Herald of Steel

Chapter 1238: The Empty Manor

Let it be never said that Alexander did not give the Margraves any chance to redeem themselves.

If the old Margraves bureaucrats had declared Lady Miranda as the head, even if only as a token figurehead, then all of them would have been better for it.

Because then, at the given time, they would have been able to put a much more unified response to Alexander's 'land grabbing' efforts.

However, the old men appeared too myopic and short sighted, wanting to relegate themselves to mere observers, yet hoping to gain everything without risking anything.

What they said might have been indeed true- their words carried little weight now, and whatever happened next really depended on the result of the next battle, not what title one lady had or not.

But even then political legitimacy was still a very useful thing to have.

However, it seemed they were not even willing to do that.

And in the same view, Lady Miranda put no effort into forcing these men to bow but simply tried to wait them out.

Alexander's ultimate response to all this was to stick his nose up and sneer.

Lady Parthia was right, he was being too soft.

So he at last decided that he would not let himself be taken advantage of so easily, and began to prepare to strike first.

Such and many more thoughts swirled inside Alexander as he checked off the last of the preparations, intending to depart as soon as dawn broke.

The journey was expected to be a relatively short one, only two days to reach Lord Janus's harbor.

But even then, the supplies that were needed to be loaded were enormous. This was because Lord Janus's modest fief was hardly equipped to feed and house so many men at once.

Not to mention, multiple times more men were scheduled to join them within weeks.

Hence almost everything they had here in Caira needed to be carried with them- ranging from large stocks of grains and other food produce, adequate drinking water for the journey, and most bulky of all, all the legionary's equipment- which included weapons and armor, utensils and their heaviest baggage, the tent.

Other than the stock animals, these took up the most amount of space.

And regarding the tents, Alexander cleverly did not take them all out.

Rather, he left the ones at the outer perimeter of the camp intact, as a kind of facade to not alert the enemy.

In addition, these leather makeshift homes also acted as a 'curtain', hiding much of the soldiers' day to day activities.

Few prying eyes could thus penetrate through them to recognize the hustle and bustle going on inside, where thousands and thousands of men and women hauled huge amounts of cargo from the harbor and manor to the ships.

Furthermore, a complete ban on travel from either side was enacted by Alexander, preventing anyone from contacting the outside or getting to know about the situation inside.

In this way, he mitigated the chances of Lord Parker taking advantage of the movement to try and launch an opportunistic attack on the lightly defended lines.

All these measures worked perfectly, managing to fool Lord Parker completely.

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It was so much that the entire Heeat camp only woke up to the deception around midday, a solid six to eight hours after Alexander had already left.

Some of the leftover servants at last managed to run to the Heeat camp to inform them that the city was 'free'!

"What! The manor is empty?"

And upon first getting the news, Lord Parker let out this incredulous shout, not out of glee but more of horror, as he produced a very menacing look towards the scout that brought him the news.

The reason was,

'If Alexander had truly left, then where is Achillas?' the man's heart skipped an enormous beat.

And as that creeping fear sunk in, without waiting for the scout to explain himself, the man bolted towards the nearby balcony, turning his head towards the manor in the distance.

Currently, Lrod Parker was staying in a two story hotel that he had taken over. He had moved to this 'new residence' only a week ago, when the weather had turned really bad and made it incredibly cold and uncomfortable to stay in his tent.

Compared to the leather tent and woolen blankets, this wooden house with a large central fireplace was much more warm and luxurious.

And now it seemed it also gave him a much better strategic view, as from his elevated position, he could see even the Royal Harbor in the far off distance, its waters shimmering under the clear, winter sun.

First of all, his eyes landed on the docks, and he momentarily felt a sense of relief.

Because he could still see the vague outline of the enemy's tents, laid out rows after rows, causing Lord Parker to feel confident that perhaps not all of Alexander's forces had departed.

This meant there was still for him to rescue Achillas.

Alas, the tents he was seeing were really all decoys, intentionally left by Alexander to stall the enemy even further.

Lord Parker appeared to have fallen into his trap just as intended.

Fortunately, he did not remain ensnared in his misconception for long.

Because he quickly shifted his gaze from the 'crowded' docks to the actual harbor, and what he saw, or rather he did not see, instantly made his heart drop

The pristine and picturesque scene was missing something that was the most critical sight, something that was synonymous with a port- ships!

Whereas the distinct outline those enormous wooden behemoths would fill the nearby horizon all day along, now, there was not a single sight of those close to seventy ships.

'Gone! Why? What happened?'

Lord Parker finally realized that Alexander had indeed left, and not only did he not feel an ouch of joy at his hated rival escape, but rather, he experienced an extremely deep, sense of abyssal horror.

This meant his worst nightmare had seemingly come true, he had lost his lover.

It made Lord Parker feel his leg go weak and he wanted to simply pass out.

Luckily for him, a deep, almost robotic voice helped him break out of that quagmire, as the nearby scout diligently reported his finding,

"My lord, we learned of Lord Alexander's departure from a few escaping servants that came out of the manor. According to them, the enemy has left Caira around early dawn today.

They do not know where he exactly went, but they claim to have seen the Adhanians load their ships with all the supplies they had in the manor. It seems they have fled. Congratulations! Hah hah… congratulations my lord! The siege worked! Hah hah…You have won!"

Like most of the men in the camp, this scout too believed that Alexander had left because he was unable to hold on, that his supplies had run out.

This realization had caused enormous volumes of cheers to burst out from inside the camp, all overflowing with jubilation over their victory.

It was a hard fought victory if they said so themselves.

Perhaps a bit anti climatic, but other than the most boisterous of the bunch, no one was regretting that they did not get the chance to 'teach those bastards a lesson one last time'.

"....."

However, amongst all the cheering men, the sole one who was not at all impressed was the lord standing in front of the scout- Lord Parker.

He was utterly furious over losing his general.

"Why did it take so long for us to realize Alexander has left? It's already midday! What were the sentries doing?"

Before completely bursting his lid off, with reddened eyes, Lord Parker made his last query, trying to catch each and every person responsible for losing his lover.

"Ahhh!" And hearing this, the scout was initially very puzzled by this bitter reaction.

'Shouldn't the lord be the most happy amongst all of us? He has been fighting to obtain that manor for months.' The man wondered.

But he quickly pushed these questions down and worked to instead diligently reply to his lord,

"It's because of those damn tents! Since they were still in the docks, our sentries thought the ships had simply gone for a supply run! Those crafty bastards! Not an honest bone in their body!"

The scout very exaggeratedly gnashed his teeth, conveniently laying all the blame on the tents.

He did not dare to tattle on the men about how they were all mostly asleep- cozily wrapped up in their comfy blankets above the makeshift watchtowers.

This scout was clever enough to notice Lord Parker's extremely peppery current temperament and did not feel like it would be a good idea to add fuel to the mix.

Enraged lords had a tendency to cause intense amounts of collateral damage and he did not want to see his neck chopped just for reporting the news.

That's why, in addition to the enemy's clever deception, he also added,

"Also, before they left, the enemy appeared to have nailed all the doors and windows with thick planks, shutting everyone inside. It took the servants hours to break these using hammers and other things. Only then they could come out to inform us... but by then the enemy was long gone."

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