Herald of Steel

Listening to Alexander call for him, Chief Metztil once again forced himself to sit down.

He knew it would be politically extremely damning for him to return to his tribe with nothing to show for it.

The people had their hopes hyped up to the moon and beyond by the rumors, thus Metztil coming back empty handed would crush them.

And along with that, their support for him.

The man even suspected this was exactly the pit his enemies were trying to dig for him, betting he would fail.

And those scheming men did have very good reasons to feel confident about themselves.

They knew the Margraves would not, could not hand over the full extent of the land that was being promised to the natives. The price was too high.

This was simply a negotiating tactic, a bait to entice the natives to come to the tables.

But despite knowing that, the leaders of the tribes were happy to swallow it.

Since the Margraves had brought up the matter of allocating land, it meant they were willing to give up at least some.

That attraction alone was enough for these men. Straved out of their mind for centuries, they would take whatever that was presented to them. Explore more adventures at m,v l'-NovelBin.net

It was with that many of the tribal leaders got together and took the joint decision to consider helping the Margraves against the Heeat, with the one leading the pack being none other than Metztil.

He was the natural, de facto leader given his background and the man himself was very eager to take the post, due to both personal and political reasons.

If he could get this deal done, his fame and glory would reach heights untouched since that legendary chief, and his place within the people's hearts would become unviolable.

As long as those lands remained in the hands of the Helvati people, not a single man from his tribe would dare contest his rule.

Thus after hearing Lord Janus's offer, Metztil began to quickly dream of his people flourishing in the newly conquered lands, multiplying and becoming stronger, all while showering him with their praise, power and gold, and riches.

That ideal dream however was quickly shattered by the leaks about the deal.

Almost overnight, without giving Metztil even the slightest chance to wake up to the pitfall that was being dug around him, his rivals worked to agitate the people, revealing to them the full contents of the offer.

And it worked so well, that barely a day passed before Metztil suddenly found a sea of crowd surrounding his house.

"What the hell?" It was close to morning, just as dawn broke when Metztil suddenly jumped up from his bed with the utmost concern, alarmed by the immense murmurs that were drifting into his room from the outside.

And the Chief's very first thought regarding this was that this was a coup!

He assumed that one of his rivals had finally decided to bear his fangs, leading an angry mob here to attack him.

Metztil thus ran to open his window, intending to gauge the size of the enemy, assuming them to be quite substantial given the amount of noise they were making.

"!!!" Even though Metztil was prepared to see a large number of people, the sheer sprawling spread in front of him still stunned him.

'Is the entire tribe here?' He thought with a trace of despair, scanning and re scanning the horde in front of him, just to make sure he was still not dreaming.

Metztil quickly confirmed he was indeed awake, and it truly did seem like every man, woman and child in the entire fifty thousand strong tribe was there.

'How could I have missed this?'

And with that confirmation made, Metztil then began to try and rack his brain at how the sight before him was even possible.

Because to him, it appeared as if his rivals could have turned literally the entire tribe against him without him noticing a single thing.

This was nothing but witchcraft to Metztil.

This brawny chief might not be the most clever person in the tribe, that distinction would probably belong to his wife, but even if his trusted spouse had backstabbed him, Metztil was not stupid to the point he would be caught so off guard.

The chief had his own spies and intelligence network, so surely some of them would have squeaked about the entire tribe mobilizing against him.

But not a single such warning came.

And yet Metztil could see that there were children and even toddlers swaddled in their mothers' bosom in the midst, something that an angry mob would hardly ever have, given the chaos produced during a riot.

Seeing this, Metztil for the life of him could not guess what he had done to garner such hatred. He might not have been a paragon of virtue, but he was no foolish brute either, one who abused his power as he liked.

Which made the entire situation all the more puzzling to this chief.

He could find no logical explanation regarding why all his people had decided to turn against him at the drop of a hat.

And so, given the time period, could you really blame him for initially thinking this was all magic?

"Wait! Something is wrong!" However just as Metztil was beginning to despair and trying to think of a way to run, he suddenly noticed something strange.

It was not easy to clearly see the details of the gathered crowd given it was just the beginning of dawn and the sky had yet to clear up, but after squinting his eyes, Metztil noticed that the people were not actually doing anything.

Well, that was not exactly true.

More accurately, Metztil noticed these people were not attacking or cursing him.

He thus tried to focus his sight on the expression these faces had. But failed due to the still darkness of the night.

The chief then switched his focus to the ears, and he found that they were actually shouting and cheering their hearts out, with some muffled chants even making their way all the way to his home some fifty meters away.

Curiously straining his ear, he managed to pick some of the louder, more distinct ones,

"Long live the Chief! Long live the Chief!"

"Blessed by the spirits! The incarnation of Coatl."

"Land! Land! We want land!"

"Glory to the Helvati! Glory to us!"

The words Metztil at first a bit confused, because he simply could not connect the discussion he had with the Margraves to the gathering before him. They were two very different things.

So turning away from the window, he reached for the door and then asked the two bodyguards stationed outside- "What's going on? Why have you let so many people surround me here?"

"Haha, they are here to congratulate you, chief!" The bodyguards seemed to have not noticed Metztil's acrid tone, and one of them replied with a wide grin.

The guards did not dare or even bother to stop these people who had come to cheer their chief.

After all, why would they?

In fact, many even joined this happy procession, and by now, there were probably half of Metztil's own forces mixed within that crowd, leading their friends and family on this 'visit the workplace' trip.

The sentiment of this bodyguard was also shared by his colleague, who too nodded enthusiastically like an eager chicken,

"We have learned about the Margraves giving up land to us! Hahaha, these people are here to congratulate you. Praise be to you! Praise the spirits!"

This relatively young man's eyes were twinkling with a level of adoration that even gods got to see from their devotees, as well as a brilliant smile that ran from ear to ear that threatened to spill out.

Metztil did not doubt if he were to order the man to cut off his hand, he would comply without blinking an eye.

So enamored were these two people with the news they had just received that they completely failed to notice the grim, dark look that flashed in front of their chief's face the moment he heard the explanation.

Metztil instantly smelled a rat- and it was a rotting, putrid one.

The realization that these people were not here to kill but instead cheer for him in utter adoration strangely brought him very little comfort.

In fact, it perhaps made him dispair even a bit more.

Because he knew the moment he failed to deliver the promise and in the exact scale it was vowed, these very people who were now lifting him high up into the sky would not hesitate for a second to throw him into the ground and trample over him like dirt.

And indeed it was impossible for Metztil to realistically assume he would get everything.

Thus he found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.

Either he could go out there and explain the entire situation to the people, which would result in them leaving dejected and deflated, thus giving his rivals even more opportunity to stir up trouble later on.

Or he could simply take advantage of all the work his enemies had put into this and try and ride the hype train, just hoping for the best.

You guess which one the chief of the Helvati- Metztil chose.

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