barely able to stay together without falling over on their own.

Next over this unstable structure, a primitive mortar, made of mainly slaked lime and ashlar (finely ground stone of pebbles) would be poured over, intended to act as a binder.

And slowly over time, once fully filled and coated, this slurry liquid would slowly solidify and harden, and at last after a while hold all the rocks together within its matrix, making the rubble of stone now solid and strong.