Herald of Steel

Over generations, Matrak had been able to develop a very comprehensive battle strategy against their western neighbors- the Thesian city states.

By mixing geography and unique terrain features with their own battle tactics, Matrak had shown themselves to be too hard a nut to crack, thus effectively blunting all their neighbor’s grand ambitions.

The city states also, after many repeated ambitions came to the realization that this province was not worth the cost. They found their prided heavy infantry had a tough time facing off the ubiquitous mobile cavalry in an open battlefield, repeatedly getting outflanked, surrounded, and destroyed.

In recent years, Pasha Farzah further solidified those borders by cutting a deal with Exolas and its alliance of city states, promising them to help annex their rival Cantegena in exchange for a stable border with him.

Thus recently, there was little trouble except for bandits and small rouge raiders along the western perimeters. Rather, the place had grown into a flourishing territory as trade between the two powers was starting to boom.

The far greater headache for Pasha Farzah lay in the north, as the borders were far less stable.

The northern barbarians were a very different story compared to the Thesians, in fact, they were the true menace to this province.

And the main reason for this was because much of the restrictions the city states had did not apply to these marauding bands.

For one, these nomads living off the steppe were used to the freezing cold even better than many Matrak, thus foraging and living off the land was written into their blood. They could subsist on things that most normal civilizations would find too repulsive to even put in their mouth.

Secondly, they were among the best riders, if not the best horse riders in the world. So they were able to cover vast distances in a short time, reducing the duration of their campaign and thus putting less strain on logistics.

This speedy approach also made it hard for Pasha Farzah to effectively deal with them as the moment they saw things were starting to go bad for them, they could swiftly escape on horseback, disappearing into the many wooded forests of Matrak and living to fight another day.

Lastly, these barbarians carried their own food supply during campaigns in the form of pregnant mares, consuming their milk by mixing it with some small amount of oats or barley to fill themselves. While the breed of horses used was resilient enough to be able to survive off the barren lands for many years, more than sufficient to bear through the campaign and return home for actual fodder.

In this way, without huge cumbersome baggage trains, Matrak was unable to deploy its famous harassing tactics.

Thus dealing with such incursions was a really, really a big headache for all Pashas of Matrak. Many times it almost felt like playing a very frustrating game of tag, where the runner would loot, plunder, and pillage as much as they could before quickly retreating deep into their territory, out of the range of the ‘people’ playing ‘it’.

The only thing that stopped these barbarians from turning to a scrounge was Pasha Farzah’s sturdy cities. Fortunately for Matrak, these steppe nomads lacked both the technology and materials to build complex siege equipment, so the amount of trouble they could cause was limited.

Most peasants just took shelter in nearby cities and fortified towns upon receiving words of such raids and simply waited for the menace to pass.

At the current moment however, the northern border was also relatively peaceful, and this was all courtesy of none other than Mirzah!

This shrewd eldest son, following several successful campaigns where he butchered a few small and medium tribes, finally got an audience with one of the largest tribes around and was able to cut a deal with them.

He basically wrote them a check, promising them gems and other metal deposits that Matrak was very rich in but something the flat steppes sorely lacked, all in exchange for keeping the other tribes in check.

Meaning if anyone wanted to raid Matrak, they had to receive permission from this tribe first or risk being attacked by them en route.

In this way, Mirzah wished to play one group of barbarians against the other, hoping to foster a sense of hatred.

And until now that seemed to be working quite well.

The trouble was, as clever as the plan was, it was also very transparent. Everyone knew what was going and it was an open secret that it was only a matter of time before the fragile peace shattered.

In fact, there were even a few precedents of dealings similar to the one Mirzah got, but they had all been broken over time.

This was because the steppe nomads’ fundamental needs were never douched by such exchanges, only merely suppressed.

The core issue was that the people there lacked good farmland and rich metal deposits, leading to a very harsh life. They had to constantly move in search of fresh fodder for their animals, living in tents in the middle of freezing winters and eating tasteless, boiled meats and fish.

So when they saw their neighbor having bountiful farmlands, fresh produce, delicious spices, strong timber, and abundant gems and other jewelry, was it any surprise for them to covet?

The northern barbarians launched attacks simply because their circumstances necessitated it.

Pasha Farzah and his family of course understood all this.

Hence they had basically come to the conclusion his northern border was never going to be truly secure, it could only be kept guarded and fortified to repel these attacks while hoping the tribes would continue to bicker and fight amongst each other rather than with Matrak.

However recently Pasha Farzah received some unsavory reports about his prayers starting to become less effective.

There was concerning news about some of the tribes’ movements. It was not anything major but it was still enough to make the bear like man’s heart skip a beat.

An attack around this time was bad news, very bad news.

Before, Matrak only had two fronts- Thesos and the barbarians.

Now, their surrounding provinces Rusti and Bahu were also hostile, if not at the very least unhelpful.

Worse, previously, the province of Rusti, immediately south of Matrak, would send help if the western city states tried to push into Adhania. While Bahu province, just east of Matrak did the same against the northern tribes.

But now…, Pasha Farzah would count his lucky stars if they did not stab him in the back while he was distracted.

This was another major reason why Pasha Farzah was so eager to seal the marriage with Rusti.

In this way, at least two of his fronts would be secure.

As for Bahu… well unlike the amicable relationship between Pasha Farzah and Pasha Ozman…, ties were strained between the two at the best of times.

The reason for this was so fundamental, it was also quite hard, if not impossible to unravel.

It was religious, and basically, Bahu followed the teachings of the Ramuh faith to the letter, while Matrak still held some of its former pagan beliefs and reliefs, being far more flexible in their understanding.

This, the Pasha of Bahu absolutely detested and always pushed for Matrak to purge these elements from their territory. Basically he wanted Pasha Farzah’s family to carry out a wide scale purge of all ‘heretics’ in the lands.

This was of course an impossible ask and flatly rejected by Pasha Farzah’s family.

The native beliefs were a part of the land’s culture, so how could they change just because someone asked them?

Not to mention, almost the entire population followed some parts of it or the other. So was Pasha Farzah going to massacre his entire populace just because another Pasha asked nicely?

Now, before you go blaming the Pasha of Bahu as the next Witch hunter or Inquisitor, the man was actually no devil incarnate. He too had a good reason for wanting this.

Long ago, when the Ramuh faith was just starting to spread, there was a wide scale rebellion in Bahu against it, with the pagan natives raising their spears against his ancestors, as they were the main family propagating this.

The rebellion even came very close to succeeding and was only crushed by the timely arrival of reinforcement from the capital.

The Pasha’s family however had suffered great losses in that incident, especially as their mansion had been broken into by the rebel army before help came, and then, those religious zealots had done some very bad things to those present- killing, maiming, and torturing being only the most tame of things.

The things done to them were so heinous that following that, every successive Pasha had to swear on Ramuh as well as the earth of Bahu to eliminate the belief from under this sky.

Hence as long as Pasha Farzah harbored these elements there really was no mending relations.

And this was on top of the fact that, the Matrak Pasha was also no innocent rabbit here.

He was also responsible for funding and sheltering many of Bahu’s enemies, arming these extremist pagans and using them to cause trouble for Bahu by launching raids and even just spreading rumors.

All this was because just like Bahu did not like Matrak’s lackluster, loose following of the Ramuh faith, conversely, Pasha Farzah also did not like Bahu’s strict interpretation of the scripture.

He wished for there to be much more flexibility and ease in the meaning.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!