Herald of Steel

Alexander would come to find out that by the time he finished trying up all the loose ends on his part, the Helvati had massacred all the Margraves down on the last man, the orange hue of the setting sun casting a gloomy shadow on the river banks.

Those green clothed corpses were strewn all over the bank of the river, and many were even heaped over each other into bloody piles, the bodies suffering from all kinds of dreadful wounds,

These corpses were sometimes buried, sometimes burnt and some simply thrown into the raging currents, to be washed downstream.

The appearance of so many corpses floating by their water source would cause great panic and fear among the villagers there, especially since many of the more learned men would be able to recognize the soldiers as bearing the emblem of their lord.

Combine that with news of marauding natives nearby and a rumored battle taking place somewhere close by, they were able to correctly deduce that something must have gone terribly with their forces.

Hence soon a dark cloud hung over them as they dreaded what was to become of them ordinary folks now that their protector was gone.

The feeling was of course the complete opposite for the Helvati, who had relished each and every second of the bloody experience.

They had heard so many poems and stories from their elders about how the outsiders slaughtered entire tribes after a victory, taking the women and children captives, so now, this was simply settling the score.

Thus the sanguinary acts did not seem to affect the Helvati even a tiny bit, instead flashing a great, victorious grin they busied themselves looting the now dead corpses- stripping them off armor, weapons, boots, small jewelry like gold or iron rings, coin pouches and even false teeth if the dead was rich enough.

And the man being looted did not need to be necessarily dead either, as many of the Margraves were not yet dead but simply grievously wounded, lying on the ground groaning in pain as death slowly stalked them.

Some of the natives would mercy kill these men before looting them, while others would simply leave them to slowly bleed out or die from an infection, quickly stripping the man for all that he was worth before moving onto fresher pastures.

"Chief, here! We got him! Hah hah!" Among the spoils taken by the Helvati were also the heads of Lord Bakerfield and his entourage, with the dismembered parts being presented to Metztil by a group of grinning men.

It had naturally taken a group to deal with Lord Bakerfield and his bodyguard's last desperate charge, and so after they were killed, the spoils were predictably 'shared' among the participants.

And currently, the roughly dressed men were showing the valuable severed heads to their chief, holding them up to their shoulders with manic grins plastered all over their faces as bloody, pungent viscera dripped down from their open necks.

It was a macabre sight only seen perhaps once in a century.

But the bloody sight seemed to only greatly please Metztil, as revealing his pearly whites, he nodded and congratulated them for their valor, promising them a large reward for killing a 'great' outsider.

While the men in return also gifted Metztil Lord Bakerfield's armor, although by now the thing had been mostly hacked to pieces and all the decorations stripped off their valuables.

But at the end of the day, it was the gesture that mattered and so Metztil took it graciously.

...…

Alexander watched from the back of his formation how the Helvati reaped the surrendering Margraves like farmers reaped wheat. And seeing this violation of the general law of war, sighed in regret.

If Alexander could have, he would have taken at least the noble's captives as then, he could have forced them to swear loyalty to Lady Miranda or at the very least neutrality as part of their ransom.

That would have made all future planned events a lot smoother.

But now…. these houses would have to choose a new head or at least recover from having a lot of their top echelons being decimated. This would take a lot of time and effort.

However, Alexander also knew trying to stop the natives here would be an exercise in futility. They were determined to cut the Margraves here down to the stalk.

"Menes, you clean up here. I am going up to meet with Remus."

Hence, unwilling to keep watching the bloody slaughter, Alexander left his trusted general to look after the prisoner of war while he galloped up the hill to the camp with a few thousand of his men.

"My lord! You are here!" The soldiers posted around the perimeter of the camp as guards had no trouble recognizing their own standards and seeing Alexander's unit's unique design quickly ushered him into the large wooden area atop the hill, before informing, "Officer Laykash is waiting for you by the large tent in the center!"

Alexander was impressed by the display of professionalism here, as looking around, he could see that a large part of the camp had remained yet unlooted.

A section of the walls had been burned down but most of the empty tents seemed relatively untouched.

That was not an easy temptation to resist, given the amount of riches stored there.

Granaries full of grain, shiny weapons, and armor, piles of gold and silver coins, metal pieces, livestock of all kinds, and even beautiful slaves bought for the pleasure of the nobles, all were right there for the taking.

So seeing none of them had been enough to lure his men into a looting frenzy, Alexander's heart turned very glad, since it validated that all the time and money he spent training these men had not gone to waste.

They were still capable of exercising discipline in spite of the allure.

Entering the inside camp, Alexander was able to quickly locate Laykash and from him got the gist of how things had gone and why things were the way they were.

"Commander Remus is chasing after the fleeing Heeat officers. We think Lord Parker is with them." Laykash succinctly chimed, sounding very hopeful of catching the big fish, before suddenly he produced a very sly smile, "Ah my lord, in the meantime you will want to see this! This way!"

Laykash mysteriously waved his hands towards a large, very heavily guarded before swiftly escorting Alexander.
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And as soon as the tent flaps were lifted, Alexander's curiosity was sated.

"He did not take you?"

Alexander could not help instantly blurt out the words without a moment's thought as soon as he laid his eyes on the beautiful lady sitting on a nearby chair, her eyes full of both anger and bitterness.

Yes, it was Miss Linda, and she was also accompanied by her elder sister, Lady Adele, who was seen tending to her infant nephew just next to her.

"..*Crack*..." Alexander's words seemed to stoke some great buried flame in the lady, as that beautiful face suddenly turned pitch black and Alexander thought he heard a molar snap.

"The lord was ambushed by the enemy riders outside the camp and was barely able to escape with his life. Unfortunately, he had no time to take us."

It was ultimately Lady Adele who filled Alexander in, although her version differed wildly from what Laykash had told him.

According to the cavalry captain, Lord Parker was situated quite rear of the lines so technically should have had enough time to snatch his most precious possessions.

This to him said that Lord Parker had run in such a cowardly fashion that he did not even stop to take his wife and son with him.

For a man, could there be anything more cowardly?

'Heh! Are you trying to save your little sister's face?' He thus chuckled.

But then again, perhaps Laykash was wrong about it all.

Perhaps Remus had struck so suddenly that Remus was caught off guard too much, so much so that Lord Parker really had no time to fetch his family.

Either possibility was quite difficult to judge given the fact it was a battlefield.

And besides, who cares how it happened?

The thing that truly mattered was that it had, that Alexander had Lord Parker's wife and much more importantly his pride and joy, his son under his custody.

'Hahaha, the next round of negotiations will be interesting.' Thus chuckling with immense pleasure to himself, he grinned at the two ladies,

"My ladies, it is great to see that both of you are safe and unharmed. I do not know what would have happened if anything happened to you. Do not worry… with me here, nobody 'else' will dare touch you!"

Alexander intentionally put an emphasis on the word 'else', as if to say while others were forbidden, he could still touch them. His eyes even turned lecherous, roaming particularly vulgarly around ML as he said.

This instantly got an intense reaction from the arrogant lady, her body tensing up like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

And Alexander chuckled amused at those fiery eyes.

Of course, he had no intention of doing anything to the ladies, but it was simply his way of frightening the pair a bit, poking a little fun.

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