Herald of Steel

The commander sent at the very twilight of the battle to go rescue the troops had not been simply idly standing by all this time, just lampooning about how Lord Parker was going to punish him.

No, in the meantime, he had managed to come up with a few sort of strategies to try and save his skin.

It was just too bad Lord Parker had become too insane to listen to any of them, letting all that plotting go down the drain.

But luckily for the man, Lord Macht was not like that.

Hence at the mention of Lord Kite, the burly man instantly turned his focus to him, his piercing gaze seeming to suddenly ask, 'That's right! The traitorous Margrave ship must have passed by you. Why didn't you stop it?'

Lord Kite could only spit out with the utmost indignation at being so unjustly pointed the finger,

'Bullshit! How was I supposed to know anything? I was busy fighting for my life. So where would I get the time to look around and take in the scenery?'

This was very clearly the other side's attempt to deflect blame from oneself to him and this senior officer could not believe this was happening.

He was being suspected of negligence even after all he had done today, holding his ground firmly against a staunch enemy for so many hours even when there was no relief in sight.

The mere insinuation that he might have anything to do with the general's capture thus incensed him, as he had always believed his integrity to the Heeat family was beyond reproach.

However, the clever lord also understood that claiming innocence here was not the best strategy. He suspected Lord Macht was on a witch hunt, looking for someone, anyone suitable to dump the blame about all of today's happenings onto.

And that someone did not even have to be guilty or anything- just someone who could have reasonably and plausibly done the deed, that's all.

For instance, perhaps they could not label Lord Kite a traitor, but if he was unable to aptly defend himself, then certainly the moniker of incompetent hung in the balance.

And if that happened, if a finger could be pointed to a person suspected to be the main culprit, then all the others could be spared from Lord Parker's wrath.

This was a tactic that Lord Kite himself was none the stranger to as he too employed it regularly within his unit, such as when there was a need to kill the chicken to scare the monkey.

However although it felt great when using it for himself, Lord Kite found cursing this method when he was put at the receiving end of it.

Only now did he seem to understand the inherent unjustness of it all.

The only silver lining of all this was that since the man was so experienced in this method, he also knew how to extract himself from it.

So stepping forward, he quickly thought on his feet and soon produced an alternate version of the events that had transpired,

"My lord, the Margraves ship did indeed join our fight just as Commander Rick claimed. As a matter of fact, without it covering our retreat by acting as a sort of rear guard, we might not have been able to get away so smoothly. Those fresh troops aboard that flagship really proved decisive. So I too am curious why the Margraves ship then chose to suddenly defect.

They had promised me that they would follow as soon as they were able to. "

Yes, according to Lord Kite's own version of the events, the commander had not simply let the Margrave ship pass by without doing anything about it. But the ship had first pretended to aid them in battle, promising them that they would bring up the rear, only to sail in the opposite direction when Lord Kite had turned his back on them.

Such a turn of events quickly made Lord Kite appear in a much more flattering light, since now, he did not simply let the fish slip, but was first tricked into trusting it, a trap that would have been very hard to avoid given the emblem they carried.

It made for a much more complex and nuanced excuse.

"...????..."

For all the attending officers, however, this was a completely unexpected and new answer, thus catching all of them by surprise.

It was the first time they were hearing anything like this, from either the crew or even Lord Kite himself, given his recent battlefield recount was very different from this one.

Hence some of the men, especially officer Rick wanted to immediately speak out and counter him, wanting to ask him to provide greater details.

"....."

They would however never get that chance, as, immediately upon finishing his retelling, Lord Kite turned to shine a flash of extremely menacing glare towards all the officers, one that seemed to say, 'If any of you dare question any of this, I swear I will see to it!'

That blink of malice was enough to shut them down, including Rick.

Because it had to be noted that Lord Kite was not only one of the most senior officers with the Heeat army but much more than that, he was a noble.

As commoners, most did not dare antagonize such a man, especially not over such a grey matter.

"Hmmmm…"

While the intended recipient of this all, Lord Macht paid all his attention to what Lord Kite said, and completely ignored all the hidden messages that were being exchanged among the officers right in front of him.

The experienced man of course could easily tell that Lord Kite was trying to whitewash the story about the Margraves providing him aid. That most likely did not happen.

But to be fair, Lord Macht also knew he was clasping at straws when trying to pit the man.

Being a noble, Lord Kite would have been a hard man to convince even if he really did commit treason. So forget it when the matter was so banal.

Hence Lord Macht gave up the thought of interrogating the man's crew to verify his story.

He turned to other potential scapegoats.

However as the clock ticked on, try as he might, Lord Macht found it difficult to pin the entire thing on one man, or even a handful of ones.

Because it soon became clear to him that the matter that had transpired today was way too nuanced and complicated to allow him to do such a thing. The battle had been a very long one, one where too many things had happened, and among them, there were many things the Heeat men had done that would certainly warrant grievous dissatisfaction from the Margraves.

So singling any single man posed impossible.

Lord Macht felt like if were to do this, it would be like tugging a leaf off a branch, once pulled the entire thing would follow, and who knows, possibly when the whole tree then.

Lord Macht found the entire affair too dirty and messy to contemplate cleaning up on his own.

Recognizing this, the man thus ultimately decided to give up on his current quest- sacrificing one man to please Lord Parker.

Instead, the man first lambasted all the officers for many of their negligence and poor calls today, calling many out by their names and chewing them out.

He blamed Lord Kite for not being aggressive enough against Remus, he blamed the officers that were with Achillas for not protecting him better, he blamed the reinforcement for not getting there quicker and he basically blamed all of them for the skirmish with friendly forces.

All this was in part a reflection of the man's true thoughts, but it was also a part of the show that he put on for Lord Parker, aiming to soothe the man with this flashy punishment.

The clever officers understood this and accepted the childing with a heavy face but a light heart.

While the more brutish ones felt genuinely hurt and bitter, as their hearts quickly erased all that gratefulness they had left for Lord Macht just now. These fools began to view the man only as a heartless, martinet commander.

Of course, the veteran commander would have probably not cared one iota about this either way.

"Where is Lord Bernard? Why is he not here?"

Rather than waste his time on such mundanities, the man moved on, next turning his attention to the other faction that was involved in all of this- the Margraves, the family who were really the protagonists of this whole kerfuffle.

Thus it was very surprising to Lord Macht that despite their 'exalted' status in the whole thing, the man failed to find even a single of their representatives inside the tent, as he quickly finished giving a scanning look at his surroundings.

This was obviously very strange since it meant the Margraves were not even given any chance to defend themselves

"I ordered all of them to be arrested. They will be executed at sunrise!"

The officers were spared from the dilemma of whether to snitch on their lord or not as this sullen voice near the back of the tent quipped the answer voluntarily

"What!" It probably got the most predictable response imaginable.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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