Herald of Steel

Alexander had been concerned about the possibility of Chief Metztil betraying him from the day he had chosen to consider allying with the man.

And he had gone through the usual list of things to do to try and mitigate that.

However, every single one of them ran into the same problem- a gross lack of even the most simple trust.

The two groups were two very different people- the language was different, the command structure was different, and even the military values one looked for in a soldier were different.

Not to mention, the experienced Alexander only needed to take a single glance at the Helvati tribesmen to understand such people could never be 'tamed' by his officers.

He noticed that the Helvati always kept a good distance from his legionary camp and whenever Alexander felt their gaze fall on him, it seemed to be one of weariness, suspicion, and even subtle hate.

Clearly, these hot blooded men had no love for 'outsiders', the mindset formed over centuries due to various societal and historical reasons.

Hence these men would never follow anyone except people from their own tribe, people who they trusted and knew would not stab them in the back

So if Alexander were to forcefully try and do what Lord Macht did with the Margraves, things would turn very ugly very soon.

At least in that case, the Margraves agreed at first and only rebelled once Lord Macht proved incompetent.

But here, the Helvati would just pick up their weapons and go home.

In addition to these, there was also Alexander's concern about the quality of those men, as later suspicions were confirmed by Remus's report.

Unlike his legionaries' complex system of signaling trumpets and drums that allowed them to change formation on the fly and thus quickly adapt to all kinds of changing circumstances on the battlefield, the Helvati were quite primitive.

From talking to Metztil in his free time, Alexander found that they at best used the most simple of commands when fielding an army- like charge forward, turn left or right, or retreat.

Anything more and you had various units butting heads with each other or simply becoming confused in the chaos of the battle.

Because of all these reasons, even though Alexander wanted to spread Metztil's men among his own ranks, he refrained.

Rather he tried to make the man glue himself to him by offering him generous benefits. And he believed the land he offered till now was good enough.

The chances of Metztil betraying him were very unlikely.

But if things still unfolded in that very implausible direction, well, he chimed the contingency to Remus,

"We have discussed all the terms and even sworn to the gods to witness our alliance. But if they betray us even then, well… then that's it, isn't it? No one can ever defend everything at once."

"Instead of being slaughtered like the Margraves back then, we will give up on the battle immediately and retreat back to here. What happens next… we will discuss later."

Remus and Menes took those last words to mean if Alexander lost the coming campaign, he would cut his losses and go back home.

And although they felt bitter about this backup plan, since it had not yet come to that, they decided to keep the thoughts to themselves for now.

Alexander and Metztil would leave Lord Janus's territory on the sixth day, the delay compelled by a sudden last minute blizzard.

This bad weather would also deny Alexander the use of the sea as the experienced sailors under Lord Janus informed them the seas around this time were susceptible to sudden storms and even typhoons.

The tsunami that had hit them five years ago happened close to around this time.

This was too bad because Alexander was looking forward to using those newly built ships in Lord Janus's harbor, the ones made under his own design- ones that used solid, iron pegs instead of the wooden one

There were a couple of them stored there.

But it seemed it was not meant to be

Hence the men had no choice but to reluctantly take the bad road, or whatever passed as roads around here, for the journey was every bit as hard and uncomfortable as Alexander had imagined.

Due to the build up of snow on the road, these earth beaten roads basically turned into a muddy swamp, where carts and horses got bogged down and then sunk like they were moving through quicksand.

And as their handlers tried to dislodge these distressed beasts, pushing and pulling on them as best as they could, a traffic jam that was literally kilometers long soon formed.

It was not even uncommon to see such men having lunch or supper beside their stuck animals, simply waiting for the ground to harden a bit before resuming their rescue efforts.

The maddeningly slow crawl made Alexander feel like he was experiencing the famed 'rasputitsa' for the first time.

And because of this mud and water slurry, the mere 160 kilometers trek which should have only taken a week to complete took nearly double the time.

It was the middle of January that Alexander finally managed to reach the outskirts of Caira, and as the nearly 25,000 men strong army slowly crawled their way towards the outskirts of Caira, the nearly 30 feet walls guarding the city's perimeter became visible to all of them.

And seeing it, Alexander could not help but sigh.

Compared to the flimsy wooden walls of Lord Janus's city that was only a single layer thick, this stone structure in comparison appeared to have been made by the gods.

Tall, thick, and sturdy, it was comparable to any of the best walls in the world at the time.

And if not for how flat and indefensible 'Giant City' was, Alexander would not have even contemplated attacking this sturdy fortress of more than 100,000 men head on this.

He would have stayed in the north and bid his time there, letting Lady Miranda strengthen her position.

This would have been impossible for Lord Parker to swallow because the goal set out by his father was to take the entire northern half of Galiosos Island.

So seeing Alexander strengthen himself and plot to split its prize, the young lord would have had no choice but to go and give battle.

This meant he would have to waste precious supplies and drain his men's stamina to march up towards Alexander in this cold and then fight in an unknown territory.

All the advantages would be with Alexander with none of the downsides.

However, circumstances made it so that this was not to be.

Hence as Alexander laid his eyes on the huge meter thick walls that he was tasked with demolishing, the sense of the scale made him feel a bit daunted.

Sure these walls were still not comparable to the huge walls of Thesalie, but remember Alexander had almost two years to prepare to take that city and even then he could only do it due to how close it was to Zanzan, making his supply chain very short.

All the tricks and schemes he had used back then, like constructing a new wall and firing flaming catapults would not be applicable here.

Hench at this moment, Alexander could not help but wish that he had not given up the control of the manor.

Then we would have still had control of the Royal Harbor, thus allowing him to land troops via ships or boats directly into the city, bypassing Lord Parker's most formidable defenses.

Of course, such wishes were little more than a pipe dream as back then Alexander was suffering from a chronic shortage of men.

Not to mention without him personally leading the negotiations with Metztil, there was no way he would have gotten the Helvati on his side.

So instead of daydreaming, he quickly set up camp and early next morning began to set up his catapults, wishing to pound a section of the walls down.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The loud thuds of 15 to 20 kg stones hitting the walls quickly made even the sturdy structure reverberate with a subtle, slow shake, causing many of the defending men to duck for cover.

They had never experienced such an artillery attack and the sight of those huge balls being flunk toward them frightened many.

"My lord, please stay away from the walls. It is not safe."

But one man who had no intention of cowering was Lord Parker, who had personally come out to the walls to see the size of the enemy for himself.

By now, this young scion seemed to have shredded that previous shroud of gloominess and instead sported a sharp penetrating look.

And ignoring the warning of his chief bodyguards, he instead approached the end of the walls and sneered,

"Hmmmp! So this is Alexander's way of conducting warfare. The barbarian slave did not even send a war delegation."

It was customary during this time for the attacker to send peace terms before starting any attack, as it was considered something like etiquette among gentlemen.

Alexander had not bothered to send anyone this time because he had been in enough meetings with Lord Parker to know that if words could have made the man bend, the campaign would have been over by now.

Lord Parker's sneer was accompanied by a careful scan of the spawning tents that lay on the green field ahead of him, and it caused the man to murmur,

"There is no need for us to fight Alexander now. We will wait for father's reinforcements."

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