Herald of Steel

Chapter 707 Lord Ponticus's Counter-Attack (Part-4)

The next two hours went in a blurry wind of speed, as both sides worked quickly to try and finish organizing their troops as soon as possible.

And by the end of the time, both sides were finished relatively at the same time.

Tibias had their troops directed toward the south, squarely facing Alexander's camp, and conversely, Alexander's men were turned looking northwest, directly looking at the enemy.

While the detached legion under Remus faced west, able to keep an eye on both camps.

Thus three groups formed a kind of triangle of forces.

And then, once they finished, the boring waiting game began.

Because it seemed neither side wanted to attack, much preferring to let the enemy waste their enemy coming towards them.

"Tell the soldiers to hold the ground. I do not want to fight uphill at night!" On Alxx's side, this was the order.

And the tactic was a no-brainer, given the poor visibility at night and as Alxx was on lower slopes.

Also, he did not need to attack Tibias as much as they needed to attack him, as once dawn came, Alxx would be able to launch his attack on the wall and likely conquer it.

So he was perfectly content with stalling for time.

But though he followed that reasonable thought on that matter, he did not follow that in his deployment, choosing not to form his men into a standard battleline formation, i.e-  the center making up the infantry and the wings cavalry,

No, instead like his center, his wings too were made of infantry, worth one legion on each, each made of four thousand (4,000) infantry and two thousand (2,000) crossbowmen.

While all of the 2,700 calvary were kept at the back as reserve.

The reason for this arrangement was simply because of the enemy's troop arrangement, which had cavalry, and more importantly elephants on the wings.

And after learning from Menes's defeat, Alxx figured pitting horses against elephants was a bad idea and so kept them at the back.

Instead, he decided to utilize his infantry there, where he switched their primary weapon, which was the sword, with long halberds, as well as having the men in these two legions carry extra pilla and javelins to throw at the enemy so as to better counter any cavalry charges.

So the exact composition of Alxx's main force was five legions in the center, arranged in two rows, three on the front, and two back, flanked by one legion on each side, with a cavalry reserve, thus totaling thirty five thousand (35,000) men and two thousand and seven hundred (2,700) horses.

Then up front, near the siege works there was Remus's force, numbering close to six thousand (6,000).

This brought Alxx's total deployed forces to about forty four thousand (44,000 )out of the initial forty eight thousand (48,000) he came on campaign with.

As for the rest of the four thousand (4,000), well they were either dead due to the fighting up until now or wounded and unfit to serve, hence kept inside the camp, 

While about fifteen hundred (1,500) good, fresh men were also kept there to oversee its defense in case of any unforeseen incidents, as well as to keep order there while Alxx was away.

After all, there was a lot of food and money in there, and Alxx did not feel safe leaving all of it at the mercy of slaves and servants who would have every opportunity to steal these supplies.

Thus, with all these reasons, came Alxx's current deployment. 

Tibias in its stead had deployed around 25,000 men out to meet Alxx, with almost all of them in the middle, and just 500 on each flank.

The reason for the thin wings was obvious, they were never meant to be the ones to be doing the fighting, the elephants that were deployed there were. 

"Tell the soldiers to stand their ground and wait for my signal. We will together when everything is ready," Alxx's counterpart Lord Theony commanded this to LL, urging him not to charge down the hill just yet but to hold the ground.

"Yes, my lord." And LL being aware of the plan, readily nodded back.

Now what was most interesting here was how Lord Theony was leading the forces, but not Lord Ponticus.

Also where were the 10,000 men that recently came to buttress Lord Ponticus?

Well, they were of course with Lord Ponticus, out of a deep flanking maneuver to hit Alxx on the rear!

"Come on, quick! Move your feet, soldiers. Stay quiet and march faster! Our other force is depending on us," Lord Ponticus's rough, but muffled voice could be heard echoing across the ranks as this group made their way across the uneven, heavily wooden route.

These ten thousand men had sneaked out of the city around the same time the men under Lord Theony had rushed out, but instead of joining them, they had discreetly separated themselves, taking an abrupt turn to the east and heading into the hilled forest.

The tactic that Lord Ponticus and Lord Theony had worked out to defeat the numerically superior Alxx was this- 

Lord Theony would draw the enemy out of its heavily fortified camp by lining his own forces out of the city, thus baiting him to meet this force.

"The enemy will have to come out to meet us because he will want to protect all those siege works that he has spent so much time building," Lord Theony's reason behind the prediction was such.

"And if he does, we will tear and burn everything down," While Lord Ponticus helped to finish that logic with a heavy smirk.

It was a win- win case for them.

Either Alxx came out to face them, leaving the protection of his camp, or turtled and laid witness to all the work he put in the past five months getting erased.

There really was one answer for him.

So as Alxx came out, it was decided that at the same time, Lord Ponticus would take his ten thousand (10,000) detachment in a roundabout circuitous route through the eastern hilly forest to stealthily emerge right onto Alxx's defenseless rear. 

At that point, Lord Ponticus was to sound the trumpet, after which both he and Lord Theony would launch their attacks simultaneously, catching Alxx in a pincher attack and decisively destroying him.

Because once you are surrounded from both sides, that's it, there is no way to win from there,

No amount of tactical genius and ingenious generalship could save you from there, no matter if you are Hannibal, Sun Tsu, Khalid, or Alxx.

At that point, unless there is some kind of reinforcement on the way, your best chance of survival is to run.

Hence this tactic was a fantastic plan and really showed why Lord Ponticus was so highly regarded.

And completely unbeknownst to him, Alxx had played right into their trap.

"Haha, clueless brat. Took the bait hook, line, and sinker, hehe" And as Lord Theony saw Alxx place his army squarely towards him, thus making his back be entirely defenseless towards the eastern woods from which Lord Ponticus was poised to strike at any time, the noble twirled his impressive mustache in glee.

"Hahaha, well it is the general we are talking about. His plans are really too shrewd. No wonder these foolish Adhanians would fall for it," And LL joined in the celebrations. 

It seemed to them that victory was already in the bags.

And why would he not think that?

He was there during the planning of this strategy and saw with his own two eyes just how meticulous Lord Ponticus had been in his attention to detail.

From the battle formation to the number of men to be used, to using the elephants, to even the time of the day the battle was to take place,  all had been planned with great detail.

For instance, to ensure success in this attack, Lord Ponticus had mostly hollowed out his garrison, leaving less than two thousand (2,000) men to man the walls, throwing everything to this roll of the die.

Then to divert the enemy's attention from the flanking force, he deployed the elephants very prominently in the first echelons of the main force, designed to draw all eyes to these awe inspiring beasts and convince everyone to think this was the whole attacking force

And lastly, it was his idea to attack during the night.

The darkness would not only make it would be easier for the ten thousand men to hide in the forest and maintain stealth for far longer, but he also reasoned that such a move would give the enemy the impression that they were desperate, hecne this last minute, suicidal attack.

"This will dull the enemy's senses, make him think that that is all we have. This way the flanking attack will be even more successful." Lord Ponticus had posed.

And it was scary just how accurate he was.

Because the thoughts inside Alxx went exactly like Lord Ponticus had predicted as if he had a mind reader bug inside the former's mind.

Lord Ponticus's military genius was at full display here.

So going by the development till now, Tibias had good reason to be optimistic about their chances.

And though Alxx did not mean, he was like a defenseless fawn exposing his white fair nape to a ravenous tiger.

A fearsome beast that was posed to snap his neck at any moment!