Herald of Steel

Alexander rapidly dressed himself the moment he got the news, donning his armor and kit, before kissing his wife and the three girls goodbye, and then riding out with his bodyguards to the camp as soon as possible.

The cold spring air brushed past him as he completed the short journey without incident, and was quickly ushered inside.

“They have started marching my lord,” Menes was there to greet Alexander around the gates, and he then heard his boss say, “Have the soldiers take their meals. We will move out in an hour.”

Alexander had constructed defensive structures prior to the battle a kilometer ahead of the camp and he intended to face the enemy there.

“Yes, my lord,” Menes was already doing this so, and so soon the pre-battle meals were consumed, and the grand total of 42, 143 people moved out of their camp, leaving only a small rear guard consisting of mostly slaves and servants to guard the camp’s possessions.

And as the cool, relaxing, spring sun shone brightly over the sky, promising the day to be a glorious one, the two armies soon spotted one another, each quickly covering a part of the horizon like the ominous specter of death.

Just the sheer mass of the vast number of men made so much noise as they moved that it seemed to set the air abuzz and scare off the wild animals and birds.

For it appeared there was no force that could withstand either of them.

“It is the heavens favoring us that the Lord managed to know about this attack. If we were unprepared…” Melodias silently whispered as he need not finish that sentence to elicit pictures of horrible carnage in his mind.

And all those who heard his trepidations such as the nearby milliary commanders shared the same thoughts.

“The gods have favored us. Let us pray they will continue to favor us in this battle too,” One of his subordinates clasped his hands and prayed.

Though it had to be said that saying it was Alexander’s great luck to discover the enemy beforehand might actually be not correct.

Because just as Alexander was being praised for detecting the enemy and taking steps to avoid a lengthy siege they believed they could not win, the opposing sides as also blessing the heavens for making Alexander too dumb to make use of his walls.

And in this round, it was Alexander who got played, for if he had just used his sixty thousand (60,000) men to actively defend the city, the attackers would have had to return home with nothing to show for their efforts, for most the present levies would be soon needed in the harvesting fields.

But Alexander did not know the attackers were in such a time crunch.

On the contrary, he believed that with Pasha Djose’s presumably vast food stocks, the siege around the city will be able to be maintained for several months if not years.

Hence he chose to meet the attackers head-on, and inadvertently making his life a lot more difficult and dangerous in the process than it had to be

Perhaps if he had never attacked Jabel, he would have been in an actually better position.

Because it was not like Alexander would not have noticed an army marching toward him till they attacked.

He would have certainly gotten the news when the army would have landed on Hatamum, allowing him some time to prepare. .

And depending on his walls and crossbows holding on for a month would have been a cinch.

But real life was rarely like that, where both sides knew all the information.

No, in the real world, you made decisions based on the incomplete information you have.

And in doing so, sometimes the actions that makes perfect sense to you, might make it seem completely foolish to the opposing side who knows the full details.

And just one example was this battle that was about to start imminently.

“Have the men rest and drink water. And send scouts to determine the enemy’s formation. We attack in an hour,” Faruq stopped his army about 2 km from Alexander’s position and sent out the command.

The men had only marched for one and a half hours, and were nowhere tired, but Faruq still wanted them to be in the best possible condition.

Hence the rest.

While the Jahal mercenaries were sent out to circle and determine Alexander’s troop deployment.

“So those are camel?” Menicus ‘s eyes widened a bit with curiosity as for the first time in his life the aged mercenary laid eyes upon the beast he had heard so much about.

Nimble, graceful, and most of tall, Menicus from atop his horse could not help but admire the magnificent beast and even asked himself what it would feel like to ride that steed instead of a simple horse.

While the group of Jahal mercenaries expertly circles Menicus’s contingent of soldiers, trying to figure out the weak points, their fierce gazes clashing with the steely spirit of the Zanzan troops.

Menicus was not the only one surprised by this, for camels were a new thing to almost everyone here.

And some like Menicus expressed marvel, some surprise, and most produced the primal feeling called fear.

“Men, these are just diseased yellow horses. Do not be afraid! Haha,” And to remedy this, from the side, one of Menicu’s subordinates described the beast in as base and crude manner as possible.

The yellow was from the beast’s skin color and alluded to how humans would look when sick, while the word diseased came from the hump which looked like a tumor, and how camels looked malnourished due to them being skinner than a horse.

None of this was of course actually true, as Faruq’s camels were as healthy as you could get them.

But the rousing cry managed to serve its purpose, as the surrounding men broke into a burst of laughter, diluting the tension.

“Commander, should we chase them off?” Seeing the horse riders circle around them like vultures was not a pleasant feeling and an eager captain (600 men leader) asked for permission to attack.

“No, these are just scouts. Let them do their job,” But Menicus denied it.

Because there was no point in doing such.

Not only were the opposing forces too few and scattered, but they were also cavalry, meaning attacking them on foot would be very hard if they chose to run.

Hence the Jahal mercenaries were allowed to fully check out Alexander’s troop dispersion.

After which they quickly delivered their reconnaissance report to their war council, consisting primarily of Faruq, Ural, and Nibraz.

“The enemy has placed both of their wings ahead of the center, with each side consisting of archers numbering five thousand (5,000), for a total of 10,000.” The head scouts read out the intel loudly, and even gave his reasoning for this, saying, “We are sure they are archers because we have seen large pavises being set up. Obviously, they plan to use this to shoot from cover.”

The mercenary then further continued, “The two flanks have been heavily fortified. There is a wide, semicircular ditch of about two meters around them, filled with sharp wooden stakes driven into the ground to stop them from being overrun by our infantry or through a cavalry charge.”

“In fact, we have seen many more wooden logs being driven into the ground even as we scouted, the peasants using their wooden clubs to push the wood down into the earth and then using a sickle to sharpen the top.” The scout added a bit of extra info.

It seemed the peasants wanted as many sharp stakes as possible to separate themselves from the enemy.

And the scout lastly reported, “The center of the enemy army is placed half a kilometer behind the flanks. There are 30,000 men as we predicted and they are arranged in two rows with no fortifications around them. That is all.”

The scout gave a military salute as he finished, standing in attention awaiting further inquiries.

“There is no cavalry?” Faruq chose this as his first question.

He wanted to confirm this because an army without cavalry was a really sluggish army, unable to respond to quick changes on the battlefield.

“We did not spot any my lord,… except the few scouts,” Came the answer.

They really did not spot any cavalry among the deployed army formation.

“Hahaha, Lord Faruq, this is to be expected. How do you expect a poor brat with a single city to have a cavalry? Victory is ours, haha,” From the sides, one of the nobles tried to give an explanation for this, while sounding extremely pleased.

And Faruq found that to be reasonable too.

For he remembered the meager resources available to Alexander and also the Thesian culture of preferring infantry over cavalry

Thus it was very much possible that Alexander did not have any cavalry.

While in reality, Alexander did have about 1,000 horses, but they were kept in the reserve to plug up any hole in the defense.

And since they were placed at the back, the Jahal scouts failed to spot them.

Hence, another example of working with imperfect knowledge.

And using this imperfect knowledge, Faruq decided to lay out his formation.

“Okay, my lords, here is what I propose,” He began, proposing,

“The Jahal mercenaries will take the flanks, attacking the archers, aided by our own missile units.”

“While the chariots and cavalry charge the center, with the infantry following behind and breaking through there.”

[Note- Troop formation map in comment]