Herald of Steel

Alluding to the capture of Achillas, Scorpyo paused here to reveal an amused chuckle, strategically building up the tension in Remus.

It was here that he also recalled the absolute chaos the camp was thrown into when they first saw the Margrave's ship, as they thought they were under attack.

Most were very pessimistic about their chance of repelling such a naval invasion given their lack of experience fighting at sea and much more than that, their numerical disadvantage. So many soldiers and servants ran to and fro with little heed to their surroundings, with many even ignoring their officer's orders.

There were even some who assumed that this was it- the end of their campaign and got ready to surrender.

Thus the sudden sight of the white flag came as great a relief to them as a burst of torrential rainfall after a drought, with a lot of them finding it too incredulous.

And as Scorpyo thought about it now, he even smirked to himself thinking, 'If Margraves had known about our true state, would they have still bothered to raise the flag? Or would they have sailed right into port and demanded our surrender? That might have actually worked heh heh!'

"What did you see? What was the prize?"

Scorpyo did not get to swim in his musing for long as he was suddenly yanked out of it by this loud query from Remus, who was clearly more interested in the man moving the story along.

"Heh heh… it was the enemy's general- Achillas!"

The man did not keep Remus in suspense any longer and gave a straightforward answer immediately.

"...." To which Remus was so shocked that he could not even give a yelp of surprise, and only stared at the man wide eyed.

If he did not know the man well enough to know that Scorpyo would never joke about such a thing, Remus might have put his arm around the man's shoulders and had a hearty chuckle, digging in elbow into the man to congratulate him for the good laugh.

However now…. Remus did not know how to feel, the sheer shock of the news leaving him too stunned to feel even happy about it.

"Achillas! The Achillas! That short, bulky man who was always seen beside LP? That Achillas?" So instead, he first and foremost sought to confirm whether it was really the same men they were talking about.

Because Remus had known of the man mostly by reputation, having only caught a slight glimpse of him when he came to the manor as a messenger.

"You can go see for yourself. He is in the camp clinic." Scorpyo, instead of going into details defending himself, simply pointed Remus in the direction of the infirmary, before casually retelling how they found him,

"The crew of the ship showed him the moment we boarded. Apparently, he had been injured during the fighting, and they brought him to us as a token of their sincerity."

The succinct explanation left a lot of holes for Remus, such as who the hell were 'they' and how the hell did 'they' do this because the ship clearly belonged to the Margraves family, not the Heeat.

However all those nitpicks could wait, as being told of the man's whereabouts, Remus's mind raced to see the man for himself, all to confirm it was really him.

After all, Scorpyo had never seen the man for himself.

"Does Alexander know about this?" But just before he left, Remus turned to quickly ask this, suddenly remembering that if this was collaborated by the man himself, there would not be any need for his doubts.

"He is not here yet!" Scorpyo's reply however worked to make that thought quickly expire. In fact, the words were spoken with such worry that it even trumped the man's urge to pick on Remus over his breach of etiquette once again.

It was apparent the officer was really getting flustered over their lord's late arrival.

"Not here…." And the sentiment was quickly passed onto Remus, who subconsciously turned to gaze at the crimson setting sun, furrowing his brows in great concern.

The sun's light had dimmed to the point its luminosity resembled that of the moon's, showing it was only a matter of a few minutes before it went down. Alexander should have been back by now.

And inevitably accompanying this thought came the creeping feeling that contained the worst of Remus's assumptions- his mind flashing the image of the destruction of the bridge.

'No! Alexander is in Phyrros Island. He is probably busy fortifying it.' But quickly pushed that disastrous thought down, as the young commander still remained oblivious to Alexander's fight on the bridge.

"I have already sent a ship to the island. They should be coming back soon." While Scorpyo chimed up to inform the man as such, the move bringing great relief to Remus.

Even if he was sure nothing had happened, the man was glad to know someone was out there keeping a lookout.

And it was indeed true that nothing had happened with Alexander. Except that he had gotten a little bit wet after jumping overboard.

It had happened because the ship he was on became overweight after taking all the men from the other rammed ship and capsized on its way to the island, the turbulent waves at sea proving too much for the vessel to bear even for the relatively short distance.

Fortunately, there were not any casualties as the ship gave plenty of warning that it was going down and so most were able to discard their armor and jump just as the vessel was beginning to tilt, among the very first of which was Alexander.

The man already had no armor so it was easy. And as he jumped, he found the waters to be quite shallow, mostly because they were only some distance from the shore. And even if they weren't, there were many nearby ships to pick them up.

"Fuuuckk… it's freezing!" And the only thing that Alexander might have had to complain about was the temperature of the sea. Because even for the man who was sweating like a pig given all the fighting, the chilly water still felt like it was cutting through his bones, leaving him almost numb.

It made the man really worry that he was going to catch a horrendous cold immediately the next day.

But those fears were shelved for a later time, as for now, Alexander worked to quickly swim ashore, an endeavor made extremely difficult by the heavy chainmail and the leather thorax he was wearing, making him almost feel he was wearing a straitjacket.

This short demonstration also made Alexander quickly see that it would have been impossible to swim to safety if he had really jumped from the bridge, and would have surely drowned due to exhaustion.

Alexander at last reached Phyrros island soaked like a wet dog, and if he thought the water was bad, well perhaps the cold air hitting him as he got out of it was even worse. It was to the point where he seriously contemplated going back to the water and waiting there until one of the soldiers could fetch him a warm blanket or something.

But that thought was eventually shelved, not so much because it was a bad idea but because he thought it would make him appear weak and not manly in front of his troops.

Thus the man had to reluctantly wade through the freezing wintery winds and at last managed to meet up with the garrison there, who were at least able to give him a dry towel and a warm fire.

From there, Alexander also ordered the men to rapidly expand their fortifications, having the two hundred men move their base to the camp left by the Heeat garrison and instructed them to get about repairing and reinforcing the place.

He said to them,

"The enemy might very well send a force to reclaim the island. Your job will be to hold on until reinforcements can arrive. Got it?"

It was overseeing these works that made the Pasha quite late in setting off for home. But at least the silver lining was that when he left there, there were around seven hundred men including the servants left there, all dug in well and deep.

They had enough food to last them a week and Alexander promised them to send three days worth of fresh water the very next morning, making the place very hard to take.

And with that, Alexander thought he was done for the day, and thus prepared himself to hit the bed the moment he reached the Margraves manor.

Because remember, the man had not slept the previous night in preparation for the capture of the island.

And after going through a day such as this one, the man felt as if elephants were standing on his eyelids. He could barely keep them open.

But alas! How wrong he was to think the day was done!

Because even if the day had ended, as soon as he landed, Alexander was quickly informed of the Anoon and Ser Robert's defection, and hearing of the prize they had brought him, knew there was no way he could go to bed now.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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