Herald of Steel

Alexander sighed in heart as he felt a headache coming knowing he would have to deal with more such bullshit if he wished to become a part of the Adhanian upper class.

Messy familiar relations were part and parcel of the upper class and Alexander knew he had little chance of avoiding them.

But then Alexander suddenly looked at Nanazin's claim from a different angle.

"Don't tell me Amenheraft left his daughters in the hopes the soldiers attacking the temple would violate them, and help form a permanent schism between Pasha Farzah and Your Majesty!" Alexander's loud deduction sent chills down everyone's heart.

"Father..Royal father would never do that!" This was the first time the twins opened their mouths since they handed the coins to Alexander.

"That's right….brother…Amenheraft and I may have our differences. But he would never use his daughters in such a way." Ptolomy spoke up to defend his half-brother.

"Hehe, what does the queen mother think?" Alexander passed the question to the most intelligent person in the room.

"The commander's thoughts are good as mine," She sent a flat smile to Alexander, neither confirming or defending the claim.

"Grandma…" Azira spookily trailed off.

"Tell me, your highnesses. When did your royal father last seriously listen to your request? Why didn't he forcefully board you into his boat even when bloodthirsty soldiers were just a few hundred meters beside you? Was he unaware of the harm that could befall upon you two?" Alexander tried to show them the real picture.

"That…that…" Azira stammered.

"Clearly Amenheraft didn't expect you to harm even the priests!" Ptolomy naively commented.

'Heh, if your brother was this naive, things would have become a lot simpler,' Alexander mocked in his heart.

"Speaking of expectation, how do you expect to beat Amenheraft?" Alexander decided to switch topic.

"That…we will raise an army," Ptolomy said as if it was as easy as saying 'Abracadabra' and an army would appear.

"Oh,..how?" Alexander was happy to let Ptolomy dig deeper.

"Umm…well,... as my general I leave that upto you," Ptolomy quickly designated the vital task of recruiting the army to an outsider.

Before his preferred commander would have been Barzan, but he was now a bit…predisposed.

"Good, how many do you want?" Alexander asked for a number.

"Um..as much as possible," Ptolomy gave a vague answer.

"Well, how much population does the city have? How many men, women, and children?" Alexander wanted to know the potential pool of people he could pull soldiers from.

"Um…the city had a million men before the drought. But now...perhaps less than half. Some died, and many moved to the countryside where there was more foliage." Amenheraft tried his very best to recall some of the reports he had gotten.

Alexander had still not gotten how big of an army he was supposed to make and so asked, "Who are your advisors?"

"That..most are dead and the few ones I have mostly held low positions," Ptolomy by now had started avoiding eye contact with Alexander, a clear tell that he was getting nervous.

"Then, how much is Amenheraft's force? I heard it was a hundred thousand strong." Alexander hoped the rebel at least knew the strength of the people he was rebelling against.

And here Alexander, at last, had some luck, as Ptolomy gave him some concrete numbers.

"The hundred thousand strong is just something we say to scare our enemies. It was once a hundred thousand strong, but over the last two years, hunger, desertion, and multiple plagues coupled with battlefield losses have reduced that army to a skeleton of his former self."

"Even with reinforcements and replacements, my spies in the army told me that it was about eighty thousand strong. But this is not counting the fact that we have lost most of our most experienced troops in the past two years or how the troops are exhausted and malnourished." Ptolomy who appeared totally incompetent at civilian matters seemed at least to know something about the military.

Ptolomy further gave Alexander some good news, "But the total army will not be eighty thousand. Amenheraft had used his fifteen thousand horses to reinforce his army with fifteen thousand Rakushan slingers. So, his army will not have any cavalry and be numbering around sixty to seventy thousand."

"Not having to deal with cavalry is good news," Alexander nodded.

Then he asked, "How long will it take till they get here, any idea?"

Because it was vital for Alexander to know how long he had to prepare.

"The last report said they were about six hundred kilometers away. So around three weeks." Ptolomy set the deadline.

"Is the plan still to use the city walls to repel Amenheraft?" Alexander asked how the king planned to deal with the incoming attack.

"Yes! Given the walls are properly manned, we can repel a million men for a thousand years," Ptolomy exaggeratedly said with gusto.

'Fool,' Alexander said in his heart in disdain and decided to teach the naive king a lesson.

"Do you remember how I mocked you for having good food while the rest of the city starved? You all looked at me like was jealous. Well, I wasn't."

Alexander was speaking the truth as, even as a civilian, he had feasted on delicacies these royals could not even dream of.

Though the people in the room did not believe him, thinking he was just calling the grapes sour.

But Alexander did not waste time trying to convince them.

Instead, he continued, "I simply wanted to remind you that the food we have might not be enough."

"Commander, is being too paranoid, I have checked the pantry myself and we have lots of food," Seelima reassured Alexander in a comforting tone.

'Well, at least she is half competent,' Alexander couldn't really fault the queen mother for only taking into account the royal family's consumption, instead of the whole army or even the whole city.

Bolstered by Seelima's claim and eager to prove himself right Ptolomy too chimed in, excitedly saying, "Yes, the original plan was to use the walls and starve the army out. In preparation for that, we had stockpiled a lot of food."

Alexander here decided to remind the fool of something, "Yes, your original plan was that. The plan also involved not burning all three granaries."

Alexander revealed Ptolomy's dark secret, while intentionally choosing to hide the fact that only two were actually burnt.

"That…..'" Ptolomy's excitement was brutally punctured by Alexander's barbed retort as the king sat down, flushed and deflated.

The other ladies also looked at their king with a mixture of anger, disappointment, and surprise, and feeling their accusatory gazes, Ptolomy only meekly peeped out, "It was a way to slow down Amenheraft and hopefully cause a riot."

"Well, congratulation, now you can have the honor of hosting the riot yourself," Alexander gave a sarcastic reply, which caused Ptolomy to deflate even more.

Right then, the Queen mother's stern, sharp voice addressed Alexander, "There will be no riot here. That's why you are here commander Alexander, right? With your troops?"

"In normal times, yes," Alexander replied with a slow nod.

"But when Amenheraft sieges the city, my men will have to deal with constant ladder rushes and siege towers. If the starving people then start rioting and somehow open the gates, it will be game over." Alexander prophesied a grim picture.

"That…then what do you propose," Ptolomy was getting a bit scared.

"When Vizivan was besieged while I was there, Pasha Ankut had round out all the street gangs and miscreants and executed them." The queen mother offered a solution.

But this was promptly shot down by Alexander, "My men do not know any of these street rats. And most that did, are either dead or hiding. And they are unlikely to come out of hiding anytime soon."

"That…commander just capture a few random peasants and make an example out of them." Seelima heartlessly commanded.

'*Sigh*, there's the woman that uttered those haughty words in the dungeon,' Alexander wanted to remind Seelima that she too was once a mere slave.

"My men will not go to the streets randomly murdering people." Alexander unequivocally shut the queen mother down.

"Even if we don't consider the moral implications of it, our army will be made of mostly men from the city. And if we go randomly killing civilians, many of them who might be the next of kin to the soldiers we are planning to recruit, Amenheraft will not need to attack the city. The peasants will put out heads on a spike and hand over the city to him like a nicely wrapped present." Alexander exposed the flaws in the queen mother's suggestion.

"Well, what do you suggest then commander?" Seelima asked in an exasperated tone after being shut down.

"Don't know. Still thinking." Alexander only mysteriously smiled.

Then he quickly changed the topic, "Your Majesty, do you know the man that changed armor with Amenheraft?"

"His name is…was Kefka, Amenheraft's spymaster." Ptolomy informed Alexander, telling him that he had managed to kill a big fish, a very big fish."

"Hmm, looks like we managed to hurt Amenheraft a bit even if we couldn't kill him," Alexander sighed and comforted himself, though it would be years from now when Alexander would truly understand just how significant the blonde man's death was.