Herald of Steel

The guards above the wall were village peasants, not hardened warriors.

And their will to resist without a noble present was very low.

Particularly when they were being menacingly started by twenty men in Corinthian helmets, their eyes glowing like the predatory gaze of a wolf.

“Wh..what now? Lord Haytai’s orders were not to let anyone in or out,” One of the youngest men, almost a boy whispered out, this voice spreadly slowly to his nearby comrades.

“Fool! You want to die, go die! Don’t drag us into it!” And his loyalty to his lord was rewarded by a barked scolding from the oldest man of the group, who clenched his teeth at the thought that the boy’s voice would be heard by the soldiers down below.

This man had seen enough of life to know that the Lord had buggered off and left them to die.

And he was not gonna die for a lord that had tucked his tail and left.

A sentiment that was shared by many of the more sensible men, one of whom whispered,

“That’s right. Remember what they did to Jabel. So don’t antagonize them. They worship the devil,”

This man was prudent enough to keep his voice down.

“Mmm, Doga said well,” The eldest man nodded, and then ordered first to the young boy, “So Kisha, you go tell the village head to come as quickly as he can.”

And the boy immediately ran off after receiving the order with a silent nod

The old man then turned to the middle-aged man, Doga, and said, “Doga, you go speak with them. Make talks. Drag it out till the village chief gets here.

The fact that the old man did not go out and expose his own neck showed his cunning.

“Wha..why me?” Doga was naturally resistant to follow this, as the old man was not his superior and more importantly because it was bloody dangerous.

Who knew when one of the impatient men would shoot an arrow through his head?

“Because I said so. Now go!” But the forceful, angry voice of the old man made Doga unable to disobey it, and after a slow nod, he stepped forward to near the ramparts of the wall and spoke out to Laykash, “We have long heard of the great Lord Alexander. And hold great respect for him. But our lord is Haytai. And he has ordered us to hold the gate.”

It appeared as if the guards wanted to open gates but were not being allowed to.

Laykash did not know who this Haytai was, and neither did he care.

“Open the gate. We are the messengers of our lord. And we want to talk to Lord Haytai.” Laykash again demanded, his arms swinging impatiently.

“Our lord is not in the village at the moment. But you would try the nearby manor over there,” And Doga in response pointed towards the horizon to the east, in a clever attempt to get rid of the soldiers.

But no dice.

Because Laykash had no intention of meeting the lord.

“We are here to visit Hatamum. This is Hatamum, right? So stop wasting our time and open the gates!” A colleague of Laykash barked this out, striding his horse forward in a menacing posture.

It conveyed to the guards that these men were getting irritated.

“….” Doga could only look back at the old man to signal for help.

Until now this ‘making talk’ was not going well.

Seeing his ‘protege’ fail, the old man grumbled, “These young ones nowadays are useless,” as he himself strode towards the rampart.

“Esteemed sirs, our gates are currently locked and we are fetching the key from our elder. We pray that you hold your patient for only a slightly longer, hehe.” Clearly the old man knew the art of buttering up, as his choice of words was far more articulate than Doga’s.

“Locked? When are gates like these locked by lock and key?” One of the impatient soldiers whispered to his comrades.

For doors such as these, there was no lock big enough.

So all city gates would be locked using braces and bars, not lock and key.

“This is just them telling us to wait for their elder to come and decide. So let us wait a while,” The most senior man in that scouting party spoke up to educate these youngsters, and advised patience.

“But how long?” But the impatient ones in the group seemed eager for a fight.

“If it’s too long, you can be the first to shoot an arrow through their head,” And knowing this, the senior soldier gave this allowance, thus placating the hot-blooded men.

And fortunately for them, they did not have to wait too long, as they soon saw the gate open and an old leading a group of men came up to greet them.

“Greetings of great messengers of Lord Alexander, ruler of Zanzan. I’m Jaylim, this tiny village’s leader put in charge by Lord Haytai,” This village elder was quick to let who was backing him as he performed a formal bow.

And then asked, “May we inquire why sirs are here?”

“Is this Hatamum?” Laykash wanted to confirm that first and foremost.

“Yes, it is,” Jaylim gave a quick reply.

“I have heard Hatamum was a small hamlet. A fishing village. So what is all this?” Came the next question.

“Oh! It was all Lord Haiyan’s order. A month or so ago he bought a lot of men and started crazily building houses and cabins here. Gave us no reason though,” Nobles did not need a reason to do anything and Jaylim was not brave enough to ask.

Nobles ordered and you obeyed.

Those were the rules of the game.

“How many men? Where are they now? Where’s this Lord Haiyan,” Came the natural next questions.

“There were about a thousand men (1,000) men. But now we are down to six hundred (600). As for Lord Haiyan, he said he was going to Jabel. And then we have never heard from him,” Jaylim sang like a canary to any question asked.

This man was no thickhead.

“Did we kill him?” Laykash whispered almost inaudibly in Thesian to his men.

The grass root soldiers naturally did not know the name of all the nobles slain in Jabel.

“When did your lord leave for Jabel?” Another soldier hence asked in an attempt to use the timeline to figure that out.

“About three weeks ago. I forgot the exact day,” But that did not help as the time was close enough that he could have been at Jabel or just ‘missed’ the massacre.

“Your lord Haiyan, who is he? Where is his fief?” Laskash at last asked this.

A stray noble was a very tasty treat, as they had received instruction from Alexander to hunt and kill any if the opportunity presented himself, promising them lucrative monetary rewards in return.

It seemed that even after everything, Alexander still had not learned his lesson about not killing nobles.

“It’s over there. The Yasman area,” Jaylam pointed in the same direction as Daga had, and Laykash would go visit the manor later to find it unsurprisingly completely abandoned.

Because the lord of this estate had either been killed in Jabel or had fled for safer pastures.

But for now Laskash only mental note and asked the next question, “Since your lord is gone, why are you here? And what are you doing? How are you surviving? How do have food?” 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗼𝐯𝐞𝗹．𝐨𝐫𝗴

It appeared Laykash had a tendency to bombard his interrogee with questions, making them unsure which one to answer.

“The lord gave us house-building quotas to fulfill before he left. Said he will be back from Jabel soon to check up on us. Does sire know anything about Jabel?” The village elder with an innocent look asked.

To which many of the scouts only sneered.

Who was this old man kidding?

What happened to Jabel had spread to all nearby settlements.

Burning an entire city tended to do that.

So the patient man in the scouts spoke first in a deep, solemn voice, simply saying, “Follow our instructions, and nothing like Jabel will happen to Hatamum.”

“…” Jaylim’s face went hard for a while as he then turned his back to look at the crowd of peasants standing a bit behind the village gate, wielding makeshift weaponry of all kinds, from spears to clubs to scythes to various other esoteric weapons.

And the scouts did too, understanding this was a precaution for if they killed the village chief and wanted to breach the gates.

Seeing the men ready to defend their village, Jaylam then felt he that the backing needed to finally say,

“We are Lord Haiyan’s people. We are permitted to only follow him. So, please….”

Which was saying that the scouts should find and convince their lord before giving them orders.

But the old man was very quick in continuing his speech, as he said without giving the soldiers a chance to flare up, “But if is the instruction of Lord Alexander, we will follow as long as our bones allow it.”

Which in easier English meant they would consider the command even without Haiyan’s permission if it was reasonable.

And so Laykash gave them the naked truth in as succinct a manner as possible.

“There is an army of 50,000 men coming to attack Zanzan, And they intend to make landfall in Hatamum. Those houses you were building are actually lodgings for enemy soldiers. And we are here to destroy them!”

“…” Jaylam was so shocked that he had no idea if the man was serious or just bullshitting.