“There are many fine lines to tread when it comes to handling captives. Can’t be too heavy-handed with them since you’re not going to kill them if you bother to capture them in the first place, but can’t be too light-handed either, lest they take things for granted.” - Andras Zan Gavlieri, General from the Clangeddin Empire’s early days.

“Now, now, don’t overdo it when you tie them like that, lass. You don’t want to cut off the blood flow, see? Otherwise the poor lad here might be losing a hand or two by the time you untie these,” said Skuljd as she looked over Irma tying up one of the surrendered Podovniy officers. The large-bodied therian girl’s strength was prodigious, but it might have been a bit too much at times, since she didn’t have as fine control over her power the way the older therians did.

Since the battle ended in the enemy’s surrender rather than a rout or a slaughter, it was customary to take the enemy commanders and officers as a sort of hostage in order to guarantee the good behavior of the rest of their soldiers. It was, after all, horribly impractical to tie up all the tens of thousands of soldiers, so instead only the “important” people were tied up and made to play hostage to ensure their men’s good behavior.

That way even if some of the soldiers lost their tempers and tried to do some regrettable things, their own teammates might subdue them before anything could happen. Most understood that they had lost and thus could only wait for their leaders to negotiate the conditions before they would be allowed to retreat, which often included reparations and tributes, as well as other concessions.

Erycea, Alycea, their platoons, as well as most of the other mercenary platoons were busy with such tasks now that the battle had concluded. A couple had grumbled that they didn’t get to loot the enemy dead, but unfortunately that was inappropriate given the conditions. Promises of extra rations and bonus pay to celebrate the victory made the grumbles die out, though.

As it was, most of the Podovnians just slumped down where they stood when they learned of their defeat. Alyea even noticed how some of them sighed in relief, probably conscripts and the like who were just glad that they would not need to fight anymore. It made her feel somewhat apologetic about what the company had done against them, but that was the extent of her sympathy.

They had their lives and troubles, while the mercenaries had their own.

As it was, given the disastrous defeat, it would not be strange if some of the vassal states in Podovniy chose to rise up in rebellion since the Marquis’ forces had been greatly weakened. By most estimates only around half of the people the Marquis had brought to Levain City were still in fighting shape. The other half were either injured in ways that prevented them from fighting or dead.

It was not a fatal blow to the March’s power, but it was a great loss of morale and confidence, to say the least, and that was before they considered the concessions and reparations that the March would have to fork out to Levain in order to “apologize” for the invasion. Typically in cases like those some high-ranking officers and nobles would be left behind as hostages and would only be released after the reparations were paid in full.

Alycea herself noticed a few enemy officers who were likely such nobles, the sort who always looked like they looked down upon others even in their present disadvantageous position. Rather than allow them to cause any sort of fuss, however, Alycea just sent Irma and Macen to tie them up. She found that the sight of a couple of huge therian warriors that stood heads and shoulders above even the tallest human had a habit of making pompous nobles shut their mouths nicely.

“Oh, Big Sister!” greeted Alycea as she happened to run across Erycea while taking in prisoners.

“Heya, Aly. So how did you feel after your first big battle?” asked Erycea in return with a toothy smile as she ruffle Alycea’s hair with one hand.

“Kind of relieved that it’s all over and we got out without much loss… but also a bit…” said Alycea as she tried to put her feelings into words and faltered halfway through her sentence. She remained quiet for a moment as she pondered what she wanted to say before she finally continued the sentence. “Kind of feels like me and mine didn’t do all that much, if you know what I mean, Big Sis?”

“That’s just to be expected, you know? You and your platoon are still rather fresh. We never put the fresh platoons in situations where you’d get into something over your heads, unless we feel you’re prepared enough for it,” replied Erycea with a laugh. Her hand absent-mindedly messed up Alycea’s hair even more in the process. “It was the same for me and my platoon when we were just as fresh as you are. In fact, you got to participate in a much bigger fight than we ever did back then!”

“Anyway, so how would things go from here? The battle’s over, right?” Alycea asked back.

“Yeah. The negotiation and stuff would be none of our business anyway. That’ll be all between our employers and the enemy side. Most likely we’ll be on guard for a bit more just to make sure they’re not trying to pull off any sort of shenanigans on us, and then back to training duty,” answered Ery. “After all, that’s what we’re originally hired for.”

“Now that reminds me. We are getting extra pay for joining in the battle and helping them out, no? Extra bonus for notable feats?” Aly questioned as she remembered part of what her parents told her.

“Yep. Though we likely wouldn’t need it much while we’re taking care of the remainder of our contract here. Thankful locals usually offer their gratitude by waiving the cost of what they sell us, so our folks will likely be eating and drinking for free for a good while to come.”