Herald of Steel

Alexander was certainly pleased by the loyalty displayed by his soldiers.

“Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad all of you are well too,” He replied.

And he was genuinely pleased.

He had half expected many of them to die facing such an overwhelming, and he certainly thought they would be pinned down by them for a long time. 𝒆𝙣𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝙚𝙩

This was because he had no real idea of the kind of damage heavy cavalry could do to light cavalry when the latter foolishly chose to face the attack head-on.

The way for light cavalry to win against heavy cavalry was to outrun and out-maneuver the much slower due to their heavy armor heavy cavalry and perform flanking attacks.

But since the enemy did not do such, the result was the total oblivion of their forces.

But even then, Alexander was surprised by the carnage he was able to wrought with even such a small number of men.

He did expect something a bit like it from reading history, but it was one thing reading something, and it was another completely different thing to witness it first-hand.

So, when even he was surprised by the result, it was understandable that the regular soldiers would be overwhelmed.

But even still, this was not the time and place to be displaying such emotions,

Then noticing the contingent becoming distracted when they were still in the middle of the battlefield, Alexander urged them otherwise.

“Let us shelf such talks for later, The battle still rages on, so let’s get back to our comrades for now.”

The fight was still going on the frontline after all.

“Yes my lord,” Being reminded of this, the soldiers hence soon got back up on their horses and were soon ready to deploy.

And Alexander then gave his next order, “We will join the frontlines now. The battle is nearing its end and we are needed there.”

This was the official reason, though the real reason might be that he did not want to give the enemy another chance to attack him in the back where he was all alone.

Once was enough.

And so soon the 1,600 cavalry moved themselves within 200 meters of the frontlines, ready to assist in the battle after they caught their breath in a minute.

“Hemicus tell the 1,000 detachment to equip themselves with the fire chains and act as the rear guard,” Once in position Alexander then gave out this order, intending to use these men to foil any similar future attacks.

And so, currently, the situation on the battlefield was such:

The left flank still had the 5,000 Jahal mercenaries attacking the crossbowmen, as they relentlessly launched waves of arrows to try and break Alexander’s men.

Just below the crossbowmen, there was the 5th legion facing the left side, placed there to stop any cavalry charge from the Jahal mercenaries, while their flanks were protected by 500 light cavalry.

Perpendicular to this unit was Alexander’s 1,500 mobile detachment, there to respond to any emergencies.

Behind Alexander were the 1,000 men acting as the rear guard with the special fire ropes to deny any cavalry attack.

And in front of Alexander was the 2nd legion fighting all alone against 2 similarly sized phalanx units.

Then in the right flank was another half of the crossbowmen detachment fighting against the slingers and archers.

And at last there was the defeated part of the Jahal mercenaries who were recouping and regrouping some distance away from the battlefield.

“My lord, father has fallen fighting gallantly in battle,” Sunash, the eldest of Azab was the one to inform Faruq of the loss as half of his forces reorganized themselves.

And for a while, Faruq had no comeback.

In his professional life, Azab was an excellent military commander and a reliable partner to go into battle with, while in his personal life, he was the one who taught Faruq everything about war.

Thus the loss hit Faruq particularly hard on both fronts.

And his mind was too much in chaos to think about what to do next, for the aftermath of having to deal with Azab’s loss was something Faruq would have to pay dearly for.

But those were later concerns, as now his pincher attack had been foiled and Ural had run away from the battle, while the enemy strengthened itself against any such future attack.

The same trick would not work twice.

Victory seemed to be slipping away from him like the raging rides of a waterfall, if it had not already slipped away anyway.

And just like the saying ‘misery loves company’, a herald soon came bearing further distressing news, “My lord, Lord Liakit and Lord Nyantim have announced they are withdrawing. Apparently, their men have taken a lot of damage.”

The last statement was a complete lie as the second round of the battle had barely gone for an hour and the casualty between the two sides was roughly the same.

But seeing that Faruq’s plan fail, the mighty, undefeatable Jahal mercenaries retreat, Ural’s men tuck tails and run right in front of them and now that their own flanks were threatened by Alexander’s counter cavalry attack, the two men saw no point in continuing this fight other than to gift Alexander free kills.

Hence after the two men sent messengers to each other, the two lords wisely decided to retreat when they still had the chance.

Though in this case they were overthinking about the danger of their flanks from the enemy cavalry as Alexander had no intention to go out to meet them in battle.

For reasons of their horses being exhausted, them being down to their last lance, and the danger of the still 5,000 Jahal mercenaries active on the battlefield.

But still, just the potential threat of an attack was enough to convince these men to retreat.

Besides, the other prominent reason was that the lords did not think they could win the war.

“…..okay,” Faruq gave an almost anemic reply to the message, fully understanding the reasoning behind the men’s decision.

And then the young man began to see dark.

Because with this move, he had basically lost his chance to win the war unless a miracle happened.

And it was a sentiment shared by Lord Liakit and Lord Nyamtim as well, who relayed it using the same scout in the same message, “My lord, the two lords advise you to retreat. Save as many men as you can.”

“…….” Another long silence followed as Faruq imagined what a loss here would mean for him.

So instead of answering the scout or coming up with a decision, Faruq now glanced at Sunash for advice.

He hoped like his father, the man would be able to provide him with an alternate option.

And lucky for him, the man could.

“My lord, we can pick up the slack on the left flank (Alexander’s right flank). Though we took some casualties, we are still strong enough to suppress those archers,” Sunash sounded very confident, reasoning, “After all, those men have been continuously attacked with arrows and stones from the morning. They must be nearing their breaking point.”

This was true as the men were really tired as logs, their arms feeling like tree stumps at the moment.

And they could barely feel them as they reloaded their crossbow by manually pulling the string up using both hands.

But being tired did not mean they were not eager for a fight.

While it was true at one point they might have suffered from low morale, and showed signs of breaking, things had changed now.

Morale was actually quite high right now, for they were energized seeing their allies rout both contingents of the cavalry units, and they themselves had confidence in them as they were able to make the archers and slingers rout twice.

So if Sunash was hoping for a breakthrough in that sector, he would be disappointed.

But credit to the experienced man, he was not done there.

As he further planned, “And even if the enemy does not break, that will be alright. For if that happens, we can take a few thousand of our men to attack the enemy’s center column. That is now weak!”

Sunash seemed to have a similar eye as sharp as his father to notice that vulnerability, which he explained to Faruq,

“I have noticed the enemy commander sent about 5,000 men from there to the right (Alexander’s left) to protect against another flanking attack, leaving their center column weak.”

“So we will concentrate our infantry and cavalry there to overwhelm and snap that vulnerable part, thus opening the flanks of the other two columns.” Sunash determined.

And then by himself addressed some of the concerns Faruq might have.

“And as for the enemy’s new weapon, I have seen it in action. And it has a major weakness,” Sunash confidently added, before revealing it to be, “Its weakness is that each of the soldiers using it needs quite a bit of space to deploy it effectively as the spinning of the rope needs a lot of free ground.”

“So given how closely the soldiers are positioned in the formation, and them having to deal with the phalanx, the enemy will not be able to use their new fire weapon in this congested space.” Sunash positively assured.

And then finished by saying, “Of course, we can’t charge them, as that would require our infantry to get out of the way which would give their infantry the space to use their weapons. But we can fight from camelback.”