Herald of Steel

According to Lord Bernard, Alexander was assumed to immediately sue for peace once his water supply was cut off, thus bringing the current standoff to a swift and decisive end.

Which frankly was a bit too optimistic, but both Lord Bernard and Lord Parker were willing to try it given it had very little risk on their part.

However, over the following days, while work on the underground water sections continued, Achillas managed to turn Lord Parker's thoughts on the matter around, claiming that it was too risky.

"What if Alexander does not capitulate? What if he decides to use the threat on Lady Linda and Master Quentin's lives as a bargaining chip to force us to undam the sections? That would highly complicate matters. We should be prudent."

And urged on by Achillas from behind the scenes, many of Lord Parker's officers too tried their hand at this, saying things such as,

"My lord, cutting off the food is not a big problem. People can live a month without it. So Alexander is unlikely to do anything hasty. But water… that is different."

"Yes. There are many family members living in the house too. If we did this, they too would suffer. That is surely not what we want."

"Yes. If we win like this, it will leave a bad impression of us on them. That will inevitably have unforeseen consequences in the future."

"Mmmm…. there is even the possibility of them protesting or simply outright capitulating to Alexander's side in desperation. That will be a disaster."

"If we do this and Alexander does not immediately surrender, then there is a large chance that he will choose to hoard all the drinking water for him and his men, leaving the Margraves family members to perish first."

"Right! If the man gets desperate enough, he might even massacre them…. Just to save on water… and kill two birds with one stone."

The officer did not need to explain what he meant by that.

There were many detractors within the Margraves family who hated Alexander's guts and whom the man was also surely itching to put six feet under.

And such a move lethal attack against him might very well be the most convenient excuse he would need to clear these inconveniences away once and for all in one fell swoop.

This of course not be the most prudent decision as killing basically the entire Margraves family would not necessarily work in the man's favor, with even Lady Miranda surely turning outraged, but people had done stranger things when things got desperate.

So the other side feared that Alexander might choose to go down with the ship in a blazing glory removing the ruler of these lands altogether and having the whole thing for oneself.

Kind of like flipping the chessboard when you see that you are losing.

And lastly, to add to this, there were some officers who took this to much greater extremes, even hypothesizing that Alexander might kill them to drink their blood and live off of that.

Although such hyperbolics were mostly scoffed at and then promptly ignored.

Now, to be totally objective, all these things that the officers whispered into Lord Parker's ears were really making a mound out of an ant hill.

If the water supply was really cut off, Alexander would most likely scramble to try and save his own skin, instead of plotting to dye the Margraves mansion with blood and committing 'double suicide' alongside 6,000 of his men.

However, Achillas and his men's job was not there to be fair and critical. It was to stop Lord Bernard from getting the credit, no matter what.

That was what mattered the most, even if it meant them suffering a slight loss in this conflict.

Thus they all highly inflating all the unlikely disastrous scenarios.

And when Lord Parker was bombarded from all sides with such poisonous reasonings, the young lord quickly found his reasoning shaking.

And with one last push from Achillas, the entire thing came crashing down.

It happened after a particularly steamy night, as the pair lay under the sheets when suddenly the stocky man leaned in to whisper,

"My lord, please give the order to stop damming the water supply. I greatly fear the consequences. Let us wait at least until we can get Lady Linda and master Quentin out of the mansion first. Otherwise…. Alexander in his rage might do the thing Lord Enofer did back then."

Achillas's tone was very reticent as he said that sentence as if he was not even willing to consider that possibility.

And at this, Lord Parker slightly shivered.

Enofer was the name of one of the ducal families of Sybarsis and the event that Achillas was referring to happened a few hundred years ago.

The family was laying siege to a rebelling tribe, and the then head of the family had managed to capture a large part of the tribe's women and daughter using a flanking maneuver, thus coming to possess them much like how Alexander currently had much the Margraves family in his hand.

With the prize in his hand, the ruthless lord decided not to engage in any bloody battles but had all these bodies tied up to wooden scaffoldings and wheeled in front of the main fort the rebelling army was garrisoned in, using these vulnerable, innocent people as living human meat shields to make the defenders at the walls unable to defend themselves.

After all, how could they?

When just from the ramparts many of the men could literally see their wives, mothers, and daughters being wheeled to the frontlines, their clothes ripped and tattered or even entirely gone, bearing various scars of abuse and torture, and all howling in fear and pain.

The sorry sight caused the warriors' morale to plummet and with this obstacle, they were unable to shoot their arrows or throw stones freely at the attackers.

Thus the Enofer forces were able to conduct ladder rush after ladder rush on the walls with almost full impunity, while simultaneously they rammed the gates with huge siege weaponry, managing to quickly break through.

The following events after that did not need to be said, as the tribesmen, unable to defend themselves were slaughtered and the women were sold were slavery, turning the legacy of that group of people into little more than thin air.

And for his efforts in crushing this dangerous rebellion, Lord Enofer was hailed as a great hero by the Sybarian council.

His tactics, although might sound very deplorable to a modern audience, were openly practiced by the people at the time and even recorded into the annals of Sybarian history, to be read and shared for centuries to come.

Which was exactly what Achillas was doing right now, as he warned Alexander might choose to do the same if pushed against the wall.

If not the whole Margraves family, then at least Miss Linda and her son.

The thought made Lord Parker's heart skip a beat.

However the man still remained somehow skeptical of the occurrence of such an extreme endeavor, as frowning his sharp, curved brows, he mused out with some anger in his voice,

"Alexander would not dare! That was that, this is this. Two completely different things. Stop talking nonsense Achillas"

Lord Parker seemed to initially brush the possibility aside with a simple wave of his hand, acting as if it was not even worth considering.

"..." And Achillas surprisingly did not try to convince Lord Parker otherwise.

There was no need to.

Because he knew his lord cum lover better perhaps even the man knew himself.

Thus the blocky man just simply kept his head down and kept staring at his partner.

And just like he had predicted, Lord Parker soon began to crack, as in truth he found it hard to ignore the grave possibility.

Even if the chances were very, very small, the potential consequence if it were to come true was too enormous.

Too enormous to ignore.

".... What are you trying to say exactly Achillas? "

However given Lord Bernard was so close to completing the works, and Lord Parker had put so much faith into this 'wonder weapon' that promised to 'end the war', the man was still unwilling to entirely give up on the idea at this very last moment.

Thus biting into teeth deeper, Lord Parker posed this to Achillas but received no reply.

Only silence and a knowing look.

Which lasted for an unknown while, until it was broken by Lord Parker for he was unable to take the stifling pressure, lightly barked out,

"You are paranoid. You should know better than most that the Margraves will never allow Alexander to do something like that. Even Lady Miranda would never let her sister be humiliated like this. You are mixing war with the barbarians between us nobles. Stop saying all these things just to trip Lord Bernard over. I know you and he cannot stand each other."

Although not fully aware of the dislike, or perhaps more accurately the disgust the two men had for each other, Lord Parker was of course not blind to many of the things his men did behind his back.

So he accurately determined this might very well be Achillas's jealously speaking.

But it ultimately mattered not.

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