Herald of Steel



As Alexander thought of these plans, he also suddenly turned to Grahtos to suddenly ask,

"Oh, by the way, that prisoner, Theony you called him I believe, is he alright? He doesn't have any fingers or toes missing right?"

Alexander was worried about what Grahtos meant by 'pressing the man' during interrogations.

"Haha, no worries, no worries, my lord. I remember what you said," The man reassured, revealing,

"I simply tempted him with a cup of cold water. After fighting for so long the man was so parched he could resist. Haha, he broke in less than ten minutes,!"

Grahtos was quite proud of himself for being able to so easily break the young noble, even disparaging the man as soft cheese.

Whereas the real reason for Theony 'cracking' was that he had simply lied.

"That's good. We should try to exchange him with Laykash if possible," While Alexander, hearing the man was 'intact' nodded with pleasure.

"So how many men have we lost? And how about the damages to the iron refinery and the workshops? Oh and what about the brick kiln outside?"

With that question done, Alexander then moved on to these all-important questions, wondering just how far back this attack had set them.

And this three-pronged query like the previous question produced a momentary silence as the others looked around to see if anyone else was volunteering.

Delivering bad news to one's lord was always nerve-wracking.

And after a stifling few seconds, seeing no one open up, one Krishok decided to take it upon himself to reply about the state of the part he was in charge of.

"....The brick kilns… we are not sure how well they are. But from what he had seen from the walls….umm…we might have to rebuild them."

"Because one day we did notice a lot of smoke coming from there, so the enemy might have set fire to it."

Krishok sounded unsure about how to report the bad news.

"Mmmm," While Alexander simply gave this acknowledging hum, neither saying good or bad.

He had seen the kilns when entering the city and had hoped it looked worse than it really was.

But that hope was dashed decisively now.

"And the deaths? How many?" He then posed turning his head.

This was the thing he was most interested in.

"We….are still counting the casualties."

And fortunately for him, he did not have to wait long this time, as came the hesitant reply from Melodias where the voice reported in an unsure tone, "But estimates are roundabout 5,000 to 7,000."

"These are mostly from men working in the mines and the iron plant. The enemy had attacked them without any warning in their sleep, so almost no one even got the chance to run."

"And coupled with that were the additional fires which killed even more."

"So all in all, we expect 3,000 to 4,000 dead in there after finishing counting."

"As for the rest, well around 500 defenders died for the manor."

"While many more men, women, and children were killed when the enemy's flanking force attacked the workshops, and even more after the manor was captured."

"We think those numbers in total should be around 2,000 to 3,000."

"So…." Melodias pursed his lips as he finished his estimates in a grave voice.

'That much!' And hearing these huge numbers out of the horse's mouth made Alexander's heart jump.

If the losses from the battle were also to be taken into account, then Alexander found he had likely suffered 20,000 casualties!

This was in no way insignificant and made his heart feel very grim and heavy.

"I see!" Thus he only shot back this in a flat tone with flat lips.

"And what about the actual damages to the iron plant and the workshops?" Alexander again repeated, reminding Melodias had not replied to the second part of his inquiry.

And here it was Harun who answered.

"The iron plant….my lord… is mostly destroyed, or at least most of the facilities are. I went there to check it myself," The man's voice had a low, undercurrent of sadness to it as he said so, his heart still hurting at the fresh memory of what he had seen.

Rows upon rows of burnt skeleton remains of various houses, standing cadaverously under the open sky.

It was a sight Harun would struggle to forget.

But the man did not have the luxury to dwell in his misery for long, as after a brief pause, he resumed,

"Most of the facilities have burnt down- the coke-making plant, the coal storehouses, the waterwheels, the worker's log houses, and even the shed for storing the tools- everything has burnt down, leaving only some of the stone walls and pillars behind."

Harun had a hard time describing a place of such ruin, especially as it was a place he worked at.

And it was only a small comfort that he was able to finish the report on this happy note, saying

"The only thing that fortunately survived was the blast furnace and steel-making crucible."

"Being made of cement, they did not catch fire."

"Thank Gaia."

And hearing all this, Alexander's brows twitched as he felt a slight headache, knowing he would have to rebuild everything.

That would not be a small undertaking.

But at least he could take solace in the fact that the hardest things to construct- The blast furnace and The Bessimer crucible were still intact, and hopefully, the remaining infrastructure could be rebuilt relatively quickly.

Hopefully.

"I see. I will have to visit the plant sometime later then," Alexander lightly muttered, intending to witness the presumed destruction for himself.

And lastly, he then followed this with another anemic query,

"And the workshops? How are they?"

Though after hearing the fate of the iron plants, Alexander could not help but not have much expectation for that.

"It's not as bad as the irion plant!" But contrary to his musing, these encouraging words came right from Cambyses's own mouth, who then informed him,

"When the enemy attacked that part, they seemed to have been in a hurry to cross it and move towards their main goal- The manor."

"So they beelined for it without much caring for anything else."

"Thus most of the deaths were to the few unfortunate people who happened to be in their way. Or a few beautiful women who attracted the eyes of unsavory characters."

"But these were rare cases, as the survivors testified later, saying that in general most of the 6,000 to 7,000 troops largely ignored them, and simply marched straight head-on, only occasionally destroying some shops because that was easier to do than circle around, This accident setting off a few fires."

Up until this point, Alexander was quite liking what Cambyses was saying.

It seemed the workshops were basically bypassed.

But that thought was soon shattered when she said,

"And if that was all there was to it, then our casualties would have much fewer. But… *sigh*" Cambyses would not help but pause to regretfully shake her head, before resuming,

"But when the people at the manor saw the workshops were under attack and particularly noticed the fire, many abandoned their posts disobeying all military command, and started to blindingly run towards that side, hoping to save their family"

"And then what happened?"

"In the darkness, they all blindly ran straight into the enemy's advancing forces without even realizing it."

"While the Tibiasns, seeing this unarmed, unruly, desperate mob run towards them, simply cut them to bits, like a hot knife through butter."

"That was where most of our casualties came from." Cambyses sounded quite rueful, finding it a true shame that they had to die even when it was totally avoidable if they had just listened.

"Yeah, even TK died. We found his body stabbed multiple times just a few meters from the workshops' outer walls." Melodias chimed in with an equally sad tone, while Menicus additionally stated.

"Mmm, even his poor grandson died. After capturing the manor, some of the soldiers had burst into his nice looking good house, looking to make it their own, when they met the kid."

"And the bastards gutted him then and there. Animals!"

Alexander had rarely seen Menicus so angry and was surprised by this intense reaction.

But what he did not know was that Menicus and TK being of similar ages and having somewhat comparable status had hit it quite well, and the aged military quite liked the little kid.

Even though the boy was challenged, that did not take away the intelligent shine he was beginning to display, and everything Menicus would come to visit, the kid would try to show off the new things he learned.

That always bought a smile to Menicus's face.

But now that little joy had been robbed from the old man's face, as well as the little life.

Menicus really wanted to find the men responsible and execute them himself.

While Alexander, hearing the news too felt sad, remembering how he had promised the two safety and security, and how he had failed them.

It was certainly a dereliction of his duty.

"The Tibians will pay," And as Alexander learned of the atrocities, he promised such, though he struggled to keep a neutral tone.

The Tibians had really managed to maim his most economically productive center.

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