Herald of Steel

Chapter 709 Lord Ponticus’s Counter-Attack (Part-6)

Remus, even facing the threat of imminent death showed no sign of slowing down.

While the men, hearing his shouts were ever more sure that it had to be an enemy, a belief that was reinforced by the fact that the tongue Tibians spoke could be said to be a variant dialect of Thesian.

This was because Tibas and Thesos shared a common heritage, being that it was from Tibias that the region of Thesos originated when people migrated there due to a massive flood a few thousand years ago.

Now, there was a difference between the two languages if one paid attention carefully, but the men among Alexander’s ranks were no polyglots and many simply wanted to put this, frankly quiet bad assassins down and earn glory for themselves.

But just as some of the more trigger-happy men were about to let lose their arrows, they heard a loud shout expressing familiarity burst out from behind,

“Remus! It’s Remus!”

It came from Alexander, as he blurted this aloud in shock and surprise, finally understanding why he had been getting that feeling of familiarity like he had heard that voice before.

It was because he had, but his ears were not used to hearing it speak Azhak.

‘I wondered why that voice sounded so familiar,’ Alexander hence thought as he turned to focus on that tiny voice, the sound suddenly gripping his attention like a clamp.

While the men who were just about to turn Remus into a porcupine upon hearing Alexander’s recognizing tone quickly found themselves confused and were unsure whether they should stop the rider.

And while they were dithering, Remus brushed them, shouting the same words, until he finally slowed his horse down upon entering the thick ranks of men, who quickly gave away to make space for the man on the horse.

“Remus! What are you doing here!”

Alexander came rushing on his horse just as the boy stopped but instead of any greeting, he was immediately blasted with these singular words while Remus pointed at the forest about a kilometer away.

“Alexander! Look! There! Look!” His voice had gone hoarse by now, his face flushed and panicked.

And it was a face that transposed itself onto Alexander as soon as he laid his eyes on what Remus was pointing to.

As did many others who too were curious and turned their head to look.

All felt their eyes shrink to the size of a needle as if they were pricked by the most unbelievable sight they had ever seen.

There he was, Lord Ponticus and his ten thousand, the dimly lit torches revealing only their faint silhouettes, while the moonlight glinted off their raised spears, making them almost appear like an army out of a fairy tale.

And these mythical soldiers seemed just about ready to charge. 𝗼𝐯𝐞𝐥．𝐜𝐨𝗺

*Trumpet*, *Trumpet*

Scratch that, they had started charging.

At Lord Ponticus’s sounding of the horns, thousands of eager men could be seen pouring out of the dark forest, shields locked and spears thrust forward, the sounds of their heavy yet fast footsteps reverberating around the entire battlefield.

“Haah! Haah! Haah!”

Their cheers almost shook the sky as they rapidly closed in towards their unaware enemy and being only a kilometer away, it would take them less than ten minutes to make contact.

‘Fuck!” And seeing this, Alexander was so overwhelmed that he had the mental capacity only to mutter this.

“There! That’s the signal! Charge!”

And things only got worse for him when upon hearing Lord Ponticus’s signal, Lord Theony too initiated his attack, thus starting the two-pronged, pincher attack.

It was only at this moment that Alexander was finally able to understand the trap he was in, and for a brief while, Alexander was so caught off guard that he even did not know what to do.

His head felt blank and his heart hollow with fear, as if the grim reaper had plunged his icy, cold, skeletal hands into him, grabbing it in his palms and was just about to squeeze it, turning the organ into pulp.

The sickle of death seemed to be all too near Alexander.

But his name had not yet been written on the Book of the Dead.

The grim reaper was yet to harvest his soul.

He still had a chance.

Because Remus had given it to him, a tiny, tiny chance to live.

His only saving grace was that he had gotten a ten-minute early warning.

‘Dammit. The prey’s been alerted!’ And it was also this that had caused Lord Ponticus to sound the trumpet for the attack prematurely before he was fully ready.

He would have much preferred to advance silently as far as he could before blowing the horn, thus not letting the enemy be aware until a spear went through him.

And he was actually confident in being able to do that, as the battlefield was usually so noisy, even ten thousand men marching towards one could be hidden if one was not properly paying attention, especially if one’s back was turned towards the other side.

But that plan was now foiled by one rogue rider.

Being at the very front, Lord Ponticus was lucky enough to clearly see the exact moment Remus had come running in panic towards the Zanzan rear, the clear, moonlit sky letting the veteran military man even pick out how the rider’s arm was pointing towards him, a signal he could tell what it meant even with his eyes closed.

He did not yet know how this had happened, but he clearly understood that the torches and the noise they made had given their positions away.

So he cursed,

“Darm! We have been noticed! But how! Why is there even a scout patrolling the rear at this time!’

Seeing Remus, Lord Ponticus had primarily chalked up his revelation to bad luck.

Because he was sure he had managed to keep noise to a minimum, and the thick undergrowth had soaked up all the light from the torches.

But this was actually very wrong.

Because for all his meticulousness, Lord Ponticus had forgotten to account for the soldiers around the siege works.

And it was not known exactly why.

Perhaps he thought they would be recalled back to join the main forces.

Perhaps he thought they would be busy attacking the wall defenders.

Perhaps he thought those forces would be squarely facing Lord Theony like Alexander was.

Or perhaps he had simply forgotten about them all altogether.

No matter the exact reason, it was a fact that Lord Ponticus had completely discounted them, thus leading to his premature reveal.

Thus he sent death glares towards Lord Ponticus and if looks could kill, Remus would have died a million times over.

But unfortunately for Lord Ponticus, he did not possess the power to kill Remus with his eyes only, and so seeing the horsemen inform the enemy of his whereabouts and with ripples starting to appear around Zanzan’s rear lines, he feared the worst, he feared the bird might be alerted to leave the coup.

So he hastily blew the horn for the flanking attack even though only his front echelons had managed to form up, while his rear lines were still in the process and thus in disarray.

By now, the old man would only hope against all hope that he would be able to catch Alexander before he ran.

‘Dammit, I should have bought some cavalry,’ And while the phalanx units moved as quickly as they could without breaking ranks, Lord Ponticus still felt the speed to be too slow, and regretted not bringing any cavalry with him.

Of course, he had good reason for not bringing them, as moving horses through a forested hill at night was too burdensome.

They could trip and break their legs, the animals in general did not like moving through darkness and needed to be regularly coaxed, and lastly, they made a lot of noise, so if there was a large number of them, they could alert the enemy to their position.

It was due to these sensible considerations that Lord Ponticus had foregone that ability, instead choosing to come here with his most elite ten thousand.

But that decision was also making him regret it now, especially as the enemy commander was on horseback, meaning he could run at any time.

Whereas if he had a cavalry force, he could have sent them ahead to start skirmishing right now and likely prevent him.

Hence the brief ten to fifteen minutes felt like ten hours to him, for oh how he wished these men would march faster.

“Alexander! Into the camp now!”

While in the opposite camp, upon seeing the trap closing in, Hemicus was the first man to beak out of his stupor and shout such toward Alexander.

The camp was only a few hundred meters from here, and on horseback, they would be able to make it in less than thirty seconds.

And once inside, with the defenders there, as well as the army stationed outside, they would have a much greater chance of repelling the enemy.

This to Hemicus sounded like the best course of action.

“No!” But Alexander actually rejected this, knowing if he were to leave the battlefield, his chances of taking Thesalie would leave with him, the army scattering upon seeing their commander run.

“We attack! Follow me!”

So Instead Alexander wanted to charge the enemy infantry head-on and smash it to bits.

But the question then was would he have the time to form his lines?

The enemy might be too close!