Herald of Steel

Alexander attended the next morning's meeting with his advisors and there were little surprises for him.

The various advisors gave them their usual daily reports and Alexander found nothing he needed to address himself.

Thus Alexander decided to give some additional instructions to them which he didn't get the time to address yesterday or amend a few given ones .

He first addressed his military commander.

"I have noticed that my lords are all speaking in Thesian." Alexander began and then basically said the same things he told the girls.

He said, "But remember our soldiers will be Adhanians, our enemies will be Adhanians, and our homes are in Adhania. So, I hope you gentlemen can take the time to learn Azhak. It will be our official language from now on."

This did cause some grumbling, but they understood Alexander's point, that from the day they choose to come with him to Zanzan, they were no longer Thesians but Adhanians, and that it was imperative that they tried to accustom themselves as Adhanians.

As many relished the memories of their homeland, suddenly Melodias's thought jumped to a relevant topic regarding Thesos, "My lord, what about our families in Thesos? When will we get to see them?"

Alexander did promise to bring their families to Zanzan safely and free of cost and they were eager to know the progress of that endeavor.

"According to Lady Inayah, the letters and the few men that you selected to deliver them to your family have likely landed in a neutral port of Thesos. From there, these men will have to travel to each of their individual locations to deliver the letter and to let the recipients know that the contents of the letter are true and not fraudulent. They will also need to answer any inquiries the families might have about Adhania, Zanzan or other general questions."

Alexander further added, "Because of this, these people cannot hand over the letters to third for quicker delivery and so we estimate it will take around two months to deliver the letter, get the families ready and then bring all of them to a port city to board the ships."

Alexander then made others focus on the ships, "Lady Inayah said the same ships we used to come to Zanzan will be used to bring your relatives. By her words, because the ships will travel against the wind on their return trip, they will take thrice as long to return to Agnirat, and then they will need to restock and resupply there will need some more time. After which they will start their journey for Thesos, which we estimate to be around mid-December."

"These ships will travels along the coastline of Thesos, and stop at every neutral port to take any of the families there to Zanzan and collect the roughly twenty, twenty-five thousand people. Once a group of ships has been filled, they will make for Zanzan and so you can expect to see your families anywhere from the end of January to the end of February. So at most four months from now." Alexander gave an entire status report to calm everyone's nerves down.

He had spent an enormous amount to arrange for the families of the four thousand mercenaries and one thousand Cantagenan and Sycarians, estimating the bill to come at around five-hundred ropals per person and praying to god that no too big of a fuck up happened.
This money was spent on giving the messenger enough money to cover all costs during the journey, from ordinary expenses like food, lodging, and transport to extraordinary costs like bribes and gifts. They were also given enough money to pay for the migrating families' costs, while also being paid a handsome salary.

Then there we the ships, which took the lion's share of the expense.

Lady Inayah had only given Alexander the ships for free only for a single use, and so this time he had to charter the ships.

And though the beautiful lady had not ripped him off, Alexander for the first time understood just how damn expensive ships were to have.

But Alexander still coughed up the price because the price was worth it.

"Hehe, does Lord Melodias want to meet his family as a shordar that badly?" Menes playfully poked Melodias for his impatience after Alexander's speech, causing the latter to give a shy smile.

"Haha, Lord Melodias is a familiar man. That's good, that's good," Heliptos too joined the conversation with a chuckle.

And Alexander too jumped in, inquiring, "Does Lord Melodias want to officially become a shordar before your family arrives, or after?"

This being a question and being asked by the most important person in the room, Melodias turned to Alexander and gave an unsure answer, "This…I…umm..before would.."

Seeing Melodias dither, Alexander made the decision for him, "We will hold the official ceremony in March, using the spring harvest. Everyone's family will be hopefully here by then and such happiness is better shared with those closest to you."

With Alexander having spoken about the matter, no one found it appropriate to challenge it and thus the date became decided.

Done with dealing with this tangent, Alexander then bought up another issue about the military, something according to Cambyses, Menes had found some fault with.

"Some of you might already know, but for those who do not, I have decided to create a new internal security force to replace the city guards called the police force."Alexander shot a glance at Menes as he said this and found the giant paying all his attention to what Alexander was going to say.

So he continued, "The force of a thousand men will be led by my wife Cambyses with Camius as the assistant chief of police and Bartholomew as the deputy."

Putting a girl in charge of a man's job bought some scowls from ultra-traditionalists like the old man Menicus and they had a mind to protest.

But after knowing it was Camius and Bartholomew running the show, any such objections disappeared as these smart men understood this way of putting a puppet as the leader was Alexander's way of ensuring the loyalty of the men to his house.

No one ever dreamed of the possibility that the situation could be reversed, with Camius being an absent puppet, off doing his own thing, while Cambyses ran the whole show.

But such concerns were not within their consideration, as the immediate concern for Menes was for Alexander to solve the manpower transfer issue.

And Alexander did just that, "The first five hundred will be taken from the veteran mercenaries. And the last five hundred will be taken from the Adhanians that have come with us and from the free, law-abiding Zanzanians."

The reason why Alexander didn't choose the police force to be made up entirely of mercenaries was because he feared that the people might not like foreigners enforcing the law and order.

And the reason it was not composed of only the natives was obvious, they lacked the skill and more importantly the loyalty.

Thus the mixture.

Alexander then turned to Menes and instructed, "So, you will need to recruit not three hundred, or eight hundred as you might have thought, but due to reasons I will explain next, thirteen hundred."

Menes knew about the personal transfer and seemed dissatisfied with it, the reason for which he let Alexander know, "Lord Pasha, having five hundred prime, veteran soldiers do nothing but catch petty thieves and scoundrels seems very wasteful. I urge you to reconsider."

"I too agree with General Menes." The senior old man Menicus gave his support for Mean.

While he opinioned, "I understand that this new police force will need some people to show the ropes to the green recruits. So, the five hundred can be employed in the civilian sector for some time."


"But once they have finished teaching the novices, I advise the pasha to let them back into the army. Such good troops should be on the battlefield." Menicus stated.

But although Menicus and Menes made some great points, Alexander saw the problem differently.

"My military commanders have made some great points and I'm very happy to see that you are taking the initiative to think on your own and saying what you think is right, That is great!" Alexander first praised them for engaging in such fruitful dialogue.

'There comes the but,' Knowing Alexander's speech pattern, everyone in the room

was experienced enough to know what was coming.

And it came just as they had prophesied, "But I believe these five hundred men as vital to our security," Alexander stated.

And then elucidated, "This is because, in the future, many times our army will go for distant campaigns, leaving only a small garrison stationed in the city. And if somehow our city is attacked or besieged then, these five hundred veterans will be our trump card."

"Under their calm leadership, the hastily gathered, poorly trained, and likely low morale city defender will not break easily, thus enabling us to hold on in case of such an emergency."