Herald of Steel

Metztil personally oversaw the recruitment of his men and found the response from his tribe to be staggeringly positive.

He had barely needed to utter his want and literally almost every able bodied youth in the entire tribe decided to sign up, breaking the record of gathering a staggering 10,000 men, plus servants and slaves in just 3 days.

The results very much gratified the man.

Although he knew a large part of the positive response was due to the land and not his own skills, it still bolstered Metztil's morale.

And he could not help but feel this was where he belonged, out in the field with the people.

The very air he breathed here felt lighter and fresher here, very different from the stuffy, stale air he found himself inhaling the moment he met with those black bellied dishonest nobles full of twisted knots in their guts.

The straightforward and simple Metztil hated dealing with them and if he could, he would have handed the entirety of the ruling of the tribe to his wife Atzi and be content with only looking for the army.

After all, she was not only far more qualified but much more than that, Atzi had a far greater interest in such things than him.

And as they say- if you love your job you will never have to work a day in your life.

The only reason he was unable to completely leave everything to her was due to her gender and position as the chief shaman, historically an apolitical position.

In fact, this was one of the main reasons behind the inherent friction between him and the elites.

They did not like being ordered around by a lady, much less a lady who was strictly not supposed to do such a thing.

This led to many powerful elites even sniggering behind Metztil's back, calling him someone without all his organs and who stood and sat in his wife's words.

In their eyes, he was no real man, and thought Metztil should start wearing gowns.

Naturally, this dislike went both ways, and it was only the understanding of the fearful consequences there would be if they clashed that kept the two sides from openly lashing out at each other.

Thus most of the nobles begrudgingly obeyed 'Her Mother' Atzi as long as her orders were reasonable enough and in exchange, Metztil pretended to buy the various weak excuses these men made for their many misdeeds, with each continuously snorted coldly inside the entire time.

And as Metztil was leaving his wife in charge of the tribe for the whole duration of the campaign, he fervently prayed that these troublemakers would play ball and not make things difficult for her.

Although he had left her with 2,000 guards to defend the tribes, in reality, half of them were lame, and the other half wastes.

In the event a crisis truly broke out, they would be the first to flee.

But Metztil took this risk based on a calculated risk.

He knew that as long as he and his army existed, the possibility of anything happening to Atzi or his family would be minuscule.

At best, they would be seized and put under house arrest to extract some kind of ransom.

Thus Metztil quickly forgot about such worries and concerns and instead regained the pleasure and freedom he felt when commanding troops.

He and his merry band of 10,000 strong men along with their servants and slaves quickly crossed the 'southern' wall and then just as Alexander had allowed them to, began to ravage the countryside.

Many towns and villages were looted for their grain and livestock, and many more women lost their modesty.

The first thing was still palatable to the village folks. These men were hardly folks who had been stepped on their entire life.

So it would take a lot more than simply having their grain seized for one season for them to rebel.

Thus in this case, the sturdy villagers simply tightened their belts and ate one meal a day instead of the usual twice or thrice.

And while doing so, they were glad that it was now winter, meaning they did not need to toil in the fields, they could stay cooped in inside their houses and rest.

In addition, this season meant that they had just storied their grains, so many villages were able to ride this disaster out without suffering too much.

The problem however arose with Metztil's men's lust for women.

As much as these natives liked to spit on the Sybarians as outsiders, they sure had no problem having a preference for their woman.

These 'barbarians' would reportedly take whatever women that struck their fancy, married, unmarried, or even those in their adolescence, and have their way in whatever degenerate ways they wished.

Other than directly killing them, anything appeared to be fair play for these beasts- be it having them for oneself or sharing her with all his squad mates if the 'entertainment' was in short supply.

And at the end of it all, these women would be left with little more than nothing.

The expenses for the entertainment were entirely sourced off to individual soldiers and if they were pleased with the service, a few 'generous' souls would perhaps pay the women a pittance for their services.

But even those very rare few good men found it very hard to do this because they themselves were broke wretches.

Needless to say, the Helvati as a whole was not rich, especially not when compared to the mercantile focused Sybarians.

All this led to a point where many villagers started to desert their homes the moment they heard that the barbarian army was approaching them, seeking refuge in the next towns, or if they were denied it, simply out in the wild.

And given it was in the middle of winter, the biting cold was undoubtedly agonizing to endure.

Many died of exposure or hypothermia all while crying why the Margraves family was not coming to save them from this 'invading' barbarian army.

The common people were naturally not privy to the deal the two forces had struck and thus labeled Metztil as a hostile force.

Similar to the crying villagers, another lady who was extremely angry over the state of her subjects was Lady Miranda and thus expressed dissatisfaction at Alexander granting the natives such extravagant privileges.

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She believed these types of benefits were not his to give and that she should have been at least consulted.

Hence she tried to pressure Alexander to retract his grant and order the northerners to carry their own supplies.

However, Alexander used the excuse that such a large food train would make the natives advance too slow for his liking and that he wanted them to join him as soon as possible.

He politely argued,

'My lady, the faster they join us the faster we will be able to kick your sister off her seat. And the faster things can return for the people. This is only a temporary hardship for long term peace. So please have patience.'

Lady Miranda did not know how sincere Alexander was being here, but given who was it that ran the show now, the plump lady ultimately had little choice but to fold.

As for Alexander's true intention behind leaving those innocent villagers to the teeth of these malicious beasts.

Well, the reason he posed to the lady indeed was one of them- they were the MV's subjects, not his.

So why would he be concerned about their well being?

Since their lords were unable to provide them protection, it was only natural they suffered.

This was the social contract.

In addition to this, Alexander only had the intention of turning the populace against Metztil, due to his own hidden agenda.

He planned to use this during later negotiations.

Thus caught between the crosshairs of two forces they had no hope of contending against, these poor villagers had no option but to suffer.

Their only respite was that the 'marching' plague of locusts that consumed anything and everything on its paths was relatively short lived.

It took Metztil about five days to cover the roughly one hundred kilometers from his tribe to Giant City, and as he reached his target, the villagers collectively let out a large sigh of relief.

While Metztil let out the opposite emotion at the same time because as he approached his destination, he was shocked to see that a force even larger than his was already present there.

"What the…" Seeing the enormous rows and rows of red tents and the white banner with a center blue flower flying in the wind, Metztil's heart sank to a nadir, and the very first thought that entered his mind was that this was the same kind of trap his father and grandfather faced.

Perhaps there was no enmity between the Margraves and Heeat, and all this had been an elaborate trap to finish what they had started.

And 'cleverly' realizing this, for a moment, Metztil even contemplated blowing his trumpet and ordering a retreat immediately.

"Welcome oh, Great Chief, greetings. I am an aide of the Pasha- Scorpyo. My lord would have come to personally greet you but as you can see he is a bit busy organizing his 15,000 reinforcements.

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