Herald of Steel



Grahtos sped his 1,000 men as fast as he could toward the enemy.

And there were several reasons for doing this.

First and foremost was because he wanted to gain as much speed as he could before colliding with the enemy.

Another reason was that he did not want the horses any time to be afraid of the camel.

For the smell and size of this strange beast would make the steeds skittish and jumpy.

While the third reason was to cover the distance as fast as possible to get away from the javelin fire which would inevitably come.

And as soon as Grahtos entered the 50-meter range, Azab slowed down his speed and started launching a volley of javelin, followed by a second round, hoping to kill as many riders as possible riders and disrupt the formation.

The reason for doing so, as opposed to just simply charging head-on was because that was how the cavalry vs cavalry fight of the time would occur.

Since both sides would be light skirmishers, without the heavy armor of the cataphracts or knights, if they charged and smashed head-on with their sharp spears, the number of casualties on both sides would be tremendous.

So, as nobody wanted to die, the way cavalry vs cavalry battle occurred was that they would initially charge at each other, hoping the other side would break, then launch their javelin at around 50-meter range, which the short spears would be able to cover due to the extra speed imparted to them from the horse.

And then, once the horses got actually close enough, they would slow down, and start poking each other with spears, much reminiscent of the battle between infantry, only this time it was on horseback.

The enemy's javelin rained down on the large formation but failed to cause much casualty.

This was due to the speed at which Grahtos moved, meaning the horsemen were long gone from the spot they were at when the javelin was launched.

So most of these deadly projectiles innocently fell on the spots Grahtos had been when they were launched.

And it was same case with Alexander, who too withstood the withering javelin fire, while thanking his lucky stars that a stray one had not hit him or his horse.

Because if it did and he or his steed tripped and fell, well then that was it.

He would be tramped to death by the 9 horses immediately behind him.

For these men had too much momentum with them to stop even if they wanted to.

But luckily, neither Alexander nor Grahtos's life was cut short by the javelin fire, and now they were in range to strike.

'Why aren't they stopping? Do they intend to commit suicide with us? Those lunatics!' Seeing the opposing side not slow down, but instead accelerate when they were so close, both Azab sand Ural thought that the opposing side had gone mad.

Because in their minds, only completely madmen would choose to do what Grahtos and Alexander were doing.

It was akin to two pikes formation lowering their pikes and running full speed ahead against one another with no shield support.

The only possible result could be a complete sanguinary slaughter of both sides.

And what scared them was the most that so many soldiers were willing to follow their commanders in this insane maneuver.

Because while it was certainly possible for some crazies to exist in any army, it was very hard for an army of crazies to exist.

After all, no matter how tyrannical the leadership was, it was very hard to inspire a large number of soldiers to commit mass suicide by impaling themselves into the enemy's spears.

Most people did not want to die after all.

The only country on earth that had managed to convince its people otherwise was Imperial Japan.

The reason for this misunderstanding was that from the perspective of the two men, the lances looked no different from regular spears, as the horizontally aligned weapon meshed almost perfectly with the silhouette of its riders, making the lance only look like a dot from the front angle.

Hence the misjudgment about the length of this new weapon.

"Stop! Stop! Form line! Form line!"

Thus, assuming that they were facing a crazed suicide attack, both Azab and Ural's cousin screamed at the top of their voice to instruct his men to form some kind of solid line, or perhaps they were calling out of the still some sane men in the opposing ranks to stop this foolish charge, who knows.

But it was too little, too late.

The enemy was too close.

"Fucking psychos! If you wanna die, die yourselves!" No amount of superlatives could describe the amount of regret Ural's cousin was feeling as he felt the steps of death get closer and closer. For he was sure Alexander would take him with him to the underworld.

And in the same vein, no amount of superlatives could describe the amount of relief Ural was feeling having avoided this death trap.

'Hahaha, the gods really do favor me. That's why it's mine. All mine!' Ural cheered, as he jumped for joy at the thought of not having to share credit.

A feeling of elation that an instant later turned into pure terror as he saw what happened next.

For the moment afterward, the two forces collided.

"Ahhhhh," Alexander had never shouted so loudly in his life, and he had never been so scared in his life, for he now had a lot more to lose,

And thus he clenched his shield and pointed his lance like those were his last possessions, and then it happened.

*Bam*,

The lances of the first three rows pointed in an overlapping formation struck the static, practically naked formation with the force of a freight train, and the scenery unfolded as one might expect of someone hit by such a massive object.

The lance strike sent many of the riders literally flying from the impact before they were brought down to the earth after colliding with the horses and men behind them, in a crudely similar way to how the character in GTA 5 would ragdoll after being hit by a train, while in a few instances, even the heavy, half-ton horses were knocked off their feet.

*Neigh*, *bam*, *Arghh*

The concert of sounds coming from the collision was deafening.

There was the screeching sound of metal hitting metal caused by the lance tip piercing the bronze armor of the enemy, the soft, dull puncturing sound of flesh being pried open by steel, and the creaking sound of bones breaking as the sharp weapon destroyed the hard skeleton.

Then there was the snapping and crackling of bones as the thundering impact between the horses broke and cracked bones, the crisp shattering of the wooden shaft as the lances snapped and to top of it all off, the horrified, pained screams and groans of the attacked men and beasts, who wailed and thrust uncontrollably in their death throes.

The charge between a proper heavy cavalry, with thick armor and lances, and light, almost naked skimmers, unfolded just like how the history books portrayed it, like complete obliteration of the latter.

Because the skirmishers had no defense against them.

The lances outranged their own weapon- the spear and their thin armor was little better than paper in front of such huge force concentrated into such a small tip of the lance.

And in the case of Alexander, he had made the speartips of the lances extra special for them to be even more potent.

He did this by treating the steel used to a process called carbonization, which involved simply taking coal and heating it with the steel up to a certain temperature for a certain period of time inside a furnace.

This then would deposit a very thin layer of carbon onto the steel surface, making it very hard, but in exchange for lowered ductility.

Which was a problem for regular weapons such as swords, because you did not want one to be brittle and snap in the middle of the combat, but was okay for a one-time use weapon like the lance.

And as a side note, even the tips of the crossbow bolts were carbonized, giving them extremely high penetrating power.

And so, armed with this deadly, superweapon, Alexander's charge did manage to wipe out the enemies he was immediately acing, for it looked as if someone had simply erased the first four rows of the unit that faced Alexander head-on.

There were dead bodies strewn all about, of both horses and men, with black crimson blood, dark, purplish guts, and even limestone whites of broken shattered bones decorating Alexander's units surrounding.

And amongst all the carnage, not one of the forty men in the 4 rows was seen standing,

Such all the power of a single heavy cavalry charge.

And as such a macabre scenario unfolded on the right side of the battlefield, an identical event was unraveling itself on the left side, one led by Grahtos.

The charge had destroyed the ranks of the Jahal mercenaries, and the remaining survivors of the elite unit could only remain stand shell-shocked in mute awe and horror as they tried to process how they had lost so many of their friends and comrades die in a matter of seconds.

"Again!"

But neither Grahtos nor Alexander was in the mood to give the enemy any chance to recover and counter, as immediately after their first charge, they turned around for a second round.