Herald of Steel

During the three days following the battle, Lord Parker remained in his mercurial amorphous phase, constantly shifting between his usual, rational self and that unhinged madman state.

It was like one moment he was the lord here, meant to command the troops and bring glory to his family. But the next moment he recalled his loss and turned tempestuous, finding fault at anyone and everyone nearby.

He was like a pendulum, constantly shifting back and forth between rationality and hystericalness.

And this unpredictability somehow made him even more dangerous than before.

Because think about.

A mad dog you know to stay away from. But what about a dog who only occasionally has the fits?

The only thing to do then is either put it down or try and avoid getting in its bad as much as possible.

And the same thing was happening here.

Seeing Lord Parker's state everyone chose to give the lord a very wide berth.

And they certainly did not dare even mention the shadow of Achillas in front of him, in fear of riling him up.

They figured that if they were to propose it, the one to bring it up would likely get his head chopped off first even before Lord Parker considered what they were saying, all for the crime of daring to utter the general's name.

Yes, Lord Parker had made such a threat before and no one was willing to check if it was only a bluff or if the man had really meant it

This was also one of the reasons why no negotiating party had been sent to Alexander to discuss the ransom terms till now.

Now that was still strange considering Lord Parker's own actions, as it could be said given Achillas's importance in the man's heart, one would assume the very first thing he would do was try and rescue his beloved no matter the cost.

However, for various reasons he only kept to himself, Lord Parker did nothing of that sort, but simply distanced himself from all outside contact and kept to himself.

It was as if he was unwilling to talk or even think about what might be happening to Achillas at the moment.

This was a very deplorable reaction on Lord Parker's part, and many officers found it grossly unbecoming of a future lord.

They wanted him to take charge and try and snatch their general back.

However, who exactly was going to tell the half-mad Lord Parker that?

Not even Lord Macht dared to be too hard on him in his state.

Thus they did what the man seemed to want them to do and just left Lord Parker to his own devices, causing the man to spend his time mostly alone inside his personal tent, the things going inside his head a privilege only belonging to him.

And he preferred this reclusive style, to spend all his waking and sleeping hours in that tent all alone. It let him fully sink himself into all the charming memories he had shared with Achillas without any distraction.

From Lord Parker's perspective, he did this because he already counted Achillas as a dead man. Because he found the likelihood of successfully rescuing Achillas without giving any compensation or suffering any kind of loss to be too unlikely.

This was a conclusion reached based upon the battle prowess Alexander had showcased until now and due to the man's recent string of victories, Lord Parker thought that taking his general back through battlefield accomplishments was too unlikely, while any price that Alexander might ask for as ransom was surely to be too high for him to consider it.

The pasha was sure to ask for many times more the amount Lord Parker had swindled off of him as remuneration.

And even hoping for that was likely being too optimistic.

Because it was not uncommon for ransoms of such high value people to be not mere gold, but treaties and conditions.

Conditions such as completely withdrawing from the island in exchange for the man's safe return.

These types of conditions were ones that Lord Parker knew he would absolutely not be able to fulfill even if he wanted to.

The cracks this would create between him and his family would be enough to plunge him to the abyss once and for all.

After all, from the perspective of his father and the various nobles, the chance to annex an entire earldom without any bloodshed was once in a lifetime, no, once in a millennia opportunity.

And there was no way Duke Heeat or the powerful retainers under him would ever let Lord Parker go if he exchanged one single man for an entire fief.

In fact, they would never even consent to any form of compromise, so any plan to share power with Lady Miranda would be out of the question too.

The guidelines for the takeover and what was a red line and what was not had all been very clearly read out to Lord Parker by his father before he sent his son here.

Of course, at the time, he used the examples of other ducal families interfering in their matter, not Alexander. But the core point still stood.

Lord Parker was to obtain the entirety of the fiefdom intact no matter what, by hook or crook, with smile and handshakes, or blood and steel.

And with the decision having been made at the highest echelons of power, even a scion like him, who was next in line to succeed the family had no choice but to follow the line to the tee.

Any deviation from the script and the gentlest outcome would be a drastic fall in his prestige among the nobles, thus making his reign and possibly even his progeny's reign a very hard one.

As for in the extreme cases, such as agreeing to such an unfair transaction, well then events steered more towards Lord Parker not even having the chance to rule anymore.

The nobles and his father combined could definitely strip him of succession rights, then upon declaring him mad in light of his recent action would swiftly assassinate him, thus removing all obstacles for one of his younger brothers to take the seat.

Such radical actions among the Sybarian nobility were of course very very rare, almost too scandalous to even usually contemplate. This was due to the strict laws of succession they had, developed due to the practice of monogamy, thus making the line of succession relatively quite easy.

However, all rules had ways to skirt around them. This was why rumors of fathers killing their first born to favor his one of their other sons were not too uncommon among Sybarsis nobility.

And if not did not want to be so craven there were cases of a successor being legally stripped of his claim.

For that, the lord and his peers and retainers had unanimously agreed the son was unfit to rule.

This was of course usually a very hard bar to reach as all nobles tended to very deeply honor this tradition. They almost instinctively tended to reject such a vile call.

But doubtless, Lord Parker's current circumstances were nothing if not extraordinary. Losing an earldom for one man would definitely make him qualified to receive that hammer.

It was all these considerations that had filled the young man's mind for the first two days, as Lord Parker swam through every dirty bit of memory in his mind to try and fish for a way out.

However two days of futile search, he surrendered.

He found that there was no way to get Achillas back. Even if he sacrificed for Achillas now and freed him, he would be hounded down and killed by his family/

Hence upon reaching the end of the tunnel, Lord Parker took to man's one true solace- alcohol, and like so many great men that had come before him- started to drown his sorrows in that.

Lord Parker drank right after he woke up, he drank when he began to feel sad missing Achillas joining him for breakfast, he drank of Achillas's health after breakfast, and he drank when praying for Achillas...

You could see where this was going.

Joy, sorrow, happiness, worship… everything that Lord Parker did during the day and night, except for sleeping, had his trusty bottle coming along.

The servants that served him silently wept to see their lord drown himself like this, in a pessimistic pool of degeranecy.

But after two of the most loyal men were executed for daring to try and stop Lord Parker, the others obediently bowed their heads and silently obeyed.

While by this point Lord Parker was also very glad that Lord Macht had taken over the camp on his own accord, thus freeing the lord from all responsibilities.

The man would still come and report his day's work to Lord Parker, for he still was technically the commander of the force, but usually, the young lord would be too inebriated to even keep his eyes.

He would simply wave and ask Lord Macht 'to do his best'.

This was why the veteran commander had ordered that Phyrros Island be taken no matter the cost, believing if he could show Alexander was not invincible, Lord Parker would break out of his poisoned stupor.

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