Herald of Steel

Juminus, during his efforts to organize the defense to his horror, found that neither the manor nor the workshop’s storage had any spare shields.

Sure the two places had a lot of weapons like bows, quite a few spears, swords, etc.

But unfortunately no shields.

And the reason was simply that shields were neither made here nor much needed.

It was envisioned that in the worst-case scenario, the walls of the manor would act as their shields, with the bodyguards holding off the attackers using choke points inside the mansion for long enough until reinforcements from the city could relieve them.

So in such a case, it was assumed that a good number of crossbows and large stocks of bolts were more important so that even the servants could be equipped with them and shoot down on the enemies through the windows and verandas.

Hence, only the bodyguards were given the large wooden shields, with only a few spare ones kept in storage, mostly for practice purposes.

All these shields had been of course given to the men at the very front, but that still left a lot of the infantry without this basic tool.

And while faced with such a situation, though basic improvisions such as using a heavy wooden plank, a large metal pan, or any other large solid object to hold in front of oneself were possible, the imminence of the attack made such things in such as a short time frame impossible.

Even something as simple as a ditch, which was standard procedure to do could not be dug due to the time constraints.

Thus Juminus simply hoped the concentrated arrow fire would be enough to halt the enemy until properly equipped units from the city could come to replace them.

But this kind of wishy-washy thing was certainly not enough for Cambyses.

Juminus might be willing to recklessly gamble with his life, but Cambyses would not.

So she sought to find a solution to the problem, to give something, anything for the frontline soldiers to defend with.

And thankfully she found it quickly.

“There! Move the carts forward! Use them to make a makeshift barricade.” Cambyses shouted to Juminus as she proposed her idea, “The soldiers can then stand behind them and use them like shields,” she reasoned.

And hearing this Juminus felt like slapping his head for not being able to think of something so simple.

‘Darm! The urgency of the battle must have eaten my brain,’ He felt like crying as using the wagon as a defensive structure was an age-old trick.

So, upon getting Cambyses’s orders, the man ordered without any delay for all available carts to be moved in front of the lined-up troops, and soon the drivers did just so, leaving their carts behind after detaching the horse or mule pulling it.

“Give me one of those horses,” And while one of the drivers was leading his horse back up the hill, the large beast suddenly caught Cambyses’s eyes, and so ordered that man to leave his beast behind.

A command the man almost fell to his arms and knees to obey.

And once upon the beast, though it had no stirrups or heavy a saddle, Cambyses found this pack animal not too hard to ride, both because it was a domesticated beast, so much different from a warhorse, and also because she had been taking equestrian classes the past six months.

So once atop the beasts, she very comfortably urged the beast to go in front of the frontlines, where she gave a last-minute speech.

“Men! The enemy before you is someone you have already faced. And someone you would have defeated if not their elephants.”

“Now, they have no elephants. So you have nothing to fear.”

“You have all heard the loud bang from before. It was goddess Gaia’s divine wrath! To aid her champion in battle.”

“That means the gods are with us! You fight with the help of divine emissaries!”

“So slay these men before you without fear. Or lose your homes, your families, your lands! Ahhhhh!”

Cambyses finished her speech with a loud triumphant hurrah, and the men naturally replied with an even louder cheer.

Hearing Cambyses’s speech and more importantly, actually seeing her filled the 500 or so men with fighting zeal.

Most of the men conscripted to fight here lived around the manor, and so had at least once or twice seen their lord’s wife.

Thus, seeing her present with them, ready to fight, instead of running away to the temples was a great morale boost to many, especially the male slaves who had been simply handed a weapon, any weapon, and then told to go and fight.

As such many men began to feel like martyrs.

While in the meantime, no soon had Cambyses finished her rousing speech that Perseus was starting to make his last strides towards them, with even some of the enemy’s faces or more accurately their shiny helmets started to become visible under the light of their torches, as they seemingly rose out of the undergrowth.

The clash was imminent.

And seeing this Cambyses regretted a bit that they could not get a bit more time, as they were unable to barricade their flanks with the carts too.

But they did the best they could, and now it was time to put the mettle to the test.

So she wheeled her horse to the back, and

“Shoot!”

With this order, the 300 archers arranged in three groups began to let go of their arrows like their lives depended on it.

Now, these groups of men did not fire the arrows like seen in Hollywood, where a commander would give the iconic three-worded commands,

“Notch!” where the entire army would align their arrows with the bowstring,

“Draw!” where the entire army would simultaneously draw their arrows and hold this heavy bow taut for a long time, and after taking a wide lens shoot of this, lastly would come the order,

“Shoot!” where the entire army would all at once let loose their valley.

Now, Hollywood did this for the theatrics.

Because launching a mass of arrows together looked much cooler than an uncoordinated haphazard effort.

That was not at all how it worked in real life.

One was because holding a bow, especially the kind of relatively heavy bows the archers used, for any period of time would be very tiring.

Two was because not all bows were equal.

There were differences in ranges a bow could shoot at due to the wood used to make it, or how it was treated before manufacture, or even the kind of string used.

So if everyone was made to shoot at the same time, some arrows would fall short wasting that shot, while others would feel they missed getting off an extra shot.

The third reason was tied to the second, being that each marksman’s individual skills played a large role in the range of the arrow, like how an expert archer would adjust his posture or even the direction of this bow during shooting to compensate for wind speed.

And lastly was the type of arrow used, as not everyone used the same type of arrowhead.

Some used needle bodkins designed to pierce armor, some used large, serrated heads to tear the flesh, and some used the standard head giving them a balanced shoot.

All these reasons meant that once the enemy got relatively close enough, the commander would give a general command to shoot, and then each of the archers would start letting off their arrows based on their judgment.

And it was with one such command from Cambyses that the first volley of arrows was sent rocketing towards the Tibians who were about 200- 250 meters away and were being personally led by Perseus himself.

It seemed in the fifty-fifty of choosing between the roads, Perseus had won.

And the king seemed to become aware of his prize when he heard the loud cheer following Cambyses’s speech,

‘Sounds like there are a thousand men, It has to be something big!” Perseus was still not sure if the manor was truly ahead of his, but his ears were experienced enough to tell that there had to be around a thousand men guarding it.

And though he was wrong by a factor of two, still, being able to determine how many enemies there were just based on the sound that even had some echoes to it, was still very, very impressive.

It truly went on to show that Perseus was that good a military strategy.

So, reasoning if anything a thousand men would try to defend, it would be the lord’s house, the king urged his men to march that bit quicker, for he was that eager to capture his prize.

*Shoo*, *Shoo*, *Shoo*

But it was just then he was greeted by a barrage of arrows whistling through the air as they made a low humming buzz.

“Argh” .

“Urgghhh”

“Ahhhh”

And the first volley, completely silent and fired with a warning managed to actually wreak some havoc on Perseus’s lines, with quite a few men falling at this.

“Shields! Shields!”

“Get in formation and raise your shields.”

And at once this command almost instinctively rang out, though not before a second and a third volley came to greet them.

‘There really are a thousand archers atop!’ And feeling this arrow storm, Perseus became convinced of his number.

Though the actual numbers of archers were only one-third of it, with the instant bow users being half of even that.

But that seemed to be enough.