Herald of Steel



"Okay, okay, let me arrange the frontlines into the proper formations and start climbing up."

Hearing Cambyses's absolute instance, Menes quickly acquiesced to placate the girl, but before fully bending over, he cleverly asked for this concession,

"But since the manor is on fire, may we delay the attack until we can start seeing the smoke? The morning fog is yet to dissipate and climbing up will be far easier with a visual sign."

"And if the Tibians are inside the manor, they will be too distracted managing the fire, so we can even catch them off, guard."

Menes's proposal was of course sound in theory, and there was little to nitpick about it.

Except that, it also basically wanted to throw the manor defenders under the bus as sacrificial lambs.

And this made Cambyses think for a split second, weighing saving all the men, women, and children versus increasing her chances of taking the manor back.

And at the end of this dilemma, the latter cause won.

"Okay." Hence Cambyses showed herself to be at least patient enough to give Menes that.

And with that, it was only around 8 in the morning, with the lazy wintery sun finally deciding to peek out of the downcast sky, sluggishly and slowly sweeping away the morning fog that Menes at last caught sight of a whisper of a thin, black trail slowly rising into the horizon.

The Tibians had inadvertently given him the signal.

And immediately upon seeing that, the charge up the hills began, though this advance was not accompanied by the usual trumpets or drums which was used to let the commanders and soldiers of the army's movement.

Instead, the officers were told to move only after they had visual confirmation of the thin smoke tentacle rising into the sky, all done so that the attack was as silent as possible.

*Shoo*, *Shoo*, *Shoo*

And the tactic worked as the Tibians only became aware of the enemy after they were hit by the first volley of crossbow bolts, which appeared out of the still dense fog like ghosts.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

The rear guard that was placed in front of the manor as the first defensive screen finally woke up to the danger they were facing only after their comrades all around started to fall in droves.

Menes, to show off Zananz's strength, had cleverly placed a large number of crossbowmen and instant bow users in the very front echelons, intending to use them to disrupt the enemy's formation as they ascended up the hill.

Hence, the now defender-turned-attackers let out storms of arrows and bolts as they advanced, with each crossbow unit being replaced by the one immediately behind it once they finished firing, intended to always keep the enemy suppressed and not let them have any time to regroup.

And this constant storm caused quite a few casualties, as the Tibians, given the current circumstance regarding the fire and general chaos, were caught totally out of the formation, and even these blind volleys managed to find quite a few high-value targets.

"Rear guard! Forward! Forward! Stop the enemy from taking back the hill!"

And it was only after Menes was only 100 meters from the mouth of the hill that the enemy managed to respond coherently, with the bravest of the bunch picking up their large shields to get in formation even though the arrow barrage.

And unfortunately for Tibias, many of the troops here were Leosydas's personal entourage, and being experienced veterans knew in such an ambush it was wrong to run away from the enemy, but form up and go towards them to prevent their advance.

Hence with some of the most experienced veterans of the past years there to guide the others, they were able to mount an effective defense at the nick of time, with the scattered men quickly bunching up into phalanx units, and just like Juminus had created a choke point at the mouth of the hill, they did too, their huge shields covering almost their entire body and their long spear dangerously pointing downhill, preventing anyone from coming close.

Looking at Tibias's defense, it seemed the time had come for them to repay the favor toward Zanzan.

"Haahh!"

And soon, the static phalanx formation was charged at by the legionaries with a loud shout, as the soldiers at the front threw their pillas once close enough, and then crashed into the phalangites.

"Push! The enemy is buckling! Push!"

And as always, the initial pila attack and subsequent charge proved quite effective, sending the hastily prepared, outnumbered phalanx units recoiling, as they tried to recover their lost formation due to the casualties taken and cope with having many of their shields being rendered useless.

For any phalanx unit, this attack, this two-in-one punch from the legionaries at the start of every battle, was always the hardest move to absorb,

'Dammit! Why now!" While from the back, Perseus got the chance to see this rare spectacle for himself, and naturally cursed, even turning to his adjutant to scold him,

"Why had we not detected them sooner? The enemy had such a large force right underneath our feet! Imbecile!"

"...." Theony only lowered his head feeling the king's glare, and then muttered, "Mostly probably because the morning fog hid them your grace."

It seemed that just like the mist had helped Leosydas in the pincher attack, now it had switched sides to aid Zanzan.

"Dammit!" And seeing so Perseus repeated his curse, clenching his fist and feeling this could not have come at a worse time.

Many of his men were scattered given the raging inferno roaring right in front of him, one which made him, who was standing relatively close feel like he was inside a furnace.

In fact, if one touched his copper armor, one could even get a light sear given how hot it had become.

But this heat was nothing compared to the bitterness he was feeling.

For as he gazed at the building which by now was well and truly up in flames, with licks of flames even shooting out of the second and third-floor windows, hot smoke filling the air all around, and the crisp crackle of wood breaking and decomposing playing near his ear, his heart could not help but bleed.

He had sacrificed literally hundreds of his best men to get this, plus his closest friend, without whom it would have been pretty much impossible to even be here, had his wound opened and lost a lot of blood to help him get this, even causing his current condition to become critical.

But now all that effort was all up in smokes.

Perseus swore that if he could get his hands on the person responsible, he would boil them alive.

But this loss of the manor was not the only tragedy Perseus had to deal with.

Because just like vultures attracted to the smell of dead meat, it seemed the enemy had decided to attack them at their most vulnerable, and the thinly manned phalanx lines were in danger of shattering.

"Reinforce! Quickly reinforce!" Hence, like many of his officers were already shouting, Perseus too joined, screaming his heart out and waving his arms animatedly, pointing every able-bodied man to go to the phalanx's rescue.

And fortunately for him, and unfortunately for Menes, they succeeded.

The thinly manned phalanx line soon began to grow thicker and stronger as armored man after man started joining the faltering unit, bolstering it, and forcing the legionaries to soon back down in the face of mounting casualties.

"*Sigh*" And seeing such Menes could only let out a small dejected sigh.

Though this was not something he was surprised by he had still hoped to avoid it by using this sneak attack.

But it seemed it had failed.

It seemed that the inherent advantage of a choke point with its ability to nullify numerical advantage, coupled with the deployment of the phalanx unit who used spears as their primary weapon was too much to overcome for the legionaries equipped with their shorter-ranged swords.

Thus after the initial push of the charge was negated, the phalanx units counterattacked, retaking much of their lost grounds, and the battle devolved into a slow grind, where phalangites poke at the legionaries, and the legionaries thrusted at the phalangites.

It was honestly quite boring to watch.

And after a while of this, the lines stabilized, and no one was going anywhere.

Which was a great heartbreak for Menes, and a joyous event for Perseus.

"Form up! Form up, Once the enemy is exhausted, we will charge down the hill and destroy the enemy." Pr shouted, the resulting stalemate giving him enough time to reform his close to 19,000 men into proper fighting formation.

Yes, the 5,000 unruly mercenaries had also at last decided to rejoin him, with a preliminary casualty count of both parts combined giving them a total of thousand (1,000) men dead or wounded, with roughly half of it being in the iron plant due to the coal mine explosion, half of it in taking the manor.

"Mistress, I'm sorry." While Menes seeing the crawling progress could only say this to Cambyses.

But the expected scolding did not come.

Instead, the girl only lightly shook her head and said, "No, it's alright. As Lord Menicus said, attacking uphill is always hard."

And then ordered with a light smirk, "Let's take some men and attack via the cement plant. Give the enemy a taste of his one medicine."

It seemed Cambyses had not forgotten her blunder.