Herald of Steel

?From his elevated place near the ship’s wheel, Kazid was able to quickly spot the state of Remus’s men, and the sore sight stung his eyes.

Laid strewn all about the deck, in dotted groups of two and three were many of his comrades, their leaking blood and gore splattering the wooden deck in a dreary, rusty color, the fresh deadly wounds they had over the places proving themselves to be a macabre sight not even the skies to behold.

Most of the men were already dead or very close to it, with only the faintest of the twitching of the finger or perhaps the gentle, almost imperceptible swaying of the chest betraying their lively state.

Looking at Remus’s deck felt like looking at dollops of blue paint scattered on a wooden canvas, from which oozed a deadly, blackish liquid, tainting the drop and the life held within.

“Bastards!” Kazid could not help but instinctively spit out this small curse with gritted teeth, his eyes quickly turning furious.

Thus he instantly turned to order his men with a fierce gaze, “What are you waiting for? Go! Make these bastards pay! An eye for an eye! A life for a life!”

Immediately came the shot of a loud chorus of hurrah, followed a second later by the blistering shower of arrow fire, as the archers let off their very first volley of the day.

And thus soon the momentary still air once again began to wheeze with flying arrows, deadly javelin throws, and energetic shouts of legionaries eagerly jumping onto Lord Kite’s ship to get a piece of the enemy.

The counterattack had thus begun, thus starting round two of the battle.

As Kazid launched his attack, Remus and his group were finally given their much need respite, with the Heeat family soldiers leaving them alone to go instead fight a bigger fish.

For the surviving men, watching this black tide recede from them felt like watching the sun rise at dawn to drive away the cold and darkness, and they produced an eternally long sigh of relief, before letting out joyous cheers,

“Heh heh, the gods favor me. Gaia favors me.”

“Whew! Can’t believe how close that was. Father nearly thought he was a goner.”

“Dammit! That Alexander really made us wait for it, didn’t he?”

“Hahaha! That’s right! Could they have not cut it so close?”

“I am just glad to be alive. I just bought a sexy minx a few months ago and still haven’t gotten to even enjoy her. Bah! Damned if I go without fucking her.”

“Those brats on the other ships better give these bastards a good thrashing. They killed so many of our brothers.”

“Right! Let’s go, I will personally go slaughter all of them.”

It was like this that the surviving men tried to lighten the grim reality of the state of their formation

Now, while most of the men turned thankful to the gods for this close escape or bellicose for wanting revenge, there was one man who was less than over the moon about all this.

And that was Remus.

This young man only produced a much more glazed, almost profound look.

The reason being that it was only now, without the constant pressure from the attackers that he was beginning to wake up to the scale of the losses they can incur, and it broke his heart.

Remus had of course seen the sanguinary sights that lay before him many times, and many times, even much worse.

But perhaps what set this time apart was how close it was and how primal it all felt.

Usually, in a battlefield, Remus would be on his horse at the very back of the formation, constantly shouting and barking out orders, but not taking part in the fight itself.

Thus normally, there was not that tangible connection to the extremely bloody affair.

However here, he had fought literally shoulder to shoulder with his men, with his friends, some of them were even his lovers, shedding sweat, tears, and blood.

And now so many of them were dead.

The realization hit the young twenty year old hard.

So much so that whereas the surrounding men in his group let out great cheers of jubilation and applause at the sight of the reinforcements resuming the old fight, Remus could muster neither the energy nor the will to do so.

Instead, his eyes lost much of their usual luster and he let out a small sigh, before quickly following it with a thin, grim smile, “This is war!”

This small sentence was uttered with a profound weight to him that betrayed its short structure, as Remus suddenly felt something bloom and grow in him.

Up until today, the young man had never really grasped the true weight of what it meant to go to war.

Remus usually quite liked to go to war, finding everything about it exhilarating.

Whether it be the sight of the two armies clashing, the noise of the swords clanging, shields bashing and people shouting, the spilling smell of sweat mixed blood, and even simply the rush of galloping across the battlefield on his horse, zooming past all the enemy and reaping their lives one after the other with his trusty swords- it all felt exhilarating to the boy.

To the point, any threat of potential injury or even death seemed completely inconsequential to the drunk with joy boy.

Even the tiresome marches did not feel too harsh for him, as he liked the exercise, as well as the banal but funny banter they would have on the way.

And he had thought his days would tumble on just like that, in blissful ignorance.

But he was clearly mistaken.

Today it showed that wars and battles had real, unchangeable, real life consequences.

Remus of course knew about it before. But only today he was understanding it.

And having lost so many people he knew in the blink of an eye just like that, caused the realizaiton to really hammed itself in.

Thus as the counterattack for Kazid began, the exhausted young man suddenly plopped down on the deck, sinking into a pond of self reflection, while being happy to let Kazid take control of the fight.

“Darn it! Not this again!”

Back on Lord Kite’s ship, facing the torrential hail of arrow fire once again, Lord Kite’s men groaned as such.

It was already hard to finish off one group, and now they had to do it again.After they were already so bruised and battered?

Not a single one of them was thrilled at the prospect.

Especially given that up until just a few moments ago, all of them had been on his toes rejoicing the fact that the battle was over.

It had been a brutal fight, but finally, with their large numbers, better experience, and a little bit of luck, the curtains were closing in.

Only to be thwarted at the last second like this.

The disappointment and sense of loss quickly made all the men’s hearts feel heavy and morale suffered heavy loss.

But what could they do?

The order had come from above to continue fighting, and none of the officers dared to suggest anything otherwise.

Such was the taboo of the word ‘retreat’.

Because they knew their mission was to reinforce the important Phyrros Island, and losing it without even fighting for it was not an option.

Lord Kite would have them court martialed.

Thus even though they knew their men were tired and battered, the officers still had them line up in new formations and soon another round of fighting started with these fresh legionaries.

As for how Lord Kite intended to win this engagement against this lively group, all of whom seemed very eager to avenge their fallen brethren, well that still remained to be seen.

Now Alexander’s addition of two hundred reinforcements was certainly not enough to win the legionaries the battle decisively right there right now.

No.

But instead the arrival of Kazid’s fresh new troops worked more like a counterweight and rebalanced the scales towards a much more balanced fight, quickly stabilizing the situation across the battlefield and making it a much fairer fight

The new ships were able to ram, board, or even just harass the enemy who had been on the tail of the other ships for so long, thus relieving much of the pressure on the old troops.

Hence it was like so the tables here became flipped, as it was now Alexander’s reinforcements who were doing the attacking, throwing hooks, laying gangplanks, and charging onto the enemy’s ships while being supported by arrow fire from the archers behind.

The concentrated fire of crossbows and Instant bows worked as marvelously here in offense as it had done at other times in defense, their great and powerful shots working wonders to disrupt the lined formation of the enemy who were all lined up and preparing to meet the legionaries on the decks.

But now, under the threat of such powerful bows, many had to recoil back, thus letting the heavily armored legionaries safely aboard the other ships, where they could work to expand the beachhead.

And it was like that the battle soon entered its second phase, one that promised to last a few more hours at the very least.