Herald of Steel

Given how the battle had been going up until now, no one could have foreseen such an abrupt turn of events.

It was truly unexpected.

Even Perseus was astounded by the amount of destruction just 20 such beasts were able to wreck.

“Those records really did not lie,” He subconsciously whispered as he felt that these legendary animals really lived up to their reputation, able to bring almost divine destruction upon anything that stood in his way.

And so for a while, he simply stood at the back, marveling at the sight of his army decimating the enemy.

While the commanders and officers under him shouted orders to chase the fleeing enemy.

“Go, kill them!”

“Kill all of them!”

And thus soon the orderly battlefield began to turn macabre, as the once solid line of men on Zanzan’s side began to swiftly melt away like crumbling sand dunes, while from the back, death in the guise of horsemen and phalangites gave chase, intent on inflicting the same wounds the enemy had inflicted on them only some time ago.

While Perseus, seeing this tide of his men chasing the fleeing enemy prudently issued this order, “Send only the cavalry to chase the enemy. Keep the infantry back to rest,” as he did not want to risk his tired troops in the long chase.

Besides killing routing troops was the cavalry’s job, and so soon 2,000 armed horsemen started to kill Menes’s men by the hundreds.

While the black general himself was powerless to do anything about it.

Even his reserves were currently of no use as if he did order the 1,000 men to cover the retreat of the soldiers now, the crossbowmen would be all alone with no infantry support and probably be cut down to ribbons even before they could launch their first volley.

Here Menes really regretted using his first legion on the counterattack.

If he had held them back, things could have been a lot different.

But like a single ray of sunshine in this dark situation, all hope was not lost for the general.

Thinking quickly on his feet, Menes felt that though the river to his bank was a significant obstacle, it could also be used as a makeshift defensive structure for his crossbowmen.

So just immediately prior to the collapse of his army, he shouted this to the 1,000 crossbowmen “Quick! Cross the river!”

“And then start shooting from the other side! Cover our men’s retreat.”

Hence the only unit to cross the shallows in order were the thousand crossbowmen, a paltry number compared to the entire army, who were all out of formation and running in scattered groups.

And all these people ran in a single direction, the river, which existed sandwiched between their camp and the chasing enemy.

And so as the people of Zanzan waded into the rivers, their speed significantly slowed down, allowing the Tibian cavalrymen to pick them off using their spears and javelins like they were shooting fish in a barrel.

And to make matters worse for the escaping soldiers, some did not even get to enter the swallows, as that site became too crowded soon.

Hence many tried to go around and try their luck crossing the river through its much deeper parts.

With predictable results.

Many naturally drowned in this endeavor, either from injuries sustained during the battle, from projectiles thrown at them during the crossing,

from exhaustion as many failed to simply find the energy to swim,

from being too weighed down by the heavy armor they wore,

or simply from shock as many a man’s heart just gave out when their scalding hot, sweating bodies were instantly dipped into the still icy cold waters of the river.

All of which resulted in soon that entire part of the river beginning to turn red, as blood leaking from corpses dyed the waters crimson, and dead and wounded men and animals, started to slowly float downstream, turning the entire site into a sanguinary sight.

The place looked like hell had pierced a portal through its way into the real world there, as one side cheered like the devils and the other side howled like sheep being slaughtered.

Many there had seen such sceneries many times in life, but still, it hurt most’s hearts every time they had to witness it.

But this was the brutal nature of ancient warfare, where a single, few hours of battle could decide the fate of tens of thousands of soldiers, and perhaps also the fate of hundreds of thousands if not millions of men, women, and children in the vicinity.

And as Menes saw his men being cut into pieces all along the river bank, the stony-faced man could only take solace in the fact that the river was not too deep and right now relatively calm, meaning wading through it without losing one’s footing was not too dangerous.

And with the crossbowmen starting to shoot volleys of arrows around the other bank, although its effectiveness was questionable, the opposing cavalry was at least forced a little bit to take heed and be somewhat mindful of their attack.

“*Sigh*, we lost!” And as these unfolded, Menes at last could only spookily sigh this, as even now he was having a hard time coming to terms with how abruptly he had lost.

The horses bolting on their own at the sight of just 20 elephants and then a split second later crashing into his own infantry lines was something he could have never prepared for in a million years.

“Retreat!”

But soon his hard, commanding voice returned.

This was not his life’s first loss, and would unlikely be his last.

Now was not the time to lose heart.

Hence deciding to take the loss on the chin, and resolving to accept all the criticisms and accusations that came at him head-on, he ordered his heralds to try and find all the various commanders and tell them to gather whatever was left of their units and report back to their camp as soon as possible.

While on the other side of the river, Perseus issued the following orders to his cavalry, “Do not cross the river. Try to kill and capture as much as possible of the enemy while staying on this side.”

“We do not want to give the enemy the chance to counterattack and then be stuck on the wrong side of the river.”

Perseus knew that though he had won, his army had too been mauled quite badly, and thus he was not eager to incur any more unnecessary deaths.

Thus like this, the day turned to dusk, as the Tibian cavalrymen at last returned to their camp, having worked tirelessly to try and inflict as much damage as possible on Zanzan, while also attempting to round up any stragglers.

And in the following days, Tibias would estimate to have killed around 10,000 Adhanians, in addition to having captured a further 2,500.

With their greatest prize being Laykash himself, who, being present right on the very frontlines had failed to escape and was then hit with a lead bullet on his head from a peltast atop one of the elephants that knocked the rider from his horse, upon which he had lost consciousness as he hit the ground.

And given this sequence of events, it was lucky that Laykash was even alive, and had not been tramped to death by the thousands of fleeing soldiers, the chasing horsemen, or even the rampaging elephants.

And he was captured after some of the Tibian soldiers saw him laying unconscious on the ground wearing his ornate helmet, which indicated his high status in the Zanzan military.

At which point he was promptly taken back to their camp both for his potential intelligence and also because officers usually fetched a very large ransom.

But it was not all sunshine and roses for Tibias.

As Perseus had suspected his losses too had been large, with some even saying it was appalling.

Around 2,000 had died in the initial cavalry pincher attack by Zanzan during its river fording and a few hundred were wounded.

Another 1,500 phalangites had died in the melee, with most of the casualties occurring when Zanzan had successfully pushed back and the cavalry attacked their flanks.

The wounded numbers here were negligible.

And lastly, 1,200 cavalrymen were lost or injured when Laykash shattered their left wing.

Thus the overall result of the battle was as such:

Zanzan : Tibias

10,000 dead 4,500 dead

2,500 captured around 500 wounded

And from this, it could be seen that though Perseus had won his victory against Menes, it had been a hard-fought slogging match, with him still being outnumbered by the enemy forces, at .𝘤𝘰𝑚

37,500 against 35,000.

And this was not to mention he had lost a lot of experienced officers and commanders when his left flank had collapsed.

It was that loss that particularly stung Perseus.

Thus though they won, Perseus’s camp that night was unusually quiet, as the men mourned their dead comrades and recuperated from their losses.

While the same atmosphere existed across the bank, as Menes and whatever was left of his army returned to their camp to rest, tired and dejected.

They were so close, yet so far.

And as soon as dusk settled, Menes called an urgent meeting with his top commanders in his war tent, saying to them.

“We will leave before dawn, under the cover of darkness. And try to reach Zanzan as soon as possible. “