Herald of Steel

Before Philips was forced to step in to try and stop inflation, for a time, the price hikes had gotten so bad that it gave rise to various strange phenomena that needed to be seen to be believed.

For instance, there were examples of soldiers, with pockets bulging with copious amounts of money and heads full of 'copious little' common sense, starting to openly host informal auctions for various goods sold in taverns and brothels.

Example- if one group ordered a good meal, and another new arrival came to find there was none left for them, they might shout to the restaurant owner,

"Hey, boss! Give the order to us instead. We will pay you 2 ropals extra!"

But such a thing would be like opening Pandora's box.

Not only would the offering group get their desired result, instead, even before the shopkeeper would be able to respond, a third party would shout,

"No! We will pay 5 ropals!"

And then another, "Here, we will take it for 10!"

"For us, it will be 12 ropals!"

And so on.

Due to Alexander decreeing both the local libra and the Adhanian ropal as legal tender, and the exchange rate being set at a convenient 1:2, i.e.- 2 libras for 1 ropal, the soldiers were very conveniently able to use whichever type of coin they had on hand.

But this convenience only worked to help them burn their money ever faster, and then land them in great trouble.

For most of these 'auctions' did not end up with the highest bidder getting to happily eat his meal, but with some hot head losing it, and bringing the whole thing crashing down.

There would always be that one group, frustrated by being outbid and angry over the lack of food, who would decide that the 'thing' belonged to the one with the biggest muscle.

"You motherfu****s! We came here first. *Bang!*"

"You dare hit us. *Smash!*"

"Argghh! *Bang*!"

Thus would be the start of a tavern brawl.

Which would only stop with the intervention by the guards, who would beat some sense into them, before escorting them back to their camp to be caned and then fined for the damages.

And such instances were not one offs either, neither were they only restricted to the taverns.

Whichever place you wanted- Inns, brothels, and even the marketplace saw these types of fights, with the men scruffling over items as mundane as a freshly caught fish.

It was this rapid deterioration of the public order that had first alarmed the palace and caused Philips to react, swiftly and very decisively.

The Crown Prince, in order to bring order back to the city as well as put a leash on the running away economy, first of all, asked Alexander to order a limit on the number of soldiers that can be outside their camp at any one time, reasoning that such thing will decrease the total amount of available customers at any one time as well as the total number of troublemakers.

And knowing the perils the city was facing, the Pasha was more than happy to issue the order, and soon it became that no more than 10,000 men, or two legions would be allowed outside the camp at any one time, based on a rotation system.

In addition to imposing this restriction, Philips then also put a price cap on the essentials like grain, salt, and several types of vegetables to ease the burden on the populace, and also opened up many emergency distributaries across various parts of the city where the poor were given limited amount of free rations.

The prince further banned the wholesale of certain goods and commodities to try and prevent the formation of a black market, and lastly, with Alexander's permission, he managed to get his hands on some of the excess supplies the army had already stored in its granaries, thus increasing the supply of goods in the market and alleviating the pressures on the inflation.

The swiftness with which Philips managed to put a halt on the running away inflation in the capital really went on to show his experience in governance.

And Alexander, who decided to sit this one out to see how the Crown Prince handled things, was perfectly satisfied by the produced results, his mind at ease with leaving the man at the helm of the city.

Another party whose mind was at ease with leaving this city, and perhaps the entire war was a party that almost no one thought about.

It was a party inside the army, one that numbered perhaps only in the couple of hundred,

At Alexander's announcement, this group could be heard murmuring meekly in relief to themselves:

"Finally, We will not have to fight anymore! Aghhhh! All those screams. All those men! All those limbs! All those guts! All those blood!"

"Ugghhh! I see them! I see them now! I see them all the time! Help me!"

Such and many more pained voices rang out inside them, as they could not wait to leave this bloody battlefield behind.

Yes, as you might have guessed, a small part of the fighting men had developed PTSD from seeing all the cruel, gruesome fights and longed to retreat from the battlefield.

And who could blame them?

Combat in ancient warfare was primal and visceral and extremely brutal on the individual psyche.

It made one get close enough to smell the other side, let one see the whites of another man's eyes, and stare into his soul that was as much scared and afraid as one own self.

And then vividly feel the moment one killed him, the sensation of the sword first piercing the armor, then prying the skin, then stabbing through the flesh, and lastly cutting through the bone, as horrific, guttural sounds assaulted one's ears.

The rusty smell of freshly spilled blood stung one's nose, and the ghastly, pale look of a man coughing up blood while looking at you with a burning hatred enough to freeze all nine hells was etched into one's memory forever, a memory that would frequently surface in many's dreams and nightmares as soon as one closed his eyes.

Such experiences drove even strong men to their edge while weaker and less mentally resilient men were driven close to insanity.

For most men were not born to be killers.

Most men did not want to kill anyone, not even those who wanted to harm them.

And so it took a lot of poking and prodding to convince them to go against their natural wishes.

And sometimes this poking and prodding left a few permanently crippled, not visibly perhaps, but mentally.

Alexander himself had even seen first hand examples of such.

One time, when he was still in Nestoras's mercenary group, he remembered being hired to protect a small town.

And while they were on their way, the townsfolk mistook them for the attackers and started to panic.

Among these panicking men was a veteran soldier who had served in multiple campaigns for Alexander's employer.

When he heard that the town was going to be attacked, instead of taking up his sword to try and fight off the invader, the man was so scarred by the past experiences of his previous campaigns that he immediately bolted himself inside his house, and then set fire to himself, letting the flames take him as well as all his possessions.

Such were the horrific scars, invisible to everyone but oneself, that an ancient battlefield could inflict on one.

And worse yet, most men could not talk about it.

Because revealing that as a man you were scared or that you had bad nightmares could cause all of one's peers to laugh at him for being wimpy.

From a social point of view, this would be suicide.

Most also did not even know they needed to talk about it.

Because they did not even know this was actually a disease that needed treatment.

Instead, unable to rationalize it, they would come up with various supernatural reasons, such as being cursed, possessed by the enemy, charmed, or any other number of wild imaginations.

Which would then lead them to seek 'treatment' in a number of creative ways.

Such as going to an exorcist to have the 'ghost' beaten out of one with a broom, sleeping under a large, tree at night believed to possess holy powers to banish the ghost, being submerged in ice cold water right at the crack of dawn or being placed on a burning pyre to drive the ghost out by using extreme temperatures.

None of this ever worked of course, and if the men did overcome their PTSDs, it was actually due to the mind recovering by itself.

But although useless on their own, these rituals did have a placebo effect on the men, who went to bed reassured that they had 'taken their medicine' to cure them, which helped many to recover from their mental scars.

Which was both a boon, as many were indeed cured thought this when otherwise they would not have, but also a curse, because due to this a proper treatment was never conceived.

If you recovered, you were strong enough to win against the ghost.

But if you died during some of these more extreme rituals, well tough luck.

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