Herald of Steel

"Mmmmm!" Cambyses however seemed a lot less enthusiastic, still feeling worried about the result of the battle.

She could not be as cavalier as her counterpart, who blindly believed that Alexander could win the battle no matter what and that there was nothing in this world that could ever make him stumble.

For Cambyses however, reality looked a lot different.

The immense challenges that Cambyses was made to face from almost the moment she arrived at Zanzan had made the young girl quite hardened in stately affairs and by now she had developed the habit of always thinking about the worst first.

First of all, she did not even dare to wonder whether these men would really reach the island, given the treacherous seas and the mercurial weather.

Entire fleets being lost to the sea was such a regular occurrence that it could be almost considered a cliche.

And given the entire thing was totally out of her hands, she could only pray day and night in the temples for the gods to bless these men.

For Alexander, losing these men would not only be disastrous but almost apocalyptic.

In fact, as Cambyses recalled the enemy numbers that her husband had revealed to her in his letters, she rightly wondered if even the numbers requested would be enough.

It was after all only two legions.

After reading the letters, Cambyses actually wanted to give more, 4 legions to be exact.

And after looking at her warehouse, she found that it was indeed possible, provided she was willing to dredge the very bottom.

Alexander had raised a force many times bigger multiple times and so many excess stocks were stored there, while things like food and grain were plentiful since it was right after the autumn harvest and the granaries were overflowing with it.

However the trouble lay politically, and Cambyses ultimately found raising so many men would be impossible in a short time.

It was even something that Mean had expressed great anger over, stomping her feet and complaining with gritted teeth,

"Those bastards! If Alex had been here, these rats would not have even dared to raise their voices. They are really taking us for granted."

The petite girl believed all the pain her mistress was suffering was due to these disloyal scoundrels and even wished she could personally hang them all for the crime of putting her husband\'s life at risk.

Cambyses however only lightly shook at this outburst, not letting herself get caught up in the flurry of emotions.

Then in a smooth, calm voice that betrayed her age, she only commented, "We are only five years old in Zanzan. It\'s only natural they don\'t trust us. Much less me… a woman."

Cambyses was clever enough to understand that most of the nobles who were causing her trouble were not doing it out of pure spite, but was more cautious of her.

They feared if they gave in too quickly, she would think of them as weak, thus opening themselves up to future exploitation. That\'s why they stalled.

Politics was also not where Cambyses found herself stumbling.

Much to her chagrin, she also found there were even not enough ships to transport the full number that she wanted.

Alexander had already taken most of the ships they personally owned, thus forcing Cambyses to rely on hired merchant ships.

And given that during winter, trade tended to naturally slow down, those additional 80 or so were all she could get her hands on.

And even that was at such an exorbitant price that it had caused Mean to let out another yelp of incredulation. It was more than ten times the original value and many times, even that was not enough, with many captains simply refusing to sail no matter how big a check she was willing to write.

Even when Cambyses promised to buy them a brand new ship in exchange for their help, many of these men did not budge, simply saying,

\'My lady, You have to be alive to spend the gold.\'

They only agreed when Cambyses paired the gold with the threat. "If you do not let us hire your ships, and something happens to my husband, I swear in the name of all the gods of Thesos and Adhania, I will ban each and every one of ever docking in Zanzan. Perpetually forget about conducting a single gold of trade in Zanzan!"

Cambyses\'s blazing eyes and cold words were finally enough to make the merchants shiver, as for people like them, trade was their life blood, as important if not more than life.

And this was not mentioning just how lucrative Zanzan\'s market was.

The variety of unique and extremely precious products that could be found only here made it every merchant\'s dream, as whatever they spent buying here in a day, would be worth more than their week\'s earnings when sold to other places.

For some, like the merchants selling glass products and sugar, that figure even went as far as a month!

So if the mistress of the city was to really go ahead with her threats and have them excommunicated from the city, these men would become penniless overnight.

Merchants however were the type of men who would rather die than become poor like this.

It was thus with only that threat that these merchants agreed to hand over their docked ships. And even then it was only that low numbers.

Otherwise, if Cambyses could have gathered a few more, she would have even sent the 5,000 mercenaries she had hidden with her.

However, since she could not, even with the current number of reinforcements, Cambyses calculated that Alexander would have at most 16,000 to 18,000 men facing off against 20,000 to 25,000 men.

The odds of winning such an engagement were not horrible and Alexander had certainly won with similar disadvantages, but as his wife, Cambyses certainly always wanted her husband to have better chances, to be at least on par with the enemy, if not have the upper hand.

Now, if Cambyses had been aware of Alexander\'s recent victories with the Heeat family, perhaps she might have been a little bit less worried, but even then, in the grand schemes of things, Lord Parker\'s losses were not game changing in terms of numbers.

The total lost and wounded casualties he suffered were perhaps around two to two and a half thousand, only a tenth of his total forces, and thus even after those reinforcements joined Alexander, they would still be outnumbered.

Alexander\'s real accomplishments in those battles were breaking the enemy\'s spirit and morale, as well as creating a large, almost indivisible crack between the Margraves and the Heeats.

The extent of that effect however would only show itself once the soldiers met in battle.

On paper for now the scales still favored the Heeats.

With the reinforcements sent, Zanzan fell back into its earlier routine. Given that it was winter, the noblemen that had been hastily gathered to counter this crisis disbanded themselves, most choosing to return to their fiefs to stake out the chilly winter, relaxing and partying themselves under the warmth of blazing fires.

The parliament building located at the center of the city was thus closed until Alexander\'s return.

While in the case of Cambyses, she too welcomed this respite, and at last got the time to take a breath just as Mean was hankering for.

The young lady hence also stayed in her manor for most of the time, playing with her two children and paying greater attention to the many wives and mistresses of her husband around her.

They had not caused any trouble for her till now and Cambyses wanted to keep it that way.

The only thing that could have made the peaceful, serenity perfect was if her husband was with her too.

Although Cambyses did not outwardly show, she was deathly worried about him, and that was one of the biggest reasons behind her substantial weight loss.

Plus, Alexander\'s absence made the cold night feel especially chilly, as Cambyses was unable to ever truly satisfy herself in bed.

Twisting and turning all alone in the large bed, no matter how much she rubbed herself, the experienced lady was unable to rub that ever present lingering itch, for the thin digit proved utterly incomparable to the girthy tool.

This was nothing unexpected, but still, that did not mean it did not frustrate the lady.

Hence, even if it was only for herself, Cambyses really hoped her man would be back as soon as possible,

Back in Caira, while his wife was preparing the soldiers and getting ready to send help, Alexander found himself with little to do but wait.

The current situation had reached a stalemate, and the weather had too turned extremely bad, forcing both parties to abandon any thought of attack.

Thus they waited, with the lull of one and a half months proving a very desirable outcome for both.

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