Herald of Steel

Upon listening to his officers make some good points, Alexander initially considered staying at the foot of the hill for the night.

But then soon thought better of it as he found numerous problems with it.

For one- say nothing of staying outside basically naked in the cold night, without a tent or some kind of shelter, the spring night was not nearly as warm as his men were making them out to be.

If he wanted his men to lay on the cold ground with perhaps their cloak as the bed, it was going to be torture.

Two- such open grounds were a prime invitation for the Heeats to launch night raids. They did not even have time to set up a ditch.

Hence if Alexander followed his officers' advice, he would have half of his men staying awake the entire night on guard duty and the other half catching a cold by the next day, and all of them being very hungry and angry by the end of it.

Not the best condition to be in when fighting a decisive battle the next day.

So rather than taking the safer route and marching back, once again Duke Heeat's imminent arrival put such pressure on Alexander to make him willing to roll the dangerous die.

He succinctly addressed all the men's concerns in an imperious tone, and hearing their lord's unequivocal order as well as the promise of aid should things go south, the officers went ahead carrying out the order all while praying urgently that the operation went smoothly.

...

"Retreat! Retreat slowly!"

"Fall back! Slowly fall back!"

"Get the enemy in flat ground. Let the enemy in!"

"Steady! Keep steady! Do not form gaps!"

"Keep your shields together! Don't be hasty! Take your time!"

Alexander's orders were soon transferred to Menes and Scorpyo who were leading the center and left flank respectively, who then passed it along to their officers.

And thus sometime later, their lines began to visibly 'buckle and give away', with the legionnaires slowly but steadily backing up the hill.

This sight naturally caused a great deal of joy and jubilation among the attacking Heeats as they took the bait hook, line, and sinker, giving chase without suspecting a thing.

The officers leading them cheered with great grins,

"They are breaking! Push brothers! Break them!"

"Hah hah finally! For the general! Come!"

"Show these barbarians what we are made of! Avenge all your losses!"

"Look for gaps! There are sure to be many gaps as these cowards run! Look for them and drive your spear through!"

Naturally, as the legionaries tried to retreat, some of them failed to keep their rank and file in order, thus getting caught outside of their formation and attacked.

These lone fishes were surrounded and decimated.

But generally, Alexander's officers were experienced enough to be able to hold the lines in relatively good shape.

Sitting perched high up their horse in the back, they had the height advantage to be able to keenly detect any significant gaps in the lines and quickly bark out orders to plug them.

While the best of the best did not explicitly even give the order to retreat, but only commanded the legionaries to give away when the Heeats pushed, thus letting them get gently shoved down the hill in an even manner.

For now, Alexander's plan seemed to be right on track.

....

As Alexander's lines were pushed back down the hills under the paradoxical grins of both the Zanzan and Heeat camps, the only side that was not pleased by the development was the Helvati.

"Bah! These useless women! All they are good for is talking!"

Metztil even spat in such disgust once he got the report of the frontline, clearly showing his disdain for the quality of Alexander's men.

"Should we send help?" While one of his close advisers quickly chimed so, very clearly worried about the outcome.

"Leave these outsiders! The more they die, the better! But Metztil only dismissively waved his hand and snarled, finding it beneath him to even consider helping such people.

Just like Alexander had acted before, there was really no love lost between the two.

Since Alexander had simply sat back and watched his men, the chief was more than happy to do the same.

"......" As for Metztil's advisors, they did not quite feel the same way for they thought it would not be wise to abandon their ally like this, if for nothing but their own good.

Once the center fell, the flanks would have no reason to exist.

They also felt that the giant chief was not quite in the right state of mind, letting himself get lost in the frenzy of battle too much where he relished in the feeling of his blade smashing armor, tearing flesh, and snapping bones.

But given Metztil's prestige on the battlefield, none dared to quibble.

There was perhaps no man in the entire tribe who was as skilled or powerful as the chief, so usually whatever he said.. went.

"Right! We don't have the manpower anyway! Let's focus on the enemy in front of us!"

Hence when one of Metztil's supporters voiced this, the others quickly nodded like obedient chickens, more concentrating on trying to defeat their own hated foe.

The trouble for them was what was easier said than done.

Lord Bakerfield had decisively decided to give up on defending the small, constricting town once it was breached and instead taken to the foot of the hills where he could use his greater numbers to more comfortably fan out and push the Helvati using thicker lines.

In this way, the 8,000 natives were forced to fight on rough ground against 12,000 men.

And then soon the situation began to turn worse, as the fierce, glory seeking men found their adrenaline slowly beginning to wear off, making them feel tired and their attacks to lose steam.

And this presented the much more disciplined Margraves with the chance to rally and counterattack, thus causing much grievous injury to their enemy.

In a one on one fight, the Margraves were more than a match for these natives.

Thus soon it became that even if Metztil had wanted to send Alexander help, he was unable to.

In fact, the Helvati might be lucky if they just managed to win that fight on their own.

.....

As the Margraves and the Helvati engaged in perhaps the most brutal melee on the battlefield, at the center, Alexander's theory was soon beginning to manifest.

"There! Quickly.. there is the gap! Follow me!" As the center had moved away enough from the flanks, Remus hastily let out this great cheer, before wheeling his horse personally towards the gap.

The battle loving daredevil planned to lead from the front.

And seeing their commander bolt off towards the enemy formation with nary a thought, the rest of the riders naturally followed suit, galloping towards that mountain pass like a bolt of lightning.

Speed was the name of the game here as they had to hit the flanks before the enemy could wake up to this vulnerability and send men to plug it.

Hence they approached their target with deadly silence, making sure to not make any loud cheers or blow trumpets, thus leaving only the rapid,

*Thud*, *Thud*, *Thud* sound of the hitting hooves to give away their approach.

In this way when the thousand men passed by the Heeat flanks in a flash, so much so that many of the men there did not even understand what they saw, thus catching them totally off guard.

Some even mistook the riders as theirs own, whispering to themselves,

"What the… was that was ours? Did the lord send reinforcements?"

They thought that Lord Parker had sensed Alexander's lines about to imminently collapse and thus sent the two thousand cavalry to pick off the routing enemy, finishing him once and for all.

Hence many of the more foolish soldiers even cheered at Remus's men, not even asking why these 'allies' were moving in the opposite direction.

In the heat of the battle, all logic seemed to have left their mind.

Thus Remus's penetration into the enemy's heartlands was fairly anti climatic, shooting right into the thick of it like an arrow without any problem.

The problem however came as Remus approached the time to turn around and hit their target on the rear, as shouted by one of Remus's riders,

"Commander, the ground here is too rough and the gap too small. We cannot turn!"

Naturally, it took a large area for a thousand riders galloping at quite a large speed to turn and as Remus turned to look at the rocky, inclined grounds, he concurred with his man's judgment.

'Dammit! If we turn to turn now at these speeds, I will break my horse's legs!'

The young man cursed at this unforeseen circumstance, finally understanding why the Heeats had not sent out their famed cavalry to meet them.

There was no way those horses could have charged down such a steep hill without breaking all their legs.

And now a similar problem was facing Remus, forcing the young man to try and think of a way out right on the fly,

'What do I do? Attack anyway? Turn back? Slow down and then take my time?'

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