Herald of Steel

The Heeat family's army managed to bring order to the rioting city with surprising swiftness and efficiency.

Which was really normal given how they had chosen to do it.

The people were attacked by armed men in full military attire and formation throwing showers of javelins and arrow fires onto them, and as the Cairans saw these deadly projectiles descend upon them, even the most greed crazed man was kicked out of his stupor because their instinct of preserving one's life took over.

Hence, as soon as the first volley of arrows reaped the first few lives, it was like dropping cold water onto the rioting crowd.

Seeing so many of their friends and family be turned into corpses, the raving men instantly dropped everything they were doing and left all their loot on the spot, as they then began to run maddeningly in all directions, scared out of their minds.

Because suddenly they noticed all around them a group of armed men dressed in black, their spears pointed squarely at them, poised to reap all the hearts out.

And seeing this, if before the crowd had lost their mind due to anger and greed, now they lost their mind due to sheer fear and panic.

Hence they began to heedlessly run in any direction their legs took down, trying to escape these expert attackers by entering the many small streets and alleyways scattered around and hiding there.

However, the consequence of so many people trying to enter these small alleyways was apparent, a stampede, where the people shoved, tripped, and trampled over each other, as each tried to save their own skin.

Oh, how ironic!

Just moments ago they were so eager to skin others. Now they were scrambling to save theirs.

Fate was truly a fickle mistress.

Now, given the scattered and panicking mob, if Lord Parker's men had stopped just there, then the whole thing might have actually finished peacefully.

Yes, a few people might have died from the initial barrage, but this attack was more bark and less actual bite.

The casualties then were at best around thirty, so it was more showy and flashy than actually lethal, intended to shock and awe the crowd into retreating.

And in that respect, this show of extreme but harmless force was very well implemented.

But what was not well implemented were the subsequent moves made by the army.

Because instead of giving the crowd the space to disperse and chase after them so that they could not regroup, the trained soldiers of the Heeat family began to treat the innocent civilians like routed soldiers as instinctively their training took over.

And seeing one of their brothers do this, herd mentality took over and everyone else began to copy it too, chasing after the quarry with mad glee.

The result…..what happens when a bloodthirsty hound gives chase to a wounded rabbit.

A massacre.

These armed and armored men fell upon unarmed and defenseless, but most quite innocent people and began to tear them apart.

And seeing the blood and carnage, the people of course began to panic even more and tried even harder to shove and push others to make way.

However, the ancient streets of Caira were not equipped to handle such massive volumes of people even at the best of times.

Never mind in trying times such as now.

The reckless attack by the army thus only worked to exacerbate the current problems as the deadly stampede began to develop into a terrifying crushing.

The huge number of terrified and panicking bodies caused the narrow passageways of the alleys and streets to get clogged up, and people started dying of asphyxiation, as the sheer weight of men squeezing against their chest put so much pressure on it, that they could not even lift them up to breath.

If someone were to look down at them, they would have seen thousands of mouths begin to simultaneously open gaping wide, as they tried to suck in the slightest amount of the surrounding air.

Some succeeded, while others failed, dying a very painful death, the horrific experience lasting for minutes.

It took several hours for the death and chaos in those parts to finally subside, as the anarchic morning then gave way to a calmer late afternoon.

The city at last began to simmer down as the fires were put down, the bodies were collected and general peace and order was slowly enforced.

It was also here that the true extent of the atrocities committed during the riots began to become clear.

Literally, thousands had been killed by the enraged mob- beaten, stabbed, and most prevalent of all, burned to death, their bodies lying scattered all throughout that part of the city- on the streets, inside the burned shops and houses, and even making their way to the sewers, where they began to mix with the effluence and even clog up some of the smaller arteries.

All the bodies were meticulously fished out by the Heeat family army and gathered into a single pile to be mass buried, forming a huge, grotesque human pyramid several meters high, the sight of the charred and bloody flesh making when the toughened soldiers attending them retch and threw up.

These men were not soft hearted, but the horrific sight and the foul, fetid, and putrid smell was just too strong.

In fact, it was too much for even the people living several blocks away, and they hurriedly vacated their premises

Of course, mixed with these thousand bodies were thousands more who had died in the hands of the Heeat family men or trying to escape from them, their wounds clearly distinct from the ones killed by the mob.

A few had puncture wounds from spears, arrows, and swords, but most had twisted and mangled bodies due to being trampled, and many did not have any injuries, only a pale blue face.

All of which meant that only a scant few were directly killed under the sword, most had died in the panic

Thus making for this sanguinary sight.

And as Lord Parker visited the surrounding site at the end of the day, he sighed in lament at the scenery.

It might have not necessarily been at all the people killed and the tragic sight, but more due to how badly his plan turned out in the end.

According to the script, these men were supposed to attack Alexander's men and spill blood, not kill among themselves, and start looting the city.

What was even worse was that when this started happening, it was his men who were forced to intervene and bring order to the city, thus killing so many more citizens.

Citizens who at one point trusted him.

But now?

Lord Parker guessed the death toll for today, for only one morning reached in the several thousands, which was a few percentage of the total population of the city.

Such a huge shocking loss made even Lord Parker's heart a bit sad.

And when his eyes suddenly came across the corpse of a little girl wearing a priestess's robe, her eyes glassed, a short spear sticking out of her stomach, it panged even more, as her body had already turned pale blue and cold, proving she was long dead.

Lord Parker did not know her, but this was the same eleven year old priestess who had been attacked by multiple of his men the very previous night and then lived to tell the tale.

All to die a few hours later here.

Whereas she was supposed to have her whole life ahead of her to live in dedication to the gods.

Even the ambitious and determined Lord Parker was forced to re-evaluate his strategy after seeing such sights.

Hence, turning demonstratively angry with the way his army had handled the situation, he swung his head to chide his general,

"*Tsk*, Achillas, could you not have been a bit more tactful? Why did your men act like they were on a battlefield? Why did they keep attacking the people even as they were fleeing? What are the people going to say when they see all this?"

Lord Parker pointed to all the burnt bodies and houses.

The general however appeared completely unapologetic, "Hehe… The men were forced to do this to bring order, my lord. Otherwise, the entire city would have burnt down….And besides…. all these deaths are not a problem. We can just say all this was that Alexander's doing."

Achillas was quick to offer a straightforward and convenient scapegoat.

However, there were of course gigantic loopholes in it all that infuriated the next successor to the Heeat family,

"Fool! You think all the people just came here floating down the river today? Don't they have eyes? Alexander's men wear blue, while we wear black! So you tell me… who was it that attacked them…black or blue?"

Lord Parker very well knew that he would not be able to pin this on Alexander in any way, at least not without some serious mind bending propaganda that turned black into white.

The people were there and they clearly saw who killed them, and it was not the menacing looking blue armored men who were all the way back defending the way to the mansion.

But men clad in black.

Today's event thus sent the lord into crisis management mode.

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