Herald of Steel

Chapter 76 Voting Begins

Alexander's sweet sleep was interrupted by a sharp cry that kept repeatedly calling out his name from outside the tent.

"Alexander, it's almost time for the voting. Wake up! Quickly!" The familiar raspy voice of Camius kept on urging.

This rooster cry in human form forced Alexander to get up from his sleep and with great reluctance, he opened his sleepy, weary eyes.

"Yea, I am up. Let me freshen up a bit," Alexander groggily replied.

It was then a few stray strands of long chestnut hair got inside his mouth and his nose twitched at the sweet, feminine scent of his lover, Cambyses.

The girl slept naked, her back snuggled into him, transmitting her warmth and fragrance directly to his skin and exposing her long, fair nape to her lover.

The soft, once fair, olive skin was now encrusted with red hickeys all over, and Alexander thought it looked ravishing,

"*Mwah*," He could not resist leaving another fresh one, greedily sucking her sweet and salty skin.

"Ah," Cambyses gave an unconscious moan.

Alexander's little brother had also woken up by now and a soft, wet, and velvety feeling started to throughout his lower body.

He then recalled the activities of last night and how he had to stop just after round two as Cambyses became unresponsive and seemed to be almost on the verge of losing consciousness.

So, then he only reluctantly could stick his hot rod inside her warm, moist cave and cuddled and spooned together to sleep.

But as his newly awoken little brother was saying to him, last night had been enough, not even close to being enough and he wanted nothing more than to start round three.

But with great unwillingness, he decided against ruthlessly pounding the hot hole to oblivion and he pulled his spear out.

"*Plop*, *plop*, large dollops of milky goodness mixed with Cambyses's love juices soon started flowing out of the uncorked hole and further stained the sheets.

"Mmmmm," Cambyses again moaned at the tingling sensation, as in her sleep she felt the hot baby batter inside her escape and her widened entrance slowly closed by itself.

Alexander sat up on his bed and took one last look at Cambyes's fat, creamy, white ass and the pink, wet snatch snuggled in between the fat globules, tantalizingly inviting him inside and

with one last spurt of immense willpower, turned his head around and got up from the bed.

As much as he would have liked to tell Camius to go away and then sleep with his lover, foregoing the opportunity to become the leader of the group, he knew there was no room in his world for such whimsy.

'Hah, it's always work,' He lampooned in his heart with a sigh.

He then snuggly tucked the sleeping girl in with the blanket, making sure nothing was showing, and with one last kiss on her forehead, decided to get ready.

He quickly picked up his pants from the floor and put them on, washed his face with a basin of water, combed his hair, and brushed his teeth using ash and a twig.

"Hurry up! You can sleep with Cambyses all you want later." Camius crudely joked from outside the tent.

'That bastard,' Alexander cussed while subconsciously also looking back at the closed tent flaps to see if the loudmouth could see anything inside.

Alexander was relieved to find out he could not.

"I'm done. Just one minute!" He yelled with an unmistakable hint of anger laced in it.

Alexander then quickly put on his full set of armor, something he always did out of habit and precaution, fastened his scabbard to his hips, and stepped out of his tent.

The sky was still dark and the air chilly as Alexander took in the cool air and felt his drowsiness wash away.

Camius the motor mouth had a big grin plastered on his face as he greeted Alexander and digging his elbows towards Alexander's ribs, asked, "So, how was it? Hehehe."

Alexander chose to completely ignore the idiot.

He instead decided to address one of the mercenaries guarding his tent, "Hemicas, go to Cambyses's tent and get Mean. Also, tell her to make sure Cambyses does not walk today."

"Hahahaha," This bought rambunctious laughter from Camius as he then repeatedly patted Alexander's shoulder in celebration, "Brother, only you could have tamed that tigress. Congrats!Congrats!"

"Let's go." Alexander only placidly replied, him being used to Camius's antics by now.

Hemicas also went on his way after giving his leader a slight nod.

It had to be said the two mercenaries had a tough night yesterday, forced to hear Cambyses's lust-filled moans for hours, while unable to relieve themselves, their little brothers straining painfully against the leather pants.

On their way to the 'election venue', Camius informed him in detail how they had prepared to win today.

For example, he told Alexander that yesterday Cambyses had given Remus and Bartholomew quite a bit of money to 'convince' the swaying soldiers to vote for Alexander.

Those two had supposedly fed much exaggerated truths about Alexander, claiming he had even prophesized the death of Agapios in advance, when in reality Alexander only deduced it much later on from the information Nestoras had provided.

Camius also proudly said that with his help, Heliptos had managed to take the helm of Damious's mercenaries, though his position seemed temporary at best.

Theocles had been working hard to bribe the Cantagenans to his side and Menes had managed to convince everyone from his group to vote for him.

The comprehensive report quite pleased Alexander as he felt much more confident about his chances of winning.

The duo fast approached the clearing where a large crowd had already gathered and the clamor and din of a large number of people filled the air.

The crowd seemed to have precipitated in front of a large, decorated, high table, that had been placed there, for what to Alexander seemed like a makeshift podium.

The mercenary leaders and the candidates had all seemed to arrive and they appeared to be chatting freely among themselves.

"Sorry, I'm late." Alexander greeted his seniors.

"Brat, we were about to start without you!" The hot head Petricuno said waving his strong fist.

"Haha, no problem, no problem, we just got here." Melodias on the other hand eagerly greeted him.

"Hehe, it's normal for youngsters to enjoy their youth. But don't overdo it okay." From far back, the gruff-aged chuckle of Menicus rang out, the old man having a surprisingly perverted smile stuck on his face.

Alexander clearly understood that everyone knew why he was late and after throwing Camius a hateful look who was no doubt the prime perpetrator of the crime, he could only embarrassingly smile and nod.

"Haha, let's not tease the boy. Come on let's start." Heliptos from the side helped Alexander.

"Yes, yes, the soldiers are getting restless. So who's first?" Melodias too enthusiastically urged for the voting to start.

The way this 'voting' would be done would not be like soldiers casting their votes in a ballot and then picking the winner.

Instead, the process was for every candidate to get up on the makeshift podium, aka- table, and tell the soldiers how he would lead them and how he would get them out of this situation.

The louder the soldiers cheered for the candidate at the end of his speech, the better would be his evaluation, and the one who gets the loudest cheer would be chosen as the 'Representative Commander of the Army.'

"I will go," Replying to Melodias was the easily agitated Petricuno, who powered his strong body up onto the table and commenced his speech.

"Brothers of Thesos, I am Petricuno of Zantoria. Some of you may know me, some may not. But you should know I participated in the War of Flowers from its very beginning nineteen years ago." This produced a bit of hubbub among the mercenaries as those who survived the entire three years of that brutal war were seen as tough-as-nails people.

Exolas had managed to cut the Cantagenan army down to less than twenty percent in that war and so anyone that survived that slaughterhouse for that long was either supremely competent or massively lucky.

Both good traits to have as a commander.

Petricuno began again, "For three years we fought the Exolites. We fought them in the 'Battle of Shobug Rock', on the banks of the Sypug and on the plains of Fijkyle. And even though we lost, we rose again, and again, we never broke and we never surrendered."

This was technically true, though it was not because Cantagena never wanted to surrender, but because Exolas had rejected all of Cantagenan's appeals for surrender.

Exolas demanded complete unconditional surrender from the Cantagenans which the latter deemed unacceptable.

Petricuno then finished his speech by saying, "I will admit that we are not in a good position. But I have been in worse situations and I have survived. I believe only under my leadership, only with my experience and wisdom can we overcome this challenge. So what do you say to me being your commander?"

Petricuno asked the last sentence while raising his arms to the sky like an orchestral master directing an opera.

But despite his zealous delivery and theatrics, the cheers he received from people other than in his mercenary group were lukewarm at best.

It was time for the next candidate to make his case.