Herald of Steel

Chapter 808 Battle of Sissilpond Ridge (Part-5)

Melodias’s profusely thanked Gaia that the enemy commander had chosen to rush up the hill with his phalanx, thus presenting him with this once in a lifetime opportunity to win the battle.

And to capitalize it, he ordered his men to hit hard and hit fast, and to show no mercy.

Now, this thinking that had Petricuno not rushed up the slope and thus lost cohesion with his force, but instead had slowly approached with methodical precision the battle would have been over, was overly simplistic.

Because if the mercenary leader had indeed been too careful, his advance up the slope would have been really a crawl.

And that would have given Melodias ample time to spot and locate him.

Then he would have had options.

The simplest one- he could have charged down the hill and taken the fighting to them.

With the high ground on his side now, the legionaries would not have their movement restricted like Menes’s, but instead, it would be Petricuno’s men that would be suffering, unable to move freely for the risk of losing cohesion.

Hence even if the phalangites were bunched up together, the constant harassment and attacks from the nimble legionary formation would either cause them to finally lose their patience and chase after these units, thus dislodging and scattering them and opening up new opportunities for Melodias’s men, or they could simply sit there like a duck and endure the hits and jabs directed at them, knowing it was only a matter of time they broke.

Of course, this would still be quite a risky move on Melodias’s part, as Petricuno literally outnumbered him two to one.

So it was also highly possible that Petricuno would simply be able to muscle through the legionaries, absorbing the casualties nevertheless and simply drowning his enemy with sheer numbers.

Thus, instead, perhaps Melodias could have instead contemplated hitting Perseus’s defenseless flank, hoping to rout the already tired men who had been fighting for hours before the slow Petricuno could catch up.

And if he was successful, then the newly relieved Menes could join forces with Melodias to conduct a two pronged attack on Petricuno, destroying the two separate armies one at a time individually.

Or lastly, Melodias seeing how the winds were blowing, might have decided to ask Menes to retreat from the battlefield, as he acted as rear guard to prevent Perseus from chasing them.

If that had happened, the battle would have turned into a tie, as the two men upon reaching the foot of the hill could have used to defenses around the camp to tire the enemy out, and then decided their next move.

Though it was more likely that the battle would not even go so far, as neither Perseus nor Petricuno would have wanted to go down that steep slope and expose their loose formations to a counterattack.

But for better or worse, the rivers of fate decided to forego all those possible streams.

Instead, the tributary that it chose to flow through was one where Petricuno was rash, and one where Melodias capitalized his chance for a deadly charge downhill.

And when the legionaries came in range, throwing their pillas to neutralize many of the shields of the phalangites, before swerving past their bristling pike to hit them on the sides, a terrible bloodbath began to bloom.

The heavier than usual sarissa wielding phalangites found themselves to be even more unwieldy than their regular counterpart, enabling the legionaries to freely attack them without the fear of retaliation leaving them with grievous wounds and producing devastating losses.

“Hold men! Hold”

“Turn around! Face the enemy”

“Join up! Join up with the nearest formation”

“Bunch together! Bunch together so that they cannot get in between you.”

“Help your comrades! Go help them.”

And facing these attacks, the officers commanding the phalanxes were unable to form a coherent strategy, with each giving his unit a command that he thought was the best but failing to take the overall situation into account.

All this meant that as each formation tried to do what they thought was best for them, many got in each other’s way, sowing chaos and allowing Melodias to strike them in their most vulnerable places.

This way, even though Melodias was only half the size of his opponent, by picking out these individual units one at a time instead of facing the entire army at once, he managed to surround and eliminate many individual phalanx formations, making the mismatch spectacularly bloom.

Petricuno could see many of the individual units encircled and on the verge of collapse.

He knew that if these men ran, seeing their example a cascading avalanche would follow.

But even though he knew it, he did not seem to know how to stop it, while his subordinates came to him shouting as such,

“Commander! Retreat! We must retreat!”

“Captain, we are unable to hold. Send reinforcements.”

“We have lost too many men. Many are starting to run. Help!”

Most of these pleas were from units placed at the very front echelons and in response to them, Petricuno at first told them to try and hold as he tried to gather those less unit affected in the rear to mount a comeback.

He was not going to lose to Alexander that easily.

And given the advantage he enjoyed in terms of the sheer relative mass of his army, it meant that although he found himself in a precarious position, the opposing general had been unable to deal the knockout blow to him.

Perhaps Petricuno could not turn the result around in a single stroke, but he could definitely try and slow or even stop the collapse.

And then perhaps even drag Melodias into a long grinding fight, preventing him from going to the aid of his partner on the other side.

If Petricuno could do that, it was very likely that Perseus would break Menes and the battle would be won.

The expert mercenary leader, even when facing such a dire situation did not lose heart and could accurately find his winning condition.

Though of course, it had to be said that none of this presumed tactic was guaranteed.

As always there were caveats.

For instance, it was unknown if the front lines could hold on until he could get the required forces ready as it was common knowledge that making an army do anything except advancing straight ahead was a major pain as the simple size of the organization made any complex maneuver painfully slow. 𝘳.𝑐𝘰

A fact that could not be more true more for Petricuno with the disadvantageous terrain, and his immovable phalangitess.

So he would need quite a while to get ready.

And in the meantime, if those men in the frontlines ran, well it all be over before Petricuno could even begin.

Additionally, it was also unknown if Petricuno would be even allowed to gather a large enough, as the enemy commander, perhaps recognizing the build up might choose to send reserve contingents to break them up before they could become a threat.

And lastly it was even unknown if Petricuno simply had the ability to get all the men under his control.

After all, the active battlefield was quite large and his units haphazardly scattered in various directions.

To send accurate messages to them, have them turn according to his instructions and then link up needed impressive communication skills and a robust chain of command.

Something that Petricuno was certainly not blessed with.

After all, remember, just how hodgepodge of a forces his own native ten thousand 10,000 were.

Although he was nominally their leader, controlling five thousand, 5,000 men, the rest were a chaotic patchwork of various Thesian mercenaries and city state levies, all with their own command structures and thoughts.

These people might follow him into battle when things were looking up, but now that things had turned dire, all these small commanders should have only one phrase in their head- ‘Every man for himself.’

Petricuno cursed each and every one of them by name thinking so.

But these were not his only concerns.

For aside from 8,000 men currently under him (2,000 of the peltasts were given to Perseus), there were also 6,000 Adhanians from Manuk and 2,000 of the mercenaries provided to them by the Kaiser Family.

These two factions certainly did things their way.

Who knew how they would react to Petricuno’s order?

Who knew how much zeal they had in participating in this fight?

Who knew if they were thinking of simply cutting their losses and running?

Many such doubts swam in Petricuno’s head as he pondered the dilemma.

But he would never get to find these answers.

Because he would be in fact one of the first ones to run!

For as he was in the midst of trying to patch his formation some way he could, a very simple message was delivered to him by a breathless messenger,

“Commander! Petretus! Petretus’s unit is in trouble. Please send help!”

By itself, this was nothing new, as Petricuno had been inundated by similar requests for close to half an hour now. 𝑖𝘦.𝒸𝘰𝑚

But to the specific man, this was very special.

And the order he would give to rectify this could cause the rout of his entire wing.

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