Herald of Steel

The horses in a slow trot, almost menacingly made their way closer and closers, the sound of more than 8,000 beasts (2,000 from Ural, and 6,000 from Nibraz because each chariot was pulled by at least 2 horses, and sometimes even more) stamping their hooves against the ground making the very earth shake with trepidation.

Somehow the slow methodical approach was actually worse than a full gallop.

But why did horses not gallop this short distance?

Because if they had wanted to, they could have easily run this relatively short 1 kilometer.

Because there was a problem with that.

Simply, it was because it was far easier to maintain a solid line by controlling a horse’s walking speed, rather than a running speed, similar to how humans can keep a solid line while walking, but it becomes very hard to do when they start running.

Because everyone walks around the same speed and its easier to synchronize with that, rather than a running speed, which is quite different for people.

In addition to the high chance of the formation becoming scattered if they galloped, there is also the increased risk of horses tripping, stumbling, and colliding with one another in the fast-paced movement.

To visualize it easier, imagine a crowd of people walking, they would appear orderly and there would be little chance of accident.

Now, imagine them running.

There would inevitably be trips, stumbles, cuts and bruises, and large accidents.

The same thing applied to horses, and thus the tactic of galloping only the last one to two hundred meters.

And as these horses approached this critical line, a joyous sight greeted Lord Nibraz..

“Hahaha, look, look, they are running, haha, coward peasants,” Lord Nibraz felt his grief temporarily subside as he seemingly saw the left and middle part of Alexander’s army collapse, possibly running away from the incoming charge.

While in reality, they were not scattering in terror but just moving to the sides.

But Lord Nibraz could not be really faulted for his assumption.

Because soldiers running away from a cavalry charge was the norm.

After all, a man running on a horse with a spear intending to impale you was scary.

And thus, it was actually rare to see soldiers standing their ground and fighting.

“Hmmm, so the experienced troops are on the left, ” While Ural noticed that though a part of Alexander’s army had disintegrated, his part still held.

(Ural says ‘left’ because he is directly facing Alexander, and so Alexander’s right is his left).

Seeing this he at first felt a tinge of jealousy at Lord Nibraz for getting such an easy rout of his enemy, but soon consoled himself that the old man deserved it after what he went through.

Instead, he focused on the part of the army he was supposed to attack and found that those men were still holding their ground. .

This was impressive considering when such a huge collapse happened, usually, everyone would just drop everything and run.

Because all who stood and fought in such a circumstance would be encircled and enslaved, while if you ran, you still had a small chance of escaping.\

And the smart ones knew what to choose.

Seeing those men still hold their ground, and knowing that Alexander was a mercenary leader, Ural easily made the connection that those troops must be the former mercenary soldiers, the hardened troops, and decided to hit them with everything he got.

Which was quite wrong.

Not totally wrong as some of them were veterans of the two battles against Amenheraft, but still very wrong.

But this mistake was not too egregious, as Ural intended to fight them anyway.

Hence, he lined up the men at the two-hundred-meter point, made sure everyone was properly ready, and shouted to his trained men, “Men, take no prisoners! Charge!”

And Lord Nibraz similarly commanded his men to do the same, as the cavalry charge begun.

*Gulp*, while the men at the receiving end of this charge swallowed a dried gulp.

Because facing a cavalry charge was terrifying for any man.

And nothing could be used to better illustrate that than giving a real-life recount of something that occurred when shooting a Soviet movie named War and Peace (1967).

In that movie, a major feature was a charge of French cavalry against the Russian lines.

Since this was before modern computer-assisted special effects, the Soviets used a few Red Army battalions to play the part of French soldiers in the movie.

According to the script, the cavalry was supposed to charge at an infantry square, which would hold fast and the cavalry would break away.

However, when the fully trained soldiers saw the horsemen bear down on them, these professionally trained men all suddenly broke and ran, dissolving the square.

Yes, even in a movie set, where they all knew perfectly well that it was all fake and they just needed to stand still and nothing would happen, actual professional soldiers, some of them even ww2 veterans, still got scared and ran.

And it did not happen just once also.

But a full three times.

And this was the terror of just a fake cavalry charge.

But even that was so much that in the end, the director realized that no matter how much he tried he would be unable to get the soldier actors to stand in the charge of cavalry they knew wasn’t real, was fully aware that it a movie stunt, and that these soldiers used the Ak-47 every day which made cavalry charges against infantry obsolete.

And so the script was changed to accommodate this.

For Alexander, this event perfectly went to illustrate the horror of a cavalry charge.

Because if this was the reaction to a fake cavalry, imagine what it would feel like facing a real one on the battlefield, where one had the real possibility of being cut and skewered like a kebab if he just stood still.

Diapers should come as complementary with the armor kit.

And this was the main reason why so many armies dissolved at the sight of a cavalry charge, and why Europeans loved and feared cavalry so much.

Because facing something like the French heavy cavalry or the Polish Hussars was simply very, very scary.

It was a feeling that had to be experienced to be truly appreciated.

But it would be not fair to give all the credit to the cavalry.

The infantry deserved some credit too.

Because the fact that soldiers and many times even ordinary peasants sometimes did not break at a far worse sight that even ww2 veterans were afraid of went on to provide some kernel of truth to the saying that ancient men were real men and that most modern men were women dressed as men.

A saying that Alexander used to vehemently disagree with before, but subtly changed his mind after coming to this world.

Because it took real men to withstand the gore and horror of an ancient battlefield, where one had to perform vicious acts against his fellow human beings to win, withstand the violet screams and shouts of men dying around, and feel the visceral smell all around, all of which took its toll on the human psyche.

A toll that soon all 96,000 men participating in this bloodbath would have to pay.

And right now, it was the 3rd and 6th legions time to pay, for they saw the black mass of death, neighing and screaming like the scythe swing of the grim reaper approach them, their eyes bloody and crazed, moving towards them in a storm of dust that drowned all the light around them as they bared their intent to not only kill them but destroy their bodies of the face of the earth.

Just feeling the earth tremble at their approach was bowel-inducing.

But fortunately for Alexander, for all the terror that a cavalry charge, ultimately the lines held.

And not only they held, some daredevils even ran forward at the order of their sergeants (100 men leader) who himself ran forward, shouting, “Now! Come now! The enemy is close enough!”

It seemed these people had a death wish.

At least that was what Ural felt when he saw a scant few men charge toward him, like headless chickens.

And he simply smirked.

He had seen people do all sorts of things when they were scared

Some would cry, some would run, some would freeze and others would run forward with a crazed look, maybe to try and confront the fearful object or maybe to just get it done with.

After all, to many a swift death was preferable to an eternity of living in fear.

‘Heh, well let me deliver it to you,’ Ural, placed in the third row said to himself as he sped forward, now only a 100 meters away.

But his confidence abruptly turned to grim horror as he saw what was happening and an instant later heard his horse give a scream of terror he had never heard of before.

For Alexander’s chosen ones, specifically trained to carry the secret weapon had been deployed.

But what was this wonder weapon you ask?

Well each of them carried a long, thick rope, intertwined with metal chains and metal bells and gushed in oil and tar.

Which most importantly were all on fire, whirling above the two hundred or so men, creating a horrifying sight for the horse, as it appeared that there were flaming disks in the middle of the battlefield, the bells and metal chains clanking and juggling like the devil’s laughter.

This was Alexander’s strategy, to scare the horses off the battlefield.