Herald of Steel

Due to the city gates being closed, even Philips, who was just on the opposite side of it, had no idea of the life and death battle his father was facing.

The marketplace was unfortunately too far from the place they had camped to allow even the sound of the raging fight to carry over, so instead, given the current time and being tired from the day's march, the prince and his entourage of more than 20,000 men were doing what was naturally expected of them- being blissfully asleep.

Only a few sentry were still up, guarding the place, but these men too failed to notice anything abnormal going on in the city as they were primarily on the lookout for only nearby enemies, not trying to see how their king was doing inside the city.

"*Yawnnn!* Those lucky bastards inside the city. I bet they are having the time of their life."

And it was one such ordinary guardsman who grumbled like so to his mate sharing the watchtower, rubbing his exhausted eyes constantly to try and ward off sleep.

"Awww… Yeah!" And as if to prove that yawning was contagious, the man too involuntarily felt such an urge to do so upon seeing his partner, as he moaned in frustration, "Why did we have of all people have to stand guard here? What are we even guarding against? The enemy is miles away!"

Guard duty was among the most painful duties a soldier could get, as it required one to once again stay up the whole night after a hard day's march, while everyone else got their sweet sleep.

It was thus so detested that the commanders would many times post the men as a punishment for something they had done.

And although these two men were not being punished, they were certainly unlucky and rambled and grumbled their grievances to each other.

They saw no point in this watch duty as in their minds, there was no way the camp could be in danger.

"Yea… Hey, look!" That was until one of them, who was halfway through agreeing with his colleague suddenly spotted a light source.

And it was a light source that seemed to be making a beeline towards them, or more specifically towards the camp's gates.

"Halt! You!" And once the light source, which turned out to be three distinct ones when observed up close enough, got near enough, one of the men from the top of the tower barked this command in a haughty voice, while the other readied his crossbow.

Yes, by now Perseus's army already had access to crossbows, although they were very limited in supplies.

They were usually given to only noblemen, so to answer the question of how this poor man had gotten the privilege to use it- well it was simple really, he looted it off a dead nobleman when he was cleaning the battlefield.

And then managed to convince his commanding officer to let him have it for a healthy bribe.

As for what the bribe was, well let's just say that particular officer had a general likeness for men.

Anyway, such backstory aside, perceiving danger to be approaching them, this guard quickly took aim, threatening the men with death unless they obeyed.

"Open the gates! His Majesty's orders!" However that hostility instantly plummeted the moment they heard this familiar language, their mother tongue.

It was surely to be from their own side, and as they got closer, that suspicion ceased completely, as once upon a more detailed look, the duo quickly recognized the distinctive armor the three men were wearing.

'Royal guards!' The words immediately thundered across the two's minds, as they hastily scampered to let the esteemed men in, their minds deathly afraid to think why these men would be here at such an odd time.

They were also half afraid they might get court martialed for pointing a weapon at them.

But the three bodyguards were of course not bothered by this.

In fact, they did not even register it as an offense since they had much, much bigger problems to deal with.

Hence, entering quickly, they immediately sought out the prince's tent.

And once they located it, they chose to eschew the stationed guards' offer to go wake the prince up and instead personally entered the place, hurriedly trying to wake the sleeping man up and deliver the news,

"Your Highness, His Royal Majesty is trapped in the city! He needs assistance. You must join him!"

The men tried to be as concise and as succinct as possible, in fear of wasting time.

"Wh… what? Trapped? Who? Where is father?" However, in doing so, they presented Philips with a situation he had no context of and so understandably found himself confused.

All of this was too out of the blue and unexpected for him to easily grasp.

"Ah!" And finally recognizing this, the men then took a few minutes to help him catch up.

"Someone opened the gates! His Highness is trapped in the marketplace. We cannot open the gates from inside. So he sent us to ask you to open the gates and join him!"

One of the men said.

Now, here readers would do well to take a very good at the phrasing of this sentence, as the message being delivered here was, although true to its essence not exactly what Perseus had asked.

To quote the king, he specifically said to ask Philips to 'tear down the gates or walls with the elephants to help them escape'.

He certainly did not want Philips to join the fight.

Granted, in the current circumstance perhaps this might seem like only a very subtle wordplay. But like how the flutter of a tiny butterfly could cause a hurricane somewhere else, fortunately, or unfortunately, this paraphrasing would have a great effect on the outcome of the battle.

As to which one, well that remained to be seen in the future.

For now though, what had to be done first and foremost was to have Philips wake his army up.

Upon learning of his royal father's predicament occurring just beyond those gates, all the inherent sleepiness the man had been inflicted from being prematurely woken up evaporated like dew under the summer sunlight and the Crown Prince felt his heart burning in anxiety.

So once he got up to speed, Philips wasted not a single moment in attempting to mount a rescue, as he started to bark out one order after another in a tyrannical voice few heard him ever utter before.

And with the royal having taken charge himself, even personally going into some tents to wake up the more senior officers, the whole camp soon found itself awake, aware, and ready.

The regular grunts reported to their station as fast as their legs could carry them, the officers tried their best to get them in proper formation, while the top brass held a very short meeting to understand what Philips as well as Perseus wanted of them, and strategize on how to achieve that.

The entirety of this took around two hours, which was lighting quick when you understood what mammoth task it involved getting 20,000 men up and ready in the middle of the night in almost pitch black darkness save for the occasional braizers.

So this clearly went on to show Philips's own innate military prowess, proving the apple had not fallen much further from the tree.

Thus at this point, Philips found himself commanding a full fledged army, the men all arranged in neat rows.

"Get the elephants! Pull down the gates and be ready to charge!" Then without further ado, Philips gave the decisive order.

Following which, just as the esteemed prince wanted, very thick ropes were quickly tied to the undefended gates on one end and fastened to a team of six elephants on the other, with each door given to three of the beasts to pull apart.

"*Trumpet!* *Trumpet!*"

And then with this loud strenuous cry, the brutal tugging contest began.

The several tonnes heavy behemoths' sheer muscle power fought a brutal contest against the material strength of the heavy timber and metal locks holding the gate together, the magnificent animals furiously moved their legs, making the ground underneath them quickly form a dent.

As these beasts were arranged side by side, their frantic steps or attempts to take a step appeared like caterpillars wriggling legs, and

*Creak*, *Creak*, *Clang*, *Snap*.

Soon such low pitched murmurs began to ring out around the door.

"Good! Good!" And encouraged by the quick apparent result, Philips cheered as such, thinking the gate was just a bit away from toppling.

After all, seeing the elephants at work and watching the powerful muscles at work firsthand, Philips could feel the power at work there, so there was little doubt in his mind that the results would soon be manifesting themselves.

'Father was right. These beasts are really something.' The Crown Prince thought gleefully.

However, despite all the reassuring creaking and snap, as time went on, Philips found his optimism waning.

There was no doubt their efforts were having an effect, but clearly, it was fast enough, as even after almost half an hour of this brutal attack the the gate still held.

If Philips was thinking of quickly coming to his father's rescue, he was to be disappointed.

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