Herald of Steel



"Mistress! We have caught the king! There!"

Suddenly, as Cambyses stood around the premises, feeling a bit lethargic after all the exhaustion she had bottled up until now wash over her, a herald all of a sudden came to her with his huge information.

One which made her interest instantly turn to that.

If that was really true….Cambyses felt that she could cripple Tibias with her ransom.

But that burst of anticipation lasted only a few seconds as after she approached the crowd and saw only a young boy wearing Perseus's helmet, she knew the report was incorrect.

Cambyses had seen Perseus before from up on the wall, and this was not it.

"Heh, so your king has resorted to having small children dress up as him," She hence taunted.

To which Theony declined to answer, and only turned to face her and calmly replied as per protocol, "I'm a noble of Tibias, the next successor of the House of Theony."

"I demand to be treated with due respect as my title dictates. My family will pay the proper ransom."

Though Theony was caught, he still had his pride as a noble and was yet to lose his spirit.

"I see." And Cambyses only replied as such, not feeling like being bothered with the proceeding interrogation herself.

Instead, she only turned to Menes to instruct,

"I will leave it to you to make proper arrangements fro all the prisoners."

"Make sure they are all given the proper food and homes according to their ranks. And that the wounded are treated to the best of your ability."

"I want to squeeze Tibias out of as much gold as possible even they come to exchange them."

Cambyses sounded a bit expectant.

"Yes!" Came the instant nod from the Menes, and then leaving the man to it, Cambyses turned to go meet Melodias.

She first greeted him for the good work, congratulating him on the success, and then asked the main thing she was here for.

"Melodias, given we have caught so many men, would it be possible for us to launch an attack on the enemy's main camp? It should be quite empty by now!" Cambyses sounded very eager to strike while the iron was still hot.

"!!!" To this Melodias produced a bit of a shocked look.

He had not thought about that, especially because he was more preoccupied with winning his current battle and then hunting down the running enemy.

But now that Cambyses said so….

"I'm afraid right now is difficult," But thinking would it for a few seconds, at last Melodias shook his head, finding the idea untenable right now, which he then delineated to a skeptical Cambyses in a calm tone.

"We have deployed almost all the 35,000 men we have here. The rest are either mostly servants or a few remaining defenders we have atop the wall to prevent any attack from that side."

"If we were to use them to attack the camp, given the enemy has likely 15,000 to 20,000 defending it, and they have had two months to build up the defense around it, I doubt we will be easily able to break it using those low-quality troops."

"In fact, the enemy might actually counterattack and beat us given they will likely outnumber us!"

Melodias hypothesized.

But even hearing this, Cambyses was not resigned, wanting to destroy that 'nest of evil' when presented with such a golden opportunity.

So she pointed to the formations in front of her and asked, "And this army? They can't do it either?"

To which Melodias immediately grinned, before nodding confidently,

"Of course they can….but look around you mistress," As shortly after he waved his hand, pointing his finger to many of his units scattered all throughout the entire Cisrain hills hunting for survivors.

"The soldiers are busy hunting. And it will take us hours to gather them."

"And by the time we do this and then get ready to attack the camp, it will likely be dusk. It is winter after all,"

Melodias pointed out, and finally, it was a reality the girl was forced to accept.

Winter days were especially short, and she regretted it not being summer

"*Sigh*, I really wanted to destroy that camp before their king could rejoin it," She ruefully shook her head, before trying one last time to ask Melodias, "Could we start a siege now? Prevent him from entering the camp?"

But even though Melodias wished for a similar happenstance as Cambyses, he knew they did not have enough troops right now to start a full blockade.

So shaking his head, he could only calm the girl down by saying,

"My lady, we have already sent riders after the king. It is likely they will be able to catch him before he can reach the camp. Let us hope that happens."

"And if they cannot, we can always launch a full-fledged attack tomorrow."

And hearing so Cambyses at last stoically nodded.

But she did not immediately leave.

Instead, feeling Melodias was currently idle, decided to dump an important task on him.

"Then Melodias, since you here, have some of your men put out the fire in the manor. Or else the fire might spread."

And before Melodias could weasel his way out, quickly added,

"I have other places to be."

"Also remember to secure the manor premises. We have a lot of gold in our treasury and if has not to been already stolen, you are to protect it."

And with that, just like that Cambyses was off into the wind even before Melodias could get a word out.

And while the general could hardly hide the exasperated look on his face, Cambyses was on her way to visit the Ramuh temple, wishing to personally inform the ladies that they were safe.

"Mistress! You are safe!" And as she entered the temple, she was very quickly greeted as such by Mean who was pacing around the statue of Ramuh in the center, while furtively looking around in anxiety.

It was as if she was waiting for someone to show up.

And when that person did show up, the girl rushed forward to hug Cambyses with all her might, and then suddenly started crying.

"Oh!" And at the bear-like tackle, and this sudden burst of intense emotion, Cambyses was a bit surprised, and then understanding where Mena was coming from, patted her little maid's head, and calmed her in a soothing, "It's okay. It's okay. We won!"

".....Mmmn, we know. Thank the gods!" Mean was still red-eyed as she replied, and added amidst her choking sobs,

"The guards came a while ago to tell us. That's why the temple is now a bit empty," as Mean managed to fill Cambyses in on some of the less important details.

And at the mention of this, Cambyses took the time to have a look around the surrounding and found it to be quite absent of people.

It was not deserted or anything, as many people, especially women, and children were seen still loitering about, unsure of the veracity of the news.

But it was also not the kind of overwhelming, crushing tsunami of people cramped inside the temple like she had expected to see.

And after a while of this, Mean finally bought out her head from Cambyses's lap to look up at her mistress ad say,

"We…we were so scared when we saw smoke from the hills. We thought ….we thought…" Mena was not able to articulate the fear she had felt when she heard some of the people saying what they saw, 'the lord's manor is burning as they put it, which made her heart feel like it was being constantly stabbed.

And so the petite girl again buried her head into her mistress's lap, remembering how she had even gotten into some altercations with the people saying so, calling them lairs, and even threatening to have them executed for spreading lies.

But now that proof of everything being alright was in front of Mean, she shed tears of relief, ones which stained Cambyses's red armor with several pearl-sized teardrops.

"I knew they were lying…I knew they were lying," She repeated.

"It's good to see you are safe, sister. It seems the gods have answered our prayers,"

And finally, the duo's reunion was interjected with the addition of others, as Ophenia was the next to greet her, followed by the others.

And after hearing all their comments, Cambyses gave a nod of appreciation, "Thank you. It was due to all of your efforts that we were able to overcome this ordeal. The gods have blessed us."

"Praise the gods!" Came the reply in unison.

"Lay Cambyses, what happened? Could you tell us?"

"When may we return home?"

"Some said the manor was on fire?"

And once the pleasantries were over, and Cambyses was taken to a secluded room, soon came the barraged of questions, which Cambyses replied mostly truthfully.

"But the manor is indeed burnt. We probably will need to stay in the temple for the time being." She confirmed, which got a gloomy response.

That was not just a place to sleep, but everyone had all their expensive clothes, jewelry, perfumes, and other personal belongings there.

So it was a difficult result for them to accept.

"*Sigh*, well at least we are still alive. That is the most important thing. Everything we can get." And it was the mature NN who said this to smooth everyone.

And it was in the spirit of such words that that fateful day came to an end.