As Menes gathered the men to discuss his possible next step, he breathed a sigh of relief as he looked around to see that fortunately, none of the top-level commanders had been killed or captured in this horrific loss.
This of course was due to the courtesy of Alexander's formation placing its officers at the back, which gave them the time to retreat on horseback before the main army collapsed.
And seeing the formation's efficacy firsthand, the people inside the tent had all breathed a sigh of relief at some point before coming there, now fully convinced of the prudency of the position, And though no one said, they all resolved to follow it no matter how much the enemy taunted them as being cowards.
Or else they would suffer just as Perseus's cavalry had suffered.
But for now, relieved at having avoided capture, the commanders had to turn their focus on solving the problem at hand.
And so when Menes proposed they make for Zanzan as soon as possible, all the commanders there had no problem with this order in general.
But then Melodias pointed out, "A lot of our troops are scattered. Perhaps we should wait another day."
The man felt that given they had lost the battle and a lot of men, it might be worth considering to want to gather and preserve as much manpower as possible.
But hearing this Menes just waved his sturdy arms and brusquely brushed this off, "No, the enemy is already too close to the city. We need to return with however many men we have as soon as possible."
"That is the priority!" He emphasized.
And this time he was joined by Grahtos who said with a solemn nod."Mmm, I agree. The remaining troops can catch up during the march."
So it seemed a majority of them were in favor of leaving as soon as possible and entering the safety of the city walls.
And this the time and destination set, here Heliptos asked about the elephant in the room.
"But what about the food?" He bought up.
HH knew that their granaries were already totally empty and right now, the tired, injured soldiers were being forced to go to sleep with an empty stomach.
And that was after having participated in such intensely heavy fighting in the day, and now having to endure this very cold night, their only respite being the warm water they were offered.
The situation with the food here was so bad that many commanders would have actually feared a mutiny if the men were not too tired to fight right now.
Thus Heliptos wondered whether the men would even be able to make the three-day march.
While Menes and the others, hearing his inquiry and knowing that much of this situation was really all his fault, tried very hard not to lambast him in this critical moment.
"There is no food." Menes quickly gave a very crisp answer, even feeling his empty belly growl as he said so, as he was just as hungry as every other man in the camp, before adding,
"This is also why I want to move as soon as soon. To keep the men busy."
The general knew that just like the idiom 'an idle hand does the devil's work', so did idle soldiers.
"Perhaps we can slaughter some horses. Give something, anything for the men to eat." While from the side Melodias chimed the suggestion, and though the idea made Grahtos involuntarily twitch, he knew things were really desperate for them.
So showing his solidarity with his colleague, he nodded and added, "Mmmmn, that's a good idea. Men are more important than animals after all."
Menes had no problem with this, and posed,
"....How many horses have he got?"
His tone here subconsciously turned a bit hard given he thought it was those abnormal beasts that had cost him the battle.
"About 2,500," Grahtos gave a surprisingly accurate estimate.
Because it happened that Grahtos, being the overall commander of the cavalry, was a bit obsessed with keeping an accurate count of the number of beasts under him.
"So much?" And the large number actually somewhat surprised Menes, given how many beasts he had seen lose their minds back there.
By his estimate, Menes had figured he would have less than 1,000 usable beasts.
But it had to be also remembered that those horses were not attacked by the infantry when it smashed into them, meaning most of the animals had come out unscathed.
And given the enemy cavalry was more focused on killing the slower, easier legionaries, once the horses were far enough from the elephants, their riders managed to get some control back and have them ford across the river to rejoin the camp relatively intact, at least compared to the other units.
Thus, hearing he had so many horses, Menes ordered, "Okay. Slaughter about 400 of them. And have the soldiers finish it before dawn." feeling each horse had enough meat to feed around a thousand men.
Or at least placate their hunger for long enough until they could reach Zanzan, hopefully without any incident.
And as this order was instructed to be carried at once, Melodias added this bit of inquiry,
"Do we know where our next supply wagon is? Perhaps we can match to them and get some food there."
"Or at least send news telling them to turn back," as he then turned to look at Heliptos for some feedback.
But the portly man only shook his head with an embarrassed red face.
"........" And seeing the man in charge of the logistics not even know where his supply wagons were, the other people could only mentally shake their heads.
And sensing this disapproval of his colleagues, Helitpos quickly chimed up,
"But we can find out!"
"Let us send scouts to the nearby areas. See if the surrounding people have seen or heard anything."
"Plus, we can even ask the surrounding population to give us for of their food." he proposed as a way to offer some food to the hungry army.
Something that did not seem to go down too well for Menes, who instantly shouted, "What! Steal from our own people? Have you been hit in the head, you donkey!"
Menes had no problem with the former ideas. but when Heliptos gave his last idea, it incensed him.
He knew just how hard Alexander had worked to earn the locals' tryst here, letting money flow like water to earn their trust.
But all this would be washed away like a landslide if they snatched food from the local populace right as winter was approaching.
The people here had already been suffering a drought for three years, and a fourth year might be too much.
This was also why Menes had resorted to forcing a battle with Perseus when he had run out of food, rather than take from the surrounding hamlets and villages.
But this time his stance was supported by a lot fewer of the higher-ups, with his counterpart Melodias even saying,
"With us gone, the Tibians will take these people's food anyway. So what is the point of keeping it here?"
It was unknown how much of his talks right now was logical or just the hunger speaking.
But it sounded quite reasonable nevertheless to the men present,
And so he was quickly joined by the person who proposed the original idea, who enthusiastically added, "That's right. It's not like we are even stealing from them."
"Once we reach Zanzna, we will of course send them back the food and more."
With this proposal, the other top commanders too seemed to buy the plan, and Menes began to understand his objection would have little effect.
Though the real hitch with this plan would be apparent to anyone who could think about it a bit deeper for a second.
Which was the fact that there was no way the sparsely populated countryside would have enough food to meet the ravenous hunger of an entire army.
But even a small amount of food was food.
But given how hungry the men were even that bit of food appeared very appetizing.
They reasoned that even if it could feed the entire army, it would surely be enough to feed the higher-ups.
So Menes felt that it was unlikely they were going to obey something just because he said so.
Thus he proposed this,
"*Sigh*, okay, let us first eat today's meal. "We can think about buying food from the neighboring villages as we march."
"Let's see how much food they even have."
And with this decided, after a short rest and a shorter meal, the Zanzan army quickly broke camp just before dawn and made a beeline for Zanzan city.
While scouts were sent in a web-like formation to see if they could spot any supply wagons that were presumably supposed to be there.
While a second group was sent out to inform the city's rulers of the result of the battle.
And though the scouts managed to accomplish the latter task with relative ease, they failed to complete the former task, mainly because the supply wagons were still in Zanzan, restocking and preparing.
But when Cambyses heard of the army's defeat and their food difficulties, she decided to send even the half-finished wagons to meet them, which joined them two days later, thus, the army had to only take food from the surrounding villages for two days.
And with his lifeline clutched, the exhausted and demoralized army of around 37,000 men entered Zanzan sometime later.
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