Herald of Steel

It was never clear how Lord Nibraz died.

Some said he died from a heart attack, some said he died in the initial charge, and others posited he died later due to his injuries, being stabbed and stamped to death.

While the truth might be a combination of the three.

And in an almost poetic way, the poor man never really understood how he died.

Because he never understood where all those horses had come from, and so in this way, his death was quite similar to his sons’.

Which was an impressive feat for Alexander who managed to consecutively stealth kill three people.

But at least in some way the old man’s quick death was a blessing, because he did not have to witness the complete destruction of his family’s fortunes or be forced to accept the death of the chariots as a viable military strategy.

Because that was what was happening right now.

With the chariot charge stopped, and the forces still reeling from the pile-up of horses on horses, carts smashing into one another, and general death and chaos all around, they were in no position to defend against the following melee from Alexander’s cavalry, who switched to their swords and spears and started thrusting against the defenseless charioteers.

And they were defenseless charioteers no doubt about that, for they carried no shield, the most important equipment in an ancient battlefield, letting Alexander’s elite cavalry attack them with almost impunity.

For in such close quarters, they could not even use their javelins to strike back and only passively accept the thrusts.

Not no mention their most important weapon, their chariot’s mobility had been stripped away from them, making them basically sitting ducks.

And their situation was about to get a lot worse, as the 5th legion was rapidly trying to maneuver to attack their rear.

‘Quick! Turn left quick! We can’t let the horseboys have all the fun,” The 5th legion commander shouted, as while the other 3 legions moved to restore the solid battleline, they had been ordered to swing around and hit the enemy in the back.

“Javelins!” And very soon a very similar shout to the shout a cavalryman gave before rang out from the rear of the chariots as the 5th legion launched their javelins, before charging at the defenseless back of the charioteers, hacking and slashing at them.

And that was the end for the charioteers.

They were surrounded on both sides with no way get out of this encirclement, their own broken chariots acting as a wall of obstacle preventing that, so the more than 6,000 charioteers simply abandoned their chariots and started towards either side of the battlefield like madmen.

“Run! Run away!”

‘Save yourselves!”

“Fucker! Don’t push.”

“Get out! Get out the way!”

“Argh, help me! Don’t leave.”

“My leg! Help! My leg is crushed!”

“Fight! Let us stay and fight”

“Surrender! We surrender.”

“Don’t kill! Don’t kill. We give up. We give up.”

There were all kinds of voices ringing out in the air, all fearful and confused, with each man trying to arbitrarily decide what was the best way to survive, running, begging, surrendering, and even fighting.

Grahtos and his cavalry spent a while trying to kill as many fleeing soldiers as possible while offering life pardons to those who surrendered.

“Hand on your head! Heads on your head and you live!”

“Lay on the ground! Lay on the ground and you live!”

These cavalrymen shouted as they rode around the small interior space, almost like they were policing sheep in an enclosure.

And those who chose to be obedient sheep were spared, while the disobedient ones were speared and slashed in the back, neck, or leg, with a few lucky ones managing to escape.

As this rounding up occurred, a question soon arose-

What to do with the men lying on the field?

After all, the number of captured men was huge, and allowing them to just roam around Alexander’s rear lines did not sound safe.

Even if they were unarmed, their sheer numbers were a problem.

And besides, this was an active battlefield, with weapons such as javelins and spears laid strew all about.

They could easily pick them up to perform a kamikaze attack on Alexander himself, or try their luck escaping if the opportunity presented itself.

Or just simply cause chaos in the rear and make life miserable for Alexander.

Whichever it was, it would cause a major headache for Alexander if it did happen.

“Come on! Let’s go. Let’s tie these men up!”

So this was where Alexander’s 1,000-man infantry reserve came in,

These men carried with them carts full of ropes, which was common to do in many ancient battlefields because it was expected the winning side would take prisoners, who would then be tied using those ropes and sold into slavery.

And hence Alexander’s 2 reserve battalions found themselves as the cleanup crew, tying the arms and legs of around 4,000 prisoners who lay prone on the ground.

And this was where they were scheduled to stay until the battle ended, which would be when either side routed, or when the day ended.

And once that was done, the thousand men focused their attention on the now masterless horses, most of who were still attached to the carts, and actually simply feeding on the grass around them.

Seeing this, Alexander found the type of nonchalance on display funny, and even a bit endearing, as these beasts gave no fuck to all the chaos and killing going around them and were just having a snack to pass the time.

These were the real chads.

But their snack time was later interrupted when Alexander’s men unfastened the beasts from their carts and started gathering them towards the rear, behind Alexander to secure them.

“Haha, it looks like our horse shortage will be finally over, haha,” Seeing the huge number of beasts recovered unharmed, Grahtos could not help but laugh out loud in delight.

The new industries required a lot of horses to move all the stuff around, and in recent months, there had been a severe shortage of mounts which had hampered production.

But now, it appeared such constraints would be finally relaxed.

As a side note, Grahtos had said this not from the frontlines, but from the rear, as after their initial charge, the cavalry had retreated to the rear to rest and recover.

These men had inevitably suffered some losses, particularly from the chariots’ scythes, which some of them had inadvertently run into, or the scythes had broken off and run into them, and so the rides were busy treating their wounded comrades, or changing their wounded steeds for fresh ones.

While Grahtos had joined back to Alexander to report the success of the charge and observe the battlefield with him.

“Yes, you right,” Alexander too shared the joy of booty with his retainer, and even ordered, “Have some of your men escort the horses to the camp. The frontlines are stable at the moment,”

Given that the battlefield was in a stalemate, Alexander wanted to use the time to secure his prize. 𝒃𝒆𝙣𝒐𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

“Yes, my lord,” Grahtos readily nodded.

There were around 5,000 horses retrieved unscathed by the men, and given that it was pretty easy to make a group of horses follow a lead horse whom they would see as their leader, which would be ridden by a rider, this task could be done by only a few hundred men.

From the initial charge to finishing the clean up took no short amount of time, even when a thousand men were working hand and foot the entire duration, with Alexander estimating the entire operation taking around 4 hours or until midday.

And while this was going on the rear, a very active and real fight was taking place on the frontlines, between the two infantry in the center, and between the camel archers and their missile units against the crossbowmen.

And this was a fight that had started right after the initial charge had failed.

“Ural! What happened?” Faruq was just about to lead the infantry charge when he saw the injured man clutching his chest make it to his camp, and this was the very first question he asked him.

And the inquiry referred to both his health and to his cavalry.

For though Faruq had seen the cavalry charge disintegrate, he was still unsure of the details.

“Ughh…the bastards used flaming ropes to scare my horses. Then the stupid beasts went crazy and crashed with one another. And I got hurt during the chaos ..ohhhh,” Ural tried to keep the report as succinct as possible.

His chest hurt like crazy every time he breathed, let alone talked.

“…..I see,” Faruq could see Ural was visibly ill and thus did not press the man for more information, as he could get the information he wanted from any of the other surviving cavalrymen and thus

instead only urged, “Then get some rest and don’t worry about anything. We will take it from here.”

“Wait!” But Ural did not seem to be finished, as he quickly posed the question he had come here for,

“Where is Lord Nibraz? What happened to his troops?”

The alarm and concern in his voice was palpable, as whether he liked the old man or not, they were still on the same side.

And 3,000 chariots disappearing was no joke.

While Faruq’s face grimaced for the first time since Ural had met the man hearing this.

Because Faruq knew Lord Nibraz and his men were getting slaughtered as they spoke.

[Note- Troop Formation in comment]