Herald of Steel

Chapter 704 Lord Ponticus's Counter-Attack (Part-1)

With everything about the siege ready on Alexander's side, he called a war council that very afternoon and let his commanders know of the decision, asking them to prepare the men to finally attack the city tomorrow.

And by the evening, the news of the planned attack had spread to almost every soldier in the camp, causing various reactions.

Some were very excited thinking of the riches and booty that lay ahead, some were relieved that this campaign was going to soon end, while many others were afraid of the deaths that would inevitably follow.

But they knew what they signed up for.

So after the initial surprise, they all quieted down, and getting their thoughts together, ate the special meal that was given the day before the battle.

This meal's portions were usually one and a half times the regular one, and always served with two to three cuts of meat on them, designed to boost morale and have the men at their best possible physical condition for the fateful battle ahead.

As dusk fell and night slowly crept in, the soldiers all quickly finished their meal, and now stuffed with a satisfied full belly, they felt sleep grip them tightly in its claws, eagerly urging them to go rest after the long day of hard work.

And most soldiers, other than the ones on guard duties or in special deployments, like those using the catapults, prepared to do just that, yearning to hit the soft, fluffy mattress and get a solid eight to ten hours of good night's sleep before the inevitable bloodbath inside a fiery crucible tomorrow.

While Alexander's soldiers prepared themselves for the imminent attack, on the other side, on Tibias's the one main question that began to arise was: 

Did Lord Ponticus get his reinforcement and how useful they would be during Alexander's assault?

And the answer to that was he did, and the commander was of the opinion that they would be very useful indeed.

The ten thousand men (10,000) had arrived about three days ago, meaning Tibias was able to gather the requisite men in about only three weeks, as opposed to the scheduled four, truly showing what the court was capable of doing when they put aside their differences. 

And they even brought presents!

These came in the form of huge elephants and they bought seventeen of those.

Perseus had managed to keep these huge beasts after a series of successful negotiations with the Kaiser Family, agreeing to let go of some of the funds that were given to him in exchange.

He did this because the man had fallen in love with how effective the beasts showed themselves at destroying cavalry and knew these could be one of his trump cards.

And as evidence of his prudence, he also sent every one of the beasts he had to aid in the defense of Thesalie.

And to do that of course meant that they would have to be transported by boats just like the soldiers.

Which was not an easy thing to do, as elephants really did not like getting into a small floating wooden box that titled if the animal so much as moved its head, much less its body.

Even a human would not have liked getting on to something so small relative to his size.

But unfortunately for Tibias, it also did not make large enough boats suitable for transporting elephants.

And there was no time to build them in numbers either.

So instead, the trainers really had their work cut out to try and coax these powerful beasts to get into these small vessels, each boat able to carry only one, and then make them stay still during the entire, five day span of the journey.

It was a tall order, and two elephants actually drowned after they got spooked by something on their boats and in their unrestrained panic, bolted straight into the water.

And even more tragically, their heavy weight caused the boats to capsize, while their chaotic thrashing hit many of the people thrown into the water, with the heavy smacks killing three more, one of them even being one of the trainers.

While a third boat simply snapped in the middle of their journey,  the thin wooden planks unable to take the massive weight of its occupant, thus sending the magnificent beast into the depths of the river.

The river Diannu had an average depth of 20 meters, so there was no way the elephant could wade through it and get to the shore.

Thus Lord Ponticus got that odd number of seventeen war elephants.

And though not it was not as large as twenty, seventeen of these huge, African war elephants were still a huge boon, and Lord Ponticus was certainly over the moon seeing it, as too he was seeing so many men come to reinforce him, and so quickly at that.

In the last few days, he had been scratching his head to near baldness over trying to think of a way to convince his officers to hold off on attacking on their own.

These men had been growing ever more anxious with each passing day, as they could clearly see the ramp being completed one dirt basket at a time, and the siege towers nearing their completion each wooden piece at a time. 

And this regular visual update of their impending doom played great havoc on their psyche, as they repeatedly, almost daily, urged Lord Ponticus to launch a breakout as soon as possible.

And when the ramp was completed at last, with the three, huge imposing siege towers finally standing tall and finished, ready to crash into them any day now, these men grew so restless that they acted like ants on a hot pan.

They first wished nothing more than to have an open battle on the field and decisively destroy Alexander's forces, thus forcing him to retreat.

And if that was not possible, they at least wanted to mount a rapid, sneak attack on the siege towers, charging out and smashing into these siege machines and burning them to ashes before retreating to the castle without giving the enemy even a chance to realize that their month's long hard work was destroyed.

But of course, how could either of the two plans be so easy?

If they were strong enough to defeat Alexander on the open field, then why did they both hold themselves up inside the wall for four months and endure Alexander's relentless torture?

Or why did they then ask for reinforcements?

If they were able, they should have been able to solve the problem themselves.

As for the sneaking out of the gates and destroying the siege towers like that, well even a child could foresee the enemy using such a technique.

It was a time tested, favorite tactic of any defenders and so of course Alexander had taken precautions, He had a battalion of 500 soldiers protecting each of these towers at all times, day and especially night, ready to foil any such attempt.

And though 500 soldiers might not sound like a lot when the other side had 30,000 men, but they were really not there to stop these men head on.

Their job was to simply act as a stopgap force and hold off the enemy until Alexander could become aware of the attack and arrange a proper response from his main camp nearby. 

After all, they would be able to see the enemy approach from miles away, as the enemy would have to at least number a hundred men to destroy such huge structures quickly.

And they would have to be also on horseback to maximize their speed and surprise.

And one hundred riders launching an attack over such an open ground stripped of all vegetation was very, very hard to hide.

And for all those reasons, these 500 men were more than adequate.

It was also using these reasons that Lord Ponticus was able to hold these hot blooded men back till now.

But he also knew they were soon reaching their limit.

He feared that any day they might disobey his orders and take matters into their own hands. 

So his pleasure at seeing the reinforcement truly could not be overstated.

And this pleasure increased far, far more when Lord Theony told him that this was only half of the contingent and many more men and material were on the way.

"Hahaha! Worthily of my nephew," Lord Ponticus had thus said in delight as he went to meet the reinforcements at the river docks.

This was also because when he had asked for 20,000 men, he was really shooting for the moon, writing any number that came to his mind and hoping Perseus would send as many as he could.

But even he knew asking for 20,000 men was pushing it given Tibias's current situation. 

So imagine his surprise when the king's aid surpassed even his most optimistic expectation, as the ruler promised to give him all he wanted and more.

So in the following two days of their arrival, the tired soldiers were given time to rest, while Lord Ponticus treated the nobles to great feasts to show this pleasure.

While in the meantime, he also got Lord Theony up to speed, telling of the enemy's tactics, his strategy, his siege machines, and then trying to think of a counterstrategy.

And to their credit, the two men did manage to find one, one which if Alexander knew would definitely sweat bullets, because it was a really good one.