Herald of Steel

“My lord, Lord Nyantim reports that his losses are too great. So he is pulling back his forces.” Finally unable to bear the losses, the commander of the slingers decided to pull his men back and sent a herald to Faruq to relay that.

A key point of notice here would be how Lord Nyantim had not asked for permission from Faruq before doing this, which was in much contrast to Alexander’s command structure where his word reigned supreme.

But that was natural as Faruq’s army had a much looser hierarchy than Alexander’s.

And it was here the coalition’s drawbacks started to show itself.

“Dammit!” Faruq gritted his teeth and cursed hearing this, but limited himself to only that.

Because he did not have jurisdiction over those forces, and so could only accept their withdrawal, even if he thought it was unreasonable.

Though in fairness, the slingers had truly suffered badly, losing close to 300 of their men, or about 7% of their total force being dead or wounded.

Which might not sound like a lot, but for an elite, taking literally decades to train unit, this kind of casualty was eye-watering.

And besides, most of them had already run out of ammunition by now and had had to resort to using the stones and pebbles dotted around the field as makeshift projectiles.

And that worked to a certain extent, but since these did not have the same range as their lead bullets, the slingers had to move closer to their target, thus exposing them to a greater volume of accurate crossbow fire.

“Dammit. I should not have skipped on the lead bullets!” Lord Nyamtim frustratingly gritted his teeth as he withdrew his force.

Lead was not cheap, and lobbying masses of it towards the enemy seemed to him like hurling money.

And as he had expected the Jahal mercenaries to do all the heavy lifting, he had only bought with him a limited amount of ammunition.

But even that would not have been a problem if not for that accursed weapon, the crossbow.

A thought that Lord Liakit who lead the archers shared fervently with his compatriot, which was expressed by the message he sent to Faruq a little while later after the slingers started pulling back.

“These new cursed bows are too much for my men to handle. I have to save them. My deepest apologies.”

The archers that the man had bought were specially trained, and were used specifically during assaulting walls to suppress the wall defenders while the infantry carried out ladder rushes, and thus losing them in an open field was not sustainable for the lord.

But this did not mean he was a coward either. 𝒃𝒆𝒐𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝙘𝙤𝒎

The man had taken more than 600 losses as dead or seriously wounded, double of Nyantim’s losses in actual numbers, and one and a half times percentage-wise, and was originally still ready to fight.

But when he saw the slingers leave the battle, he figured it was unlikely that this battle would be won, at least today, and thus wisely decided to pull out instead of suffering unnecessary casualties.

When Faruq received this report, contrary to the angry cuss he had let out previously, he only pursed his lips and nodded to the scout, acknowledging he had gotten the report, while his mind was busy concentrating on trying to come up with his next move.

The two armies were now basically evenly matched in terms of number and without a way to take out those new types of archers, Faruq could not think of a solution.

‘Azab tells me that the flanks might be weak. Hopefully we can break through them soon,’ Thus Faruq could only rely on his elite troops to grind through the enemy.

For the young man still held out hope for victory.

But soon a herald came to him showing that the heavens would not permit him that luxury of waiting and praying.

“My lord, the center is buckling. We can’t hold on for long. What are your orders?”

In keeping with the line, ‘when it rains it pours,’ it appeared had Faruq’s troubles got much worse, as the once solid line had started to buckle, and was starting to appear like waves, wobbling and shaking as it smashed against the rock that was Alexander’s infantry.

Finally, the legionaries had managed to make the enemy reach their exhaustion and the stress from the brutal melee to near the peak, and if steps were not soon taken to reinforce the center, it was only a matter of time before it broke and initiated a mass rout.

“….” Faruq gave himself some time to think before trying to immediately answer the man, while internally he cursed, ‘Strange tactic, strange bows, strange weapons, strange formation. Dammit Alexander, you witch!’

The strange tactic referred to the flaming ropes,

The strange bows referred to the crossbows,

The strange weapons referred to the pilum and

The strange formation referred to the legionary formation.

Faruq had certainly noticed how efficiently that particular type of formation was able to change their rows, and it left a bittersweet feeling in him.

Sweet because as a militarily focused man, this new type of formation left his heart marveling at the much better infantry technique.

But bitter because it was being used against him.

While he called Alexander ‘witch’ because he felt the word wizard or sorcerer had a much more positive connotation.

And then, after failing to find any good solution except retreating, Faruq could only lampoon in his mind, ‘This was supposed to be an easy fight. Now even losing with dignity might be hard. Dammit!’

Thus finally a while later he simply said, “Ask all the commanders to meet me. I will decide what to do after consulting them.”

Faruq was ready to order a retreat if no solution could be attained.

“Yes, my lord.” The scout gave a military salute, and a while later, the officers in charge of various fronts of the army saw themselves gathered around Faruq who was situated at the rear of the army’s center.

Faruq quickly and succinctly explained to them the general situation of the front lines, and then turned to them to ask, “So what are your thoughts?”

Faruq would heed the advice of the majority..

“My lord, I suggest we retreat. These peasants are currently like scared rabbits and I have no idea when one of them will start running and others start to follow. Fucking sheep *thoo*.” This was said unsurprisingly by the overall commander of the center army, who was really afraid of an imminent collapse.

Phalanxes usually could not fight for so long without resting a bit, especially not when faced with the kind of unrelenting barrage Alexander’s men were dishing out.

But what was much more surprising was how he spat and degraded the brave men who fought for him, reflecting the popular attitude of the nobles towards their peasants.

And once this opinion was raised, it soon gained traction, as many other nobles commanding smaller parts of the army joined in to express their support.

Because none could see the enemy break before them..

‘Dammit, is there no other way?’ Faruq cursed in his heart.

And this was not because he was ashamed to retreat for fear of being called an incompetent commander.

Instead, it was because if they retreated today, he could see no way of doing things differently tomorrow that would guarantee them victory then, especially when they would have a less net number advantage as of now, for some troops will inevitably be lost during the withdrawal.

“Retreating is an option.” Faruq acknowledged with a nod, and then turned to his mercenary leader with the question, What do you think Azab?”

Faruq was basically asking if this experienced mercenary leader had any alternative ideas.

And fortunately for him, it seemed the answer was yes.

“Young master, I have told you that the enemy’s left flank is the weakest. So what I propose is to gather all our cavalry, and charge down their flank, bypassing the archers to hit them from the rear. Because remember my lord, their infantry flanks are technically empty. The archers are about 500 meters in front.”

The experienced mercenary had the sharp eyes to locate the weakness inevitably created by Alexander’s strategy and was proposing they exploit it.

But the problem with that was immediately pointed out by the others.

“What! If the 5,000 Jahal mercenaries on our left went to reinforce the right, then the 5,000 enemy archers there will be free to attack our left flank. The collapse of our center will be immediate.” They loudly cried, making a very reasonable assumption.

And so the question now rose whether the Jahal mercenaries would be able to swing around Alexander’s force and destroy them before their center would be able to demolish Faruq’s forces.

And it was a gamble that the vast majority of the nobles were unwilling to take, a fact they very staunchly let it be known.

“No! No way. It is too dangerous. We do not agree.” They said in the most clear-cut way possible.

Because if it worked, then all was well, but if it failed, it would be their men, peasants who were needed in their fields to lose their lives, while the mercenaries would be left relatively unscathed.

The nobles would be foolish to agree to such a lopsided tactic.

And so it appeared the group had reached a stalemate.

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