Herald of Steel

The conclusion of any battle would almost always cause two very different scenarios to play in the opposite camps.

And this time was no different.

Thus as Alexander entertained the newly arrived Lord Janus, filling him on the details of all that had just occurred and rejoicing the fresh injection of supplies, on the opposite side of the pond, a very different set of emotions ruled the ground.

Back in Lord Parker's camp, the air was dull and gloomy, as a whirlpool of anger and indignation surrounded them all.

Many were unable to accept the fact of who they had been defeated time and time again despite outnumbering the enemy by so many times.

Thus they cursed, spat, and doubted themselves, even wondering if they were truly fighting a god's chosen.

And there was only man left to deal with them all, the one who was right in the center of the maelstrom- Lord Macht.

Just like he had predicted, suffering almost fifty percent casualties and still failing to take Phyrros Island caused a major backlash among both the participating Margraves as well as the Heeat officers, with the former accusing the general of leading them to their death, while the latter accused their commander of handicapping them by diluting their formations with these 'undesirables'.

Blame for the loss of the battle was relentlessly thrown by both sides onto the other, with the only single common consensus being reached that it had been wrong to assimilate the two families haphazardly together like it had been done.

Lord Macht fumed with immense rage when hearing this.

He had expected this kind of reaction from the Margraves, that was fairly understandable.

But like how the Margraves stuck together, he had also expected the same from his own officers.

Even if that was not the case, even if they did not actively cheer for him, Lord Macht at least thought they would act as the silent majority.

He certainly did not expect that they would start to plot against him for power the moment he slipped up. The simple warrior hated these shadowy games, being quite bad at them.

Lord Macht's mistake here was that he had assumed these officers were 'his' when in reality a lot of them was really Achillas's, their loyalty solely tied to them.

To them, Lord Macht was, for all effects and purposes an outsider.

As for the rest, they were either nobles who only paid lip service to Lord Macht, or neutral officers who were more akin to ravenous sharks, their ambitions coursing through every pore of the body as blood.

All these three different groups thus had their own wants, with the 'loyal' group wanting to replace Lord Macht with someone more competent who could lead them to rescue their general, the nobles wanting to seize power for themselves, and the unaffiliated officers fishing for any available advantage to get that next, sweet promotion.
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And given that Lord Macht had no real political identity, being purely a military commander appointed by Lord Parker to win battles, the moment he failed to do that, he quickly lost most of his authority.

The man was left with no real allies, appearing like the lone survivor of a shipwreck, surrounded on all sides by sharks.

This sorry state was the reason why even the naive Margrave grunts were able to come up with the courage to challenge him on their own, something that felt like a slap to his face.

And smelling this blood, even Miss Linda decided to dip her paws into the mix, her shadow appearing behind many of the problems caused by the Margrave troops.

She was even able to periodically meet up with her men, claiming it was her right as the representative of her family, urging them to keep up the good work.

And despite having clearly detected it, due to lack of allies, Lord Macht found himself ultimately helpless to do much to her.

This event opened up the opportunity for Miss Linda to one day bravely intrude upon the elder veteran's space and coldly demand,

"General! I want my officers back. Clearly, they are more suited to lead my men than you."

Lord Macht only stopped himself from flipping out at the very last second, swearing to himself that this was not the time.

Due to the aforementioned delicate state of affairs between the two families, Lord Macht swallowed the insult with great difficulty, afraid doing anything rash would snap the fragile alliance.

He would not be able to answer to his master if that happened, not when they were so close.

Thus with bleeding gums and bloodshot eyes, the man even released some of the lower ranked officers, hoping to buy Miss Linda's cooperation in the matter.

"My lady, we should not let this temporary setback distract us from the true enemy," Lord Macht even tried to put on the suit of a politician, hoping to sway the lady on the matter.

"Hmmmpph!" However, by now it was too little, too late.

Miss Linda had become thoroughly incensed by recent events, and did not deign to even put those words into her eyes.

In fact, she somewhat welcomed Alexander's interference, thinking it would give her more opportunity to fish for advantages.

Now, if Lord Macht had been a really shrewd politician or if Lord Parker actively supported his acts instead of being cooped up in his tent, the man might have still sailed past all these controversies without much trouble.

But unfortunately, neither of those were on the cards.

And when Lord Macht went to seek Lord Parker's help after being driven close to his edge, he not only received no support, but Lord Parker even blatantly mocked him for his failure, laughing out loud upon hearing how Lord Macht lost despite his almost 3 to 1 advantage.

This prompted the dejected lord to even call into question the legendary figure's battle records, sneering,

"Were the pages and pages of fabled legends written truly yours? Or did father pay someone to write them?"

For a warrior like Lord Macht, having his achievements and legends ridiculed like this was perhaps even worse than death.

The black man would thus storm out of Lord Parker's tent that day with a face so dark that it appeared to resemble the abyss. And if not the current set of circumstances, he would not have left the young man with only that.

Even if Lord Parker was the next in succession, Lord Macht would have no problem engraving a few basic manners right into the youngling's skin, And he only eschewed that route due to the shit show he was aleady in. The man did not want to further escalate the whole thing.

This was also why, after his failure to reign in the various forces within his camp, Lord Macht in a very uncharacteristic move sent a negotiating delegation to Alexander, wishing to discuss 'terms'.

The small team of men led by the noble Lord Kite would thus meet Alexander, Lord Macht, and Lord Janus in one of the manor's many studies.

"So what does the Heeat family want to discuss? Your terms of surrender?"

And Alexander would begin the talks with such boisterousness, putting on a very confident look to pressure the other side.

On the other hand, however, Lord Kite would refuse the aggravating bait, but flash a very professional smile, reply in a very cool tone,

"First of all, on behalf of our lord, let us express our sincerest gratitude for taking so good care of the general. We will certainly keep in mind such goodwill."

Lord Kite had of course sought an audience with Achillas before sitting down to discuss anything, to make sure the golden goose was still alive.

And indeed the general was given the best care Alexander could possibly muster, with him even personally ordering the physically many of the prescribed treatments.

Alexander could do this due to Achillas's injury being relatively simple- a broken spine. So all that really needed was for the man to lay down on his back perfectly flat and still, and then wait… wait for the bones to repair by themselves. It was honestly a very boring affair.

Hence when Lord Kite went to meet the general, he found the man all wrapped up tightly with bandages on a large, wooden bed that had only a thin mattress on it, and a powerful smell of various medicinal herbs drifted out of him.

A whole host of doctors, attendants, and slaves took care of all the man's physical needs, while armed guards patrolled the medical tent, making any covert rescue attempts impossible.

Lord Kite and Achillas did not speak for too long, with the former simply asking about the man's health and then quickly reassuring him that everything was fine and that they were in the midst of negotiating his release.

Achillas however did not seem to be interested in his own arrangement, appearing very disappointed in letting himself captured like this.

Instead, he seemed much more about Lord Parker quickly asking Lord Kite how he was.

The man knew his lord well and seemed to be able to guess the kind of nervous breakdown he would have.

This was why Lord Kite decided to spin a little tale for the injured man here.

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