Herald of Steel

While Camius was busy recruiting soldiers from the mercenaries, Alexander also remembered to make recruitment drives in Adhan itself, offering large cash prizes to anyone willing to join him.

He particularly targeted the Adhanian army that fought with him, and the army officers.

Hence, out of the four to five hundred thousand men in the city, about fifty thousand agreed to move to Alexander.

But such a huge exodus managed to alarm Ptolomy and so Alexander had to settle for just seven thousand, even then he had to pay Ptolomy a pretty commission.

But Alexander dished it out, for he feared the population in his territory might be non-existent.

Done with all, Alexander had one final job to do, where he tasked the artisans to make some new things for him.

The first and most important thing he ordered was the making of a heavy plow.

Ptolomy had told him Zanzan was infertile because of its heavy clay soil, which was true when using the light, wooden plows the world used today.

But with a heavy plow, which was a light plow with a metal wedge attached to the back of it, heavy clay soil, which had a tendency to hold water and stunt plant growth, could be effectively drained and cultivated, even producing much better yields than the light soil prominent in Adhan.

To keep this a secret, Alexander had the plow made separately.

He tasked the carpenters to produce the wooden part of the plow, which was just a light plow with wheels attached to it and a strange hole at the back.

While the blacksmiths made the metal wedge that would actually turn the soil and tilt it.

Because iron was expensive, he had the wedges made out of bronze, though in the future, they would be replaced with high-quality steel.

The second thing he had made was a horse collar that was attached to the plow.

The current straps wrapped around the trachea of the horse and constricted it, making them push against the horse's throat the harder they pulled the plow, thus restricting the plowing speed.

But the horse collar circumvented this problem by wrapping around the horse's shoulder, allowing the beast to pull with much more force.

Of course, the collar was not just for horses, it worked on mules and donkeys as well.

As Alexander was busy with these preparations, the second important thing that took up Alexander's time was him occasionally checking in on Pasha Farzah and Ptolomy, who were busy preparing the groundwork for the peace negotiations that were just a week away.

Amenheraft was camped just a hundred kilometers from Adhan, in a city called Harik, and his delegation was scheduled to arrive in five days.

Strangely, it was not Amenheraft that was willing to initiate peace talks but Ptolomy.

But this was in hindsight to be expected, as Ptolomy was undoubtedly the weaker side in the war, and thus needed the time much more urgently than Amenheraft to shore up his forces.

Just because Amenheraft had lost a battle didn't mean he was out.

Even with his high command in tatters, it was still possible for him turn it around as he had access to much more resources.

Amenheraft was of course aware of this and was adamant about not accepting any kind of truce and was eager to begin round two shortly.

But reality seemed not to favor the previous king this time.

As by a combination of diplomacy and military strong-arming, Ptolomy, or more accurately Alexander and Pasha Farzah had managed to force Amenheraft to come to the negotiating table.

First, the military defeat, particularly the mid to high-level personnel lost really hurt Amenheraft, just as Pasha Farzah had predicted, and it made him unable to raise another army quickly enough.

But this was Amenheraft's lesser of the two problems.

A far, far lesser problem, as the much graver circumstances, presented themselves when Alexander proposed a plan to capitalize on Amenheraft's weakness.

And like a hyena latches onto its dying prey and starts eating it when before the prey is fully dead, the shrewd mercenary leader let the experienced Pasha Farzah set about making the trap.

The esteemed lord began this by removing the firewood from underneath and threatening to dismantle Amenheraft's whole base of influence.

Using his vast experience he immediately pointed out the nobles loyal and critical to Amenheraft and quickly sent letters to these noble families, offering amnesty, huge bereavement payments, and even huge sums of money as bribes in the form of economic subsidies to switch sides, an offer that the poor as a church mouse Amenheraft could never hope to realistically compete with.

He also very smartly made Ptolomy personally write these offers as a show of sincerity, as the king was forced to write letters for twelve to fourteen hours a day, while his heart bled unceasingly at the huge cheques he was forced to hand out.

'*Sniff*, was the throne worth it?' Ptolomy lampooned as he gazed at his bandaged thumb, which had started to bleed after holding on to the quill for so long, his heart aching as the astronomical windfall he just gained as rapidly vanishing in front of his eyes.

But if it was some form of consolation, the nobles, who were living in constant fear after realizing that they might have chosen the wrong side, quickly accepted the presented the huge cheques and promptly capitulated, greatly furthering Ptolomy's cause.

And few could blame them, as along with Ptolomy very politely forgiving them for all of their crimes, the money he offered was truly huge.

Even by huge standards, they were truly huge.

This amount was determined mainly by Pasha Farzah, who poured over all the financial records the royal family had of other houses and made the appropriate offer.

Usually, the targeted noble would be offered at least the equivalent sum of twice his annual income.

If the noble was big or important enough, or particularly loyal to Amenheraft, this offer could have extended to thrice or even four times, along with a written explanation of how the money was legitimate and not cursed as this money was presented by the two saintesses to the army commander Alexander as a sign of loyalty to the rightful king Ptolomy.

The explanation went on to further say that the saintesses have been punished for their indiscretions, but as their heart was in the right place even if their actions were not, and the king being moved by the piety shown by the two, had decided to spare their lives and simply exile them to Zanzan.

This lame excuse fooled almost no one, as how could such an easy way of just giving away everyone's money exist?

If it was so easy, how could the people have enough trust to store their hard-earned money there?

But what that piece of paper with some ink on it did was give all of them the perfect plausible deniability and in front of such a huge amount of money, nobody was willing to look the dead horse in the mouth.

Well, almost no one, as a few ultra-hawkish and particularly zealous devotees still called for the 'witches' to be burnt at the stake but no one took them seriously.

Everybody knew that the city had been invaded and most likely sacked, meaning the twins were just scapegoats for Ptolomy to clean off the dirty money he got from the mercenaries, who gave it to him in exchange for Zanzan.

This was the consensus reached among most of the nobles regarding the events that transpired inside Adhan and it hit surprisingly close hit to home, as it went on to prove that the Hollywood caricature of a dumb, brutish noble was just that, a movie troupe.

In reality, most nobles, receiving the best education afforded to them, were smart, resourceful, and competent, with only a few black sheep mixed in with them.

And being smart people, they chose to accept the money and let the royals tear each other apart, as most believed that both the royals would try and bring them over to their side, with gifts, benefits, and lands.

The nobles were not adverse to the civil war.

But they were unwilling to resume it right away, as the drought and the two-year fierce war had depleted a lot of their manpower, and they needed to get their farmlands and economy in shape.

And so, like Ptolomy's letters urged, the nobles around Amenheraft pressured the king for a truce, which, as his die-hard loyalist base was mostly dead, Amenheraft was forced to assent to.

Thus, with a grumpy heart and great reluctance, he sent Manuk and Pasha Muazz, the two most high-ranking officials still with him to Adhan, to negotiate ceasefire terms.

Ptolomy naturally had promised these delegates safe passage through the city and ten days later the battle took place, the two men, one representing the divine powers of Amenheraft and the other the nobles that follow Amenheraft, entered Adhan to meet with the rebel king.