Herald of Steel

Seeing Leosydas’s unconscious body slowly being dragged away, Laykash felt a fire lit under him.

He felt that he could never rest easy for the rest of his life if let this prize slip away after coming so close.

Thus thinking on the spot, Laykash did this.

The mad lad rushed in front all alone, charging straight towards the enemy line, his intention- to get close enough and throw his dagger at the body!

But alas!

How could such an endeavor be so easy?

And as he was dashing in front, he spotted another bulky man stepping up to block his path, a greatsword in hand.

And though he was one of the last ones in the way, that would be likely enough.

Laykash knew that if he got mixed up in the melee with him, the ‘king’ would be dragged off to safety.

The heavens seemed really, really determined to keep Leosydas alive.

And so Laykash did what came naturally to him, as his eyes caught that familiar glint of the shiny armor.

Hence in an inexplicable move, the man suddenly let go of his sword, in an attempt to balance himself, before switching the dagger from his left to his dominant right hand, as then he simply threw the dagger over his shoulder with practiced familiarity.

*Splat*

And from that close distance, the heavy steel blade easily and very accurately hit the enemy man in his throat, piercing deep into him and killing the noble instantly, hence clearing the way for Laykash.

But that victory was a bit hollow given that now the attacker was unarmed.

Laykash could not kill Leosydas even if he got close.

And he knew this.

Which was why Laykash switched his plan to do the next best thing.

Thus, as Amenehraft had never expected it, the half-insane man bypassed all the nobles around Leosydas like a whirlwind of shadows and suddenly lunged towards a bit of space around the leg of the laying body which nobody was paying attention to, and before anyone would understand what was going on, all of a sudden they found that that the helmet that had been there was gone!

To the surrounding men, it simply appeared like if a mysterious, phantom hand had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and taken off with the king’s helmet.

Yes, that had been Laykash’s modified plan.

After he had determined that he would likely not be able to kill the king, he decided on the next best thing and that was to try and steal the very recognisable helmet.

And in that endeavor, the heavens seemed to last favor Laykash a bit, as after Leosydas had been struck down, the men around him had quickly taken off his helmet and thrown it to the side so that they could have a better look at the wound, while also making it easier for Leosydas to breath and cool off. 𝘦.𝘰𝘳𝑔

They never imagined a thief would try and snatch the iconic gear so suddenly as he did this.

Because that was not even in their mind right then.

Their only real priority was dragging the body from the battlefield back to safety and then administering first aid to him, which in this case was trying to stop the bleeding.

And so before these men could even understand what had happened, Laykash had accomplished what he was there for and was instantly out of there.

It seemed that the daredevil had somehow managed to steal meat right from a tiger’s mouth, and then even escape unscathed before anyone really woke up to what had happened.

And reaching his side of the fight, Laykash swiftly climbed back on his horse as he then began to shout and wave the empty helmet around, showing his prize to the crowd.

“Dead!”

‘The king is dead!”

“I killed the king!”

The shrewd man then began to cleverly lie.

And this predictably made one side cheer, and the other side shrink in fear.

After all, the exact happenings at one small corner in a 2-and-a-half kilometer front was impossible to be known with any degree of accuracy for the vast majority of the soldiers.

And so when Laykash swung around the distinct empty helmet as proof of his claim, the item being the only one of its kind in the entire battlefield, the soldiers took that as concrete evidence and easily imagined the fate of its owner.

And so Tibias’s lines finally began to waver a bit, as they become demoralized, while Zanzan’s lines were pumped up with adrenaline and they began to push back.

Then, to make the thing even more believable, a bit later one of Laykash’s subordinates and a close friend of his came to him and suggested, “Laykesh, put the helmet on a fake head, and start passing it around. That will boost our morale even further.”

‘Fake head?’ Laykash was initially a bit confused by the idea.

But an instant later understood where this was going.

“That’s great! Do it.” He thus shouted with a huge grin.

And with that order, sometime after, a dead Zanzan horseman was beheaded by his own comrades, and then his head was made to grace the ornate, majestic helmet.

Before it started being passed along from man to man within Zanzan’s ranks.

“Hahaha, look …look..your king!”

“Dead! The snake is dead!”

“Give up! Your king is dead.”

” Give up! You cannot win.”

And as the ornate helmet and bloody head began making its rounds around the frontlines, the Zanzan soldiers began making crude, and even somewhat barbaric taunts at their enemy facing them.

Many lifted the head high to make it more prominent, some spun it around and others even playfully passed the head between their two hands as if it was a ball, and not an actual, dead human head, that was continuously leaking large amounts of blood.

And seeing this proof right in front of them, naturally the Tibians lost heart.

After all, most of these poor peasants had never seen the king face to face and had only laid their eyes on his ornate armor and magnificent horse from far, far away.

And so for these poor men, that unique helmet in the enemy’s hands was proof enough.

And this was even the case for many who had seen the king.

Because even if one did manage to get a good look at the king by some miraculous luck, it was highly unlikely that he was going to be able to differentiate the head he had seen back then from the head that was in the helmet given the quick speed the item was being passed along the frontlines.

And it had to be this quick as time was limited, and every Zanzan solders want to ‘hold a king’ in his hand.

And even if one of the Tibians could indeed recognize the head as fake, then what?

Even if he were to shout it out, how many would believe him?

Even the nobles in the right flank, the ones fighting the closest to the king were shaken by the news.

Although the men in the immediate vicinity knew the truth, even knowing that it had not even been Perseus in the first place who was struck, the rest of the almost 2,000 men did not.

In the heat of battle, the majority of them were oblivious to many of the facts.

And even when the knowledgeable nobles started to shout, “The king is alive and well. Fight and resist the lairs,”

And, “Keep calm! Do not panic. Everything is alright!” as a way to restore morale, somehow the soldiers began to panic even more.

The words ‘don’t panic’ and ‘stay calm’ in a critical situation always seemed to have the opposite effect, both in this world and also in Alexander’s previous world.

Because the brain seemed to think the opposite way, assuming that if someone if telling everything is all right, it was probably not.

Because then the person would not have to say it.

Thus soon the consensus feeling among both sides was that the King of TIbias- Perseus was dead.

And it was at this point Menes had come to see the severed head being paraded around, and sensing the wind of battle change, immediately ordered a counterattack, additionally even committing his first legion from the reserve to push the enemy back.

And here the attack was a resounding success for Zanzan.

Just like Tibias had destroyed the front rows of Menes’s forces previously, now it was Menes’s turn to return the favor, with his legionaries aggressively attacking the phalanx units, freshly energized so as to be undaunted by any injuries they might suffer.

While the phalangites began to only timidly block and defend, their heart giving out at the thought of their king being dead.

Without the presence of their supreme commander, these soldiers began to see no hope of victory and this faltering morale soon began to make Tibias take heavy losses.

And this was solidly reflected in the casualty numbers.

Whereas previously the casualty numbers only existed in the hundreds, but it soon exceeded a thousand and still kept climbing.

And as the dead bodies piled up, the TIbians began to lose heart more and more, as they saw this as clear evidence of their predictions coming.

Which meant their resistance turned even more lukewarm, resulting in more deaths, thus creating a deadly cycle.

While the opposite side seemed to have transformed into lions, and it seemed that things were finally turning up for Menes.

Victory seemed near his grasp.