Herald of Steel



"Men! Remember, no noise! Approach the city as quietly as possible," It was late one night when one of the Tibian commanders said this to his unit.

The lands he said this from were very different from their usual camp, for they were at the foot of a valley overlooking the manor, and were armed to the teeth and ready to fight.

And at their commander's order, the unit only responded with a silent nod, in order to keep the silence.

Though the commander could not really determine how many of the men had heard and responded to him given how dark it was.

But he did notice some silhouettes along the frontlines move and sway to his words and that was enough to assume everyone heard it.

Thus, satisfied with given his instruction, the order to move soon came and the fateful march up the hill began.

The unit approached carrying only a few torches, just enough to illuminate the immediate path ahead of them but too small in size and number to be detected from too far away, only looking like small fireflies from afar or even being completely obscured by the thick foliage.

There were naturally no whistles, no bugles, no songs in this march, with each man simply and silently following the man in front of him, while the man leading them, the commander keep his eyes fixated on the brightly glowing light at the top of the hill and steady wiled his feet towards it, like a moth being drawn to a flame.

Except this moth was very well armed and very dangerous.

And of course, this was just one of the many such phalanx units making their way to the top, their combined footsteps numbering thousands causing the forest to silently shudder, while the clanking of their armor rubbing off against one another gave the low chilling sound of the dooming approaching of the grim-reaper.

Because Cambyses and almost everyone Alexander cared about was completely unaware of this impending catastrophe, peacefully tucked away in their cozy blankets.

Worse, even the one hundred guards around the manor were mostly asleep, with only about ten awake, or more accurately half awake.

Because to them, the enemy was behind the walls north of the city.

And even if there was no wall, there was still an entire army in between.

So it was natural for the guards to not take the watch seriously, as they never expected any enemy to happen.

How could the enemy attack them?

Hence they felt they were posted here only because the scheduling manual said so, and thus at best kept an eye out for thieves who might be trying to steal some grain or something.

Thus, the army of doom continued to approach the oblivious men and women under the cover of darkness with nary aware.

This night that they were attacking on, Perseus had chosen it after much particular deliberation,

He had said to his commanders during the meetings, "We should choose a clear night for the attack."

"Unfortunately we can't hope for a full moon because the new moon has just appeared."

"So it should be at least not cloudy or foggy. Or the soldiers will not be able to see where they are going."

Of course, this request had made most of the commanders flinch, as they all thought,

"Finding a fogless night in the middle of winter? How is that possible!"

And one of the council members let Perseus know of this concern, saying it would be 'difficult' and proposed, "Perhaps we should wait a bit until the weather clears."

The man felt that there was no rush in doing this, and preferred to wait until the spring or even the summer months.

After all, the city was not going anywhere.

And neither was this chance to attack

But Perseus would not wait.

Every day his army sat in front of the city, it burned through food and money, and honestly, he was impatient and greedy for the city to fall right now.

The mere thought of conquering a city his ancestors had always dreamed of conquering but never being able to, which now he was about to, made the man giddy with pleasure.

Of course, he could not outright say that.

So he made up this excuse, "If we wait too long, it is very much possible, the enemy will get reinforcements."

"You heard what the girl atop the ramparts said. The city's lord might be already on his way."

Now Perseus had no idea about Alexander's attack, and even thought Cambyses was bluffing.

Because it was no easy feat to raise an army, for it required a lot of time and energy.

But for him, it was a convenient excuse to convince his commanders and push the date as close as possible.

So, with this excuse present, Perseus gave his final verdict.

"There will be no waiting indefinitely! We attack as soon as possible."

So, with that decision made, his retainers could only shut their mouth and get to work trying to make the attack succeed even through all the difficulties.

After all, Perseus was the king and you gotta do what he says.

And as Perseus made his standpoint known, it was Leosydas, who, being one of the most loyal subjects chimed from the side at once, and quickly dispelled the commanders' concern about the fog by saying,

"Even if there is fog, as long as it is not too heavy, the light atop the hill will still be visible, and we should have no problem."

"Also we have a detailed map of the site from Mohshin, and as he said, the way is very straightforward. Just up."

"So everything will be okay."

It was unknown how much of this even Leosydas really believed but regardless of how true what he said was, the explanation was accepted by the others.

So all along the end of December and proceeding to the first week of January, the scouts kept an eye out for how thick the fog was at night, with most nights it being so heavy that most people could not see their hands if they held it out, much less any light atop a hill.

In fact, sometimes the fog became so thick, it become opaque enough to reflect one's own shadow, many times even scaring people.

And so it seemed to Perseus had the attack would have to be called off until the surroundings warmed up a bit just as one of his retainers had suggested.

And it maddened the king.

But suddenly, it seemed that the gods had a change of heart and decided to smile on Perseus.

Because on the third night of the first month of the year, the scouts came to very excitedly report to their liege that the fog was exceptionally light tonight.

In fact it could be said it was almost clear, making it ideal conditions for an attack.

And Perseus hearing this remembered that today had been an abnormally warm one, with the sun peeking out after almost a month, and from the looks of it even the night seemed to be a relatively warm one.

Opening up a rare window of opportunity for him.

And understanding this, immediately upon receiving this news, the camp entire camp was set into a flurry of actions, as soldiers felt like their butts had been set on fire as they worked to execute a series of pre-planned actions.

The plans were created by Leosydas, and to summarize, it instructed almost 20,000 of the 35,000 men to rapidly put on their armor and exit the camp through the back door under complete darkness, with strict orders to not light any torches except the sole scout leading each unit, all in order not to alert the enemy watchmen atop the walls, while the rest of the 15,000 stayed behind as camp guards.

Once outside the camp, these 20,000 men were then ordered to march north for about a mile, so even if some were spotted, the watchmen in the darkness would only see the dim light and assume it was just some scouts out there foraging for food or looking for potential ambushes.

And this deception was ordered to be carried out until they were about 2 kilometers away from Zanzan, and only then would they suddenly pivot west and be present at the foot of the Cisrian hills before midnight.

Because that was the deadline for the start of the operation.

And until now, all the plans discussed above were able to have been carried out smoothly, as almost all the units had made it to the engagement point without incident, and so the operation was able to start and then subsequently proceed swimmingly.

So, in this way, around three hours passed since the fateful ascent, with the terrain being though treacherous but still navigatable, especially after being helped by the light atop the hill which worked to act as a beacon guiding them.

And with fortunately there being no unforeseen events such as a sudden fog descending on them, or any forward scouts, the huge army had managed to make great progress, and by 3 pm at night, seemed to be very close to their target, totally undetected until now.

It appeared Zanzan, or more specifically its rulers were about to wake up to a very bloody sunrise indeed, and that was if they could survive the next four to five hours.

The fate of the city, its inhabitants, and even its city's lord was about to be decided.