Herald of Steel



Seeing the legionaries unable to climb up the hill and take the point, Cambyses began to think of an alternative avenue of attack.

And soon the way she had lost her manor came to mind.

A memory triggered by seeing the manor that she lived in, that she liked so much being up in flames and roaring with crackling fire and smoke right in front of her.

And as she did, her mind connected the dots to remember that there were other ways to reach the manor via the cement plant too.

Particularly the route used by the workers to take the cement clinkers from the kilns located in the southern part of the city to the crushers via the western district.

So attacking the manor via that route was certainly viable.

And as she came to that conclusion, the lady also could not suddenly feel a cold, freezing chill run down her spine.

Because she just realized that way of attack, she also realized just how lucky she had been.

Because if Leosydas had chosen to drive his troops into the city via that route, bypassing the manor, instead of coming to help his king, then Zanzan would have been most likely lost.

Because with his 6,000 to 7,000 men, present right inside the city center, they would be able to cause so much chaos and confusion that trying to put up any sort of coherent defense would be futile.

Every soldier would desert or break and run, trying to save his own skin, just like when Cambyses's frontlines broke at the manor.

After all most people had family in the city and the thought of their family dying while they were off fight would weigh heavy on everyone's mind.

So at that point, the soldiers would no longer be thinking of fighting and resisting, but gathering their families and running.

And given that this nightmare of a situation had not happened, Cambyses could only put it due to heaven's intervention.

'The gods are with us. Alex is really Gaia's chosen,' And this event and how she rationalized made Cambyses change all the more towards a zealous devotee.

In fact it could be said that by now Cambyses's faith might even give Ophenia a run for her money.

Whereas the real reason why Leosydas had not done so was much simpler.

It was because he was Leosydas.

Being the loyal follower he was, it was almost impossible for him to even think that upon seeing his lord alone and in trouble he would just leave him to it alone and instead take his own army through an unknown path that led to who knew where.

Remember, the entire surrounding was pretty dark at the dark, many parts covered with fog, and the only light other than the iron and cement plant was coming from the manor, shining like a beacon to everyone around.

So rather than take a dark, unknown route which could very well cause him to end up outside the city as far as Leosydas was concerned, it was a far safer bet to march towards the brightest object in the area, one where his liege was fighting, and one whose capture promised the end of the war.

Thus though it was certainly very close, and Leosydas had missed a massive opportunity he had no idea of, it also had a low chance of actually happening in real.

While back in the present, after Cambyses suggested her plan, it also woke the others to the potential of the attack.

"That!" Menes at first tried to say something against it, but after thinking for a while, found he could not find any major fault with it.

"Tha….that is certainly possible," The giant general hence agreed after a bit of rumination.

"Good! Then have Melodias lead that attack," So without wasting any time Cambyses instantly delegated.

And with the order given, the word was soon passed down, and under the recently arrived second in command Melodias, soon part of the army was rerouted, and ordered to perform a flanking attack.

All while the fighting to retake the hill continued.

But no matter how much the legionaries tried on this front, any breakthrough any time soon seemed very unlikely.

It appeared that even when the attackers were on the relatively much flatter side of the hill, having become so after centuries of erosion through regular use, it was still very hard.

But vice versa, the phalangites also had trouble pushing the legionaries off.

One because they really did not like fighting in rough terrain, and so tried to simply stay still and poke anyone trying to attack them,

And also because an additional variable was soon introduced against them.

It was done by Menes, who saw the lines go nowhere and with his forces thinning as Melodias took a large chunk of men with him, decided to change his tactics and widen his formation.

'If they want a grinding war, then I'm sure to play along,' Menes somewhat spitefully swore, and gave the following order,

"Have the crossbowmen spread around the sides of the hill. Then tell them to specifically target the phalanx units holding the mouth of the hill."

"Let's see how long they can take that!"

There was a hint of anger but also some playfulness mixed in as he said the last sentence.

Menes's thinking was simple.

Instead of the archers being kept at the back doing nothing in fear of causing friendly fire, it would be far better to spread them out and then have them launch arrows into the rear ranks of the enemy.

But when his adjutant first heard of this, he was confused, and let his skepticism be known, saying,

"That…but won't they be completely exposed, sir? Most men have not bought even their pavises, and surely the enemy can just shoot back."

He reasonably argued.

To which Menes only snapped and said, "So what do you want them to do? Just stand around twiddling their thumbs!"

"If they did not bring it, it's their fault. They can die for that mistake for all I care."

Menes would rather have something change worse for him than suffer through this stalemate for much longer.

And besides, with the large number of 'archers' he had, at around 10,000 to Perseus's available 2,000, and enormous stockpiles of arrows at his disposal, Menes was confident he would be able to suppress any counterfire.

"Yes, General," While Menes's scolding got his subordinate to instantly comply.

And so, Perseus was soon forced to confront this new type of attack, where the enemy deployed their 'peasant archer army' as he had come to name it, along the sides of the hills which were relatively free of clutter, and instantly started to rain down incessant arrow fire on them, even more cunningly targeting only specific units.

And though each volley reaped only a meager number of lives, as most bolts pinged off the heavy shields or the bristling walls of spears held high up into the sky by the rear echelons, even a small number of lives lost were still lives lost.

Furthermore, Perseus was experienced enough to know that though these individual one or two casualties were nothing game-changing, but taking such damage per hit would surely add up over time.

And this slow but constant trickle of loss, would sometimes worryingly be even more damaging to one's army's morale than a sudden large loss.

Because the long period time of constant attack gave time for the fear and terror every soldier had going to battle to work its way in, seeping in slowly to every bone and muscle and polluting one's focus.

Perseus had firsthand seen such phenomena unfold before, where the frontlines looked solid one second, but with only one stray man deserting, everyone broke and the lines disintegrated.

And very much wished to avoid the same fate for his own army.

But then the question arose how?

Because although he could identify the problem, figuring out the solution was another matter entire.

"How many archers do we have?" Came the obvious inquiry to Theony.

And he get them it was nowhere enough.

"Perhaps we can send our phalanxes down? These archers are completely defenseless with not even a single infantry defending them. They will break even before we reach them," Thus army's third in command, Mithriditus, proposed this to Perseus.

And this braindead idea, caused Perseus to unnaturally flare up.

"Fool! This is what the enemy wants," He was there to loudly and heavily rebuke him, and then started explaining in a didactical way, "We have been able to hold the enemy off till now due to using the difficult terrain to our advantage."

"But if we go down to meet the enemy, we will be giving all that away."

"And for what? A few measly archers?"

"Once we are down there, the enemy will need no archer. He can just use his huge infantry to surround the small force and then decimate us!"

"You want to send our men to die like that!"

By the end of this speech, Perseus had gone from lecturing his student to severely scolding him, while the man in question dropped his head so low that if the ground could part, he would have fallen down

'I was just making suggestions,' The old man bitterly thought, feeling Perseus was being too harsh on him.

And this was true, the reason being due to all the pressure he was in.

Little did he know it was about to multiply.