Herald of Steel

Through the cloud of dust, Ural could only make out the silhouettes of some of the soldiers standing in a perfectly straight line

This was strange because if Lord had managed to break through, then were should have been a gaping hole along the front line, or at least a spattering of movement as the charioteers hunted down the fleeing soldiers.

And even if the charge was stopped, the chariots should still there be, fighting the troops.

But there was no sign of them.

‘Where are they?’ To Ural it appeared that Alexander had swallowed them up and banished them from existence.

“Is he really a sorcerer?” The young man’s heart shook as he further recalled how his cavalry was destroyed by something he would describe as a magic fiery wheel.

The sight and particularly the sound of it especially affected the man.

Ural was a particularly superstitious and religious man, and the two evidences presented before him made it hard to ignore the possibility.

‘No, don’t jump to conclusions. Let me ask Faruq,’ But the man was at least calm enough to not immediately go down that rabbit hole and instead decided to find the overall commander and get him to fill him in about all the things going around the army.

Besides, he needed to report his status anyway.

And as Ural was making his way to find the commander situated at the back with the supply wagons, he was completely oblivious to the fact that Lord Nibraz had already departed from this world.

In fact, he was one of the first to go amongst the forces he led.

And to understand it all, one had to travel back to the time of the initial charge.

“Hahaha, look, look the cowards as all running away,” Lord Nibraz shouted to the bodyguards riding with him on his chariot as he saw the soldiers move away from their charge. ．𝘦𝘵

To him, it seemed that they had already won.

“Yes. This will put a stop to everyone saying the time of the chariots is over, master…*shoo*,” And the loyal bodyguard buttered his lord with a nod while shooting high arching javelins at the enemy.

The chariot that Lord Nibraz rode on was specifically made for him, ornate and lavish to say the least, it was drawn by four horses and pulled a 4 people cart, which consisted of one driver, Lord Nibraz himself, and two bodyguards who were highly skilled warriors, as well as being very good javelin throwers.

And as if like almost following the lead chariot’s move, many other charioteers also threw their projectiles, be it arrows or javelins at the ‘running’ infantry, attempting to kill as many as they could.

Though in reality most of these shots fell innocently to the ground or embedded into the bronze-plated wooden shields, with only a very few managing to find their target, and even more scant ones actually managing to take a life.

But in reality, for the charioteers, this dismal level of accuracy was actually okay.

Because the missiles were not a chariot’s main weapon.

It was only a secondary weapon meant to soften up the enemy before they charged, which would break the infantry formation, and allow the chariot to run through them, where the chariot’s main weapon would be employed- The scythe attached to the chariot’s wheels.

For the fleeing soldiers, there were few things scarier than the distinct sound of the thumping of horse hooves and the squeaking noise of the wooden wheel, knowing that he was about to get his legs chopped off any moment.

The anticipated pain and the subsequent horror of laying on the ground, fully conscious and bleeding out, must have been an unimaginable experience.

And as they lay there, many must have surely contemplated whether they would prefer to survive this encounter and live as a cripple or simply die to save their family the burden.

It was a horrifying feeling, which was also the primary reason why chariots were such a frighteningly effective weapon.

“We will swing right to destroy the fleeing scums, and then hit their left flank.” Lord Nibraz instructed his driver, intending to hit the undefended rear of the crossbowmen placed on the left flank.

He said this especially to his driver because usually in the middle of any kind of mobile charge since there would be little time to pass the order down the chain of commander, riders would follow those in front of him.

And as Lord Nibraz was leading the charge, this was him deciding where they would strike.

And it was a good plan.

A classic.

But with one small caveat.

A caveat that was going to soon rapidly charge towards him.

For under Alexander’s order, Grahtos had positioned his 1,000 cavalry in a similar way to Lord Nibraz, in the classic 10 by 10 formation along a single file, and as soon as the chariots made their way into Alexander’s inner battlespace, the veteran Sycarian simply let out a fierce war cry, “Charge!”

The trained men did not need to hear anything more, as they only tucked their lances underneath their armpits, gripped the huge, long, wooden spear as hard as they could, solidly pressed their feet against the stirrups to keep balance, and then just started the gallop like they had practiced hundreds of times.

This was the main thing they had been drilled to do for almost the entire last two months and now it was their time to perform.

As the ground shook heralding the world’s first heavy cavalry charge with a lance, the clash between the cavalry and the chariots, the new vs the old, Lord Nibraz’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his eyes surprise and horror.

“What! They have cavalry? How!…*Grrrhhh*!” He cried out, before literally having a mild heart and collapsing on his chariot, his eyes gaped open in terror at what he saw.

The old man was already getting on with the years, and then there was the long journey to Zanzan, coupled with the grief of losing both his sons, one literally minutes ago.

And so when he noticed the presence of the cavalry right around Grahtos’s shout, making it appear that the Sycarian’s voice was loud enough to cross the two-hundred-meter distance, though it was more likely the presence of the huge number of horses that really alerted Lord Nibraz, the sight seemed to be too much for the old man to bear.

And so he simply collapsed.

“Master! Master!” The bodyguards cried in horror, the words containing both concern for the old man, and fear for their own lives.

Because though Lord Nibraz could not see it, they, along with all the men on the front lines paid testament to the fact that around a thousand horsemen, with both men and beasts wearing what to them seemed like decorated livery, which actually was horse armor, seemed to be bulldozing towards them with really, really long spears.

*Shoo*, *Shoo*, *Shoo*,

The charioteers were moving too quickly to try anything like swerving and trying to get out of the way.

And so the only thing they could do was throw their javelins to hurt the incoming mass of man and beast, perhaps hoping their shower of projectiles will kill enough of them to cause them to break off the charge.

But that hope never had the possibility of becoming real, as the javelins had only around 30 meters of range, and all of them fell harmlessly to the ground.

And once the charging cavalry was finally in range, the short 30 meters would take the horses in full gallop literally seconds to cross, even a fit man would run that distance in a few seconds.

So by the time the javelin traveled along its arching path and descended onto its target, Alexander’s cavalry was already smashing into the lightly armored, defenseless charioteers.

*Aghhh*, *Smash*, *Snap*, *Neigghh*,

The initial contact naturally produced a cacophony of orchestral noise, blending in the piercing scream of the man and horse being pierced by the lance, the thumping smashing sound of horses colliding with one another, the crisp sound of the wooden lance snapping, or the chariot itself breaking apart due to the abrupt stoppage, and lastly the scared and tragic death throes of the poor beasts.

Cavalries took less space than chariots and so Alexander’s men were able to focus their attack on a much narrower front, dealing a far greater devastating blow, as each chariot was targeted by two cavalrymen, one targetting the beast pulling the cart, and the other the driver.

And though some inevitably missed, all in all, the entirely to the charge was effectively stopped dead in its tracks as the lances dug as much as half a meter into some of the horses, killing them then and there.

This way many of the chariots in the front row were destroyed, with their riders being violently thrown off the vehicle, and a lot of them dying upon hitting the ground or at least being grievously injured.

And it could be argued that the dead few were the lucky ones, as those that fell to the ground and survived, were soon stamped to death under the cruel hooves of the scared, panicking, beasts who tried to escape this death trap.

While others, both men and beasts found themselves impaled by the very scythes they used to cut people’s legs off, these bulky, bronze, and iron weapons having broken themselves off from the wheel during the violent clash and now whirling uncontrollably towards everywhere, bringing death to anyone who stood in its way.