Herald of Steel

As Alexander prepared for his second charge, Grahtos’s one was already taking place.

The difference in speed was due to the fact that Grahtos had two rows of men who could charge, as opposed to Alexander’s one.

And thus, after Grahtos disengaged himself from any melee after the initial charge just like Alexander, he retreated to the rear using a similar strategy to his boss.

While the row immediately behind him got their lances ready to have a go themselves.

“*Arghhh*, Charge!”

The deafening howl of the charge rang again across the battlefield as a second row of heavy cavalry shot themselves towards the mangled lines made up of lightly armored cavalry, who had already been badly chewed, intending to get the job done.

While the Jahal mercenaries mostly just watched with numbed horror, unable to process the fact that the enemy was able to ready itself to deal another such blow so quickly.

Hence, the speed and ferocity of Grahtos’s attack made them unable to respond appropriately.

“Charge! Charge! Charge!”

But finally, as the second row, led by Laykash drew near, at last some order for the Jahal mercenaries to act came.

And it came from a man who was among the most experienced troop in the mercenary, with almost three decades of fighting prowess under his belt.

This grizzled veteran of the force led his camel straight into the mouth of the charging bulldozer, his spear pointed forward just like a lance, his eyes glowing with ferocity and steely determination.

This act was either fueled by up-to-the-ball courage or maddening desperation as he repeatedly roared out the word ‘charge’ while urging his camels to meet the horses head-on as fast as possible.

The expert eyes of the man had figured out the secret weapon of the enemy, their very long spears, which allowed the horsemen to hit the mercenaries before their spears could touch them, thus allowing them to kill the camel riders with almost impunity.

And for the moment, other than avoiding them, the veteran could think of no other way to counter his new weapon.

But the problem was they were in the middle of their formation, surrounded by their allied units on both sides, which in normal times would protect their flanks, but now only acted as obstacles, hemming themselves in.

Avoiding them was not an option.

Not even the enemy was literally just a 100 meters away from them.

Hence, as flight was not an option, then it could only be fight.

Or so was the thinking process of the grizzled veteran, who went along the route of trying to take as many of the enemy down with him as possible.

He reasoned that even if not all of the mercenaries could avoid the long spears, some of them certainly could, and then they could close in the distance to kill the enemy. ｂ𝚍ｎｏ𝚟ｌ.

And there was also the small possibility that even if the enemy killed them, the horsemen would still impale themselves onto the camel riders’ spears, as the sheer speed of their gallop would make it difficult to avoid such a collision, and their momentum would act against them, pushing the sharp tip into themselves.

And with that thought process in mind, he charged with his trusty companion he had raised from a calf into certain death.

But his heroic sacrifice would not be in vain.

Because seeing the lone man ride toward his certain doom invigorated the rest of the soldiers, who screamed,

“Follow Zihhnash! Follow Zihhnash! Charge!”

This veteran named Zihhnash was a very well-respected member of the mercenary, and seeing him take the lead, the others felt their blood boil with the urge to follow.

And thus the rest of the remaining mercenaries in the front rows that had been attacked now rallied and counter-charged Laykash and his men, trampling over their own dead and wounded as they did so, feeling the best way to honor them would be to kill the ones responsible and avenge them, while also wanting to deal as much damage as possible before they died.

In this way, at least in their mind, they could could have some answers for those who went before them.

And as the two sides maddeningly galloped towards like confrontation and one side’s complete demise, it had to be noted that Zihhnash’s theory about this new form of cavalry, which would be later called heavy cavalry, though quite good, was not good enough.

For if all that there was to it as Zihhansh hypothesized, then his plan might as well have succeeded.

But that was not all there was to it.

Because Zihhnash’s theory was incomplete.

For it particularly forgot to take into account the ‘heavy’ part of the name ‘heavy cavalry’, which referred to the heavy armor both the rider and the horse wore to mitigate exactly such attacks.

And it was the last lesson the old, grizzled veteran would learn before he died, who had mistaken the skirts around the horses as simply liveries, and gaudy decorations, utterly pointless embellishments in his eyes.

But these were anything but useless, as it would be proven during the clash.

For when the two sides collided, yes, the charging mercenaries managed to inflict more damage on the charging cavalry than they would have been able to do if they had simply stood still, but the damage they took in return for this relatively small gain was tremendous.

The lances which even grazed the mercenaries had enough momentum behind them to knock them out of their steeds or pierce them so deep that it left gaping holes in them, while in turn any lucky spear managing to close the distance and get a good thrust in was usually stopped by the superior armor worn by Alexander’s men.

As elite cavalrymen, they had been certainly provided with the best of the best armor Alexander could afford, consisting of three tiers of protection, a chainmail, a linen thorax, and a bronze cuirass, all acting in unison to provide the best stabbing protection the technology of this time period could achieve.

Thus while wearing this armor, though one could still get injured with broken bones, and suffer shock and internal bleeding from the raw momentum of the spear and sword strike, it was in fact very hard for him to get stabbed.

This meant that the soldiers would not have a wound and would not bleed, which was a major boon in favor of his chances of survival on the battlefield, for it eliminated nasty possibilities such as infections and gangrenes.

This triple-layered armor which far outclassed the light linen or leather armor of the mercenaries, who wore such to aid in mobility, was not the only thing Alexander’s men had going for them in this fight.

Aside from the obvious better weapon and armor, they had one last secret weapon- the stirrups.

And this small, innocent piece of metal proved why it was called era-defining in this exchange, for when the spears hit the cavalrymen, or the horse-locked bodies against the much bigger, and heavier camels, it was this fantastic little piece that saved the riders’ life, letting them use their feet to absorb the impact, and stay on the horses.

A convenience that the Jahal mercenaries did not have, making them fall off of their animals from the impact, and most times die from the succeeding trampling.

Due to a combination of all these factors, the mercenaries’ countercharge failed miserably, as the heavy armor of the horses and men absorbed their blows pretty well, while also managing to deal the maximum dose of their own strike in return.

Thus it was a massacre, producing a scenery far scarier than the first round because the mercenaries were not charging then, thus they did not pile up one another at the back like they were now.

So, there was probably not a single rider in the whole 5 units who had charged Grahtos’s units without a broken bone or worse.

And within a few minutes, the elite 10,000 mercenary unit had lost 500 of their very best, as the cavalrymen simply mowed through them, crushing anything, men or beast in the way, which also included their leader.

While this amount of loss suffered so quickly stunned the Jahal mercenaries.

To give some context just how large this loss was for them, in the last 6 hours of fighting against 10,000 crossbowmen, they had lost less than 100 men.

And even that was a lot for them, which was caused by the fact that the crossbowmen could shoot further and more accurately than regular bowmen.

Usually, they kept their deads in the mid-tens, which was possible due to their mounted archer role.

Hence, the blow to their psyche over losing 6% of their total force could be imagined.

But the damage was not over, as Grahtos had already readied himself for his second go, now targeting the second row of the formation, and then started his gallop.

“Run!”

“Get away!”

“Flee!”

Finally the elite formation snapped.

After seeing even their suicide attack fail, and the enemy coming to attack them again using the same tactic, a move they had no counter to at the moment, at last even the nerves of steel of these hardened men failed them.

Because no one wanted to just stand still and die, and so when Grahtos initiated the third charge, the mercenaries’ cavalry center broke and ran, which created an opening towards the flanks of the adjacent cavalry units, who too then had no choice but to withdraw.

At last the battle between the cavalry in the left flank was won by Alexander’s forces.