Herald of Steel

"How can that be?" To Menes's 'grave' news, Manuk outwardly sounded alarmed and even crestfallen. 

But internally, he was elated.

Because being able to avoid this encounter was actually a very large boon for him.

For this way, Manuk would not have to really come up with whatever message he had originally wanted to make up.

He would not need to even see Alexander. as upon learning of the news of the absence, putting on a long face, Manuk proposed, 

"Lord General, the message I carry with me is really important. I must see Lord Alexander as soon as possible. Would it be possible for me to hire 10 of your men to escort us to Thesalie? I'm afraid we do not know the way."

The man of course had no intention of really meeting Alexander, for there was no need to.

He wanted these men only to lead him too close to Thesalie, which stood at the very edge of the borders.

And once there, he could make his way to friendly territories on his own.

But if he were to go on his, well, 30 well armed men drew too much unwanted attention.

So to avoid that, upon making his request, without giving Menes a chance to respond, Manuk immediately put his hand inside his satchel and brought out a small pouch, "Of course I will pay. Here."

*Clang*, *Clang*, *Clang*

As he said so, ten small, very thin gold bars popped into his palms, glittering under the afternoon sun, and sending dazzling sparkles.

Each of these bars was custom made by Manuk and weighed 10 grams.

 This was a little trick the priest had picked up over the course of his life when he was sent as an envoy to various parts of the country.

He had found that during travel many small inconveniences such as harassment from city guards or small officials could be easily solved with gold and bribes.

And while gold coins usually did the trick, sometimes larger amounts of 'oil' were needed to grease the wheel.

But carrying a lot of coins was bulky, so Manuk came up with carrying pure gold in small denominations like this.

With gold going at 50,000 ropals a kg, each of these 10 g chips was worth around 500 ropals, more than three months of a peasant's earnings. 

And Manuk here was offering 10 of them for the service of 10 men!

Just to escort them to a place that would at best take three weeks even if they really took their time.

A killer deal to say the least!

"What is the message?" But before accepting the rich payment, Menes posed, appearing curious, for he too was a member of the council.

'Since Amenheraft has sent his men, it probably has to do with Tibias right? What does he want?' Menes was intrigued.

"I'm afraid my instructions were clear, General." But Manuk very deftly declined to answer.

'What message? Even I don't know the message,' While internally he sniggered so.

To the rejection, Menes did not seem perturbed, for he expected much, and felt like whatever Amenheraft wanted, it was better felt to the much smarter Alexander.

Thus ultimately accepting the payment, he nodded and replied, 

"We will arrange a boat for you. It will be quicker to reach the city through the RIver Diannu. You should prepare to load your supplies."

Since Manuk had informed him the message was of quite an importance, Menes wanted to arrange for him to arrive at Thesalie within the quickest time.

"Ah!" And at the mention of the supplies, Manuk produced a very convincing troubled face, delineating, 

"General, you see… we have run into some troubles with our supplies. Our ship ran into a storm and ran aground, losing much of our supplies." 

Following so the priest turned to look at Menes with pleading eyes, 

"I know that your camp supplies are limited. But would it be possible to part with some?"

"Of course we will pay."

Fearing Menes's rejection, the man quickly produced another pouch of similar value- 5,000 ropals.

It had to be known that it usually took only 2 ropals a day to feed a man.

So thirty of them would need 60 ropals of food every day.

And here Manuk was offering 3 months of pay for a journey by boat that would take at best a week, as a show of sincerity.

As for just how genuine his true feelings were, well almost everything he told Menes was bullshit, but his need for the supplies was indeed real.

Everything he had brought was left at PR's camp, and that had been already raided by the legionaries.

Manuk had already written everything there off.

To Manuk's offer of rumination, Menes casually waved his hand and in a sudden grateful tone, pronounced, "Keep it. Take it as a token of gratitude for saving my life."

And then quickly turning to Remus to avoid looking at Manuk's surprised face, he commanded, 

"Remus, I put you in charge of arranging everything for them."

"Make sure to do it within today. The message he carries should be very important."

"I'm going back to the tent."

And with that dumped on that the head of his subordinate, Menes was out, but not before hearing this chuckle come out of Manuk, 

"Hahaha, Lord General is truly a sincere man of virtue."

While Remus hearing all this extra workload blurted, "I…," before trailing off.

He knew that since Menes had given the order personally, he was militarily obliged to carry it out unless he wanted to risk being court martialed, and he had to follow it no matter how tired or exhausted he was.

And with a rueful shake of the head, he then went to process everything for Manuk.

The Sissillpond Ridge they were in was half a day's ride from the banks of River Diannu, and given that the battle had started literally at dawn, it was only approaching midday by now.

So quickly having a short meal at Menes's camp, the group of now forty men were hastily on their way, riding on fresh horses that Menes had gifted them.

Officially- they were given so that Manuk would deliver his message faster.

But non officially- it was really a show of gratitude for saving his life.

Because they were on opposite sides, Menes was unable to show such goodwill too openly, and thus the employment of such covert tactics.

Hence, using these prime stallions imported directly from Pasha Farzah's province of Matrak, the men were able to reach a small town situated on the banks of the Diannu that was currently being used as a major supply hub for Menes's army just before dusk.

The group spent the night in the town, for they were exhausted by the long ride, and boats did not sail during the night. 

And it was only in the morning that by using Remus's authority, Manuk was able to finally get five large boats, enough to transport them and their much bigger horses.

Though even that endeavor was not easy, but not for the reasons you might think.

The reason why Manuk had trouble finding suitable boats was because given this town was the main supply hub for the food and ammunition such as pillas and arrows for 30,000 men, there were so many boats that were literally traffic jams, as vessels laden with goods from Thesalie lined up one after another to unload their cargo.

But ultimately the forty men were indeed able to board and make their way towards Thesalie.

But they would never reach it!

For remember, Manuk had no intention of going to Thesalie.

Thus, once the boats were around half a day's distance from the city, Manuk called all his men onto his boat and informed them that that night, they would be given a particular light signal through the oil lamps.

And at that point, all of them were to kill the 10 men and 15 sailors scattered across the five boats.

And that was exactly what happened.

Those poor 25 men did not have the slightest idea what was coming, and even as their throats were slit literally in the middle of their sleep, they could not grasp what had happened, but less why it did.

The complete unexpectedness of the attack and the fact that the 25 were scattered in various parts of the 5 boats made them easy picking for the grouped together band of determined killers, as they were able to strike from the shadow stealthily against these isolated targets and take them out one by one.

And once they had done so, able to kill everyone without raising any alarm or letting them escape by jumping into the water, they waited till the morning to moor their boats on the shores of a nearby secluded part of the forest, and taking the forty, exquisite horse breeds as their prize, the men set fire to the boats and the bodies witing before simply leaving!

"Hahaha, to be able to get such prime horses. This trip was not a complete waste."

"Yes. That black idiot is really something haha."

"I was getting a bit worried back then. But everything worked out better than I expected. Praise Ramuh."

And as the men galloped through the woods on their new prizes, such were their conversation.

Mocking Menes for showing gratitude. 

And these were supposed to be priests of a god.

How lamentable!

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