Herald of Steel

"Stand your ground to the last, men! Don't take a step back!"

"There is nowhere for us to run! So fight! Fight like caged lions, men!"

"Take one scum to hell with you! If you are a man, take at least one scum with you!"

Aboard Remus's ships, the man himself, as well as his officers could be heard making such shouts all across the deck, as they held on for dear life.

When the two ships had collided, the greater mass of the Heeat family's ship had caused it to skewer directly into the hull of Remus's ship, virtually crippling the smaller vessel.

But not to be outdone, Remus had also managed to use his much larger and better ram to punch such an enormous hole into the other's side that the sailors determined if they were to disengage now, their hull would start taking too much water and ultimately drown.

Hence both sides became 'struck' with each other.

Then, seeing running away was no longer an option, as well as spotting the other side to be the commanding vessel, as evidenced by the regal, very flashy armor both sides worn, the two almost simultaneously decided to try and conduct a decapitation strike, intent on cutting the head of the snake to deal a crippling moral blow.

And this decision, unfortunately for Remus, turned out to be to his detriment, for Lord Kite, possessing much greater and better troops seemed destined to come out on top.

Unlike the other ship, Remus had not had the time to arrange his men into that thick, defensive formation, and so facing an enemy almost twice his size, moreover, one that was very skilled in naval fighting, the best he could do was struggle and make the entire affair as bloody as they possibly could while hoping for a timely rescue from Alexander.

And Alexander was indeed aware of the plight of his men, for it was very swiftly brought to his attention by a panicked runner, who unceremoniously entered his tent to suddenly shout at the top of his voice, "My lord! Remu… Sir Remus has unexpectedly encountered the enemy on his way! He is outnumbered! Please send help!"

To the sleeping pasha, this sudden loud cry felt like nails clawing against the blackboard, as he had just gotten to bed not even an hour ago.

This was of course not because Alexander was lazy but because the man had not slept the previous night, as he chose to personally oversee the preparations for the attack on the Island.

And so after sending Remus on his way, thought it would not be a bad idea to catch a few hours of shut-eye, feeling safe in the knowledge that whatever happened the young general could handle it.

However, that clearly had not been the case, as determined by the sudden intrusion.

"Wha. what?" And being raised out of his slumber in such a crude way, Alexander bolted out of his bed to blurt out so with a confused look.

The ask had come out of nowhere and having his nascent sleep shattered like this made the man's head throb with pain and eyes burn, making it very hard for him to concentrate.

But the scout, in his haste threw such concerns to the air, and instead again repeated himself, reiterating the plea for help.

But even then Alexander's groggy mind had trouble processing the information.

So rubbing his eyes, he sought to confirm, "Enemy? More than they expected? Were the garrisoned forces on the island greater than we had expected? What's the problem?"

It seemed that in this lethargy, Alexander believed the man was talking about the forces on Phyrros Island, and not about an encounter in the sea.

And understanding, the messenger quickly worked to sort that confusion out, successfully reporting,

"My lord! Sir Remus ran into an enemy fleet as he was heading west. They are fighting on the ocean as we speak. We can all see it from the shore!"

That last little bit of detail was enough to finally kick any lingering lethargy inside of Alexander to the moon and then past it, as his eyes shot wide open, and instead of questioning the man any further, sprinted out of his tent at breakneck speed, intent on seeing the marvel for himself.

The man did not have to go far, as even from a distance to the harbor, he could see the five large enemy ships circling and occasionally ramming his four, smaller almost midget-sized vessels, hits that took off bits of splintering wood and paint with each contact, thus slowly wearing them down, in a tactic very much reminiscent of a pack of hyenas attacking a wounded prey.

Alexander's heart thumped with great fear and unease at the sight of his ships having their 'meat'' torn apart chunk by chunk, especially after knowing Remus was on one of them.

It felt like seeing his friend being attacked by a pack of wild piranha, who were slowly eating him alive.

It was torturous.

"Alexander! You must send reinforcements!" And just as he was processing the information, this alarmed shout pierced his ear, and he turned to see it was from a panicking Hemicus.

And from the look of it, it could even be said that this battle had the man even more riled up than Alexander.

The young Pasha had rarely seen the man as flustered as he looked now.

The usually stoic man thus currently appeared very haggard and almost in shock, while his armor, which was usually immaculate, now did not seem quite right, with various unlatched straps dangling by the sides and the entire thing seeming 'misaligned', clearly showing the haste it was put on.

It was apparent that Remus's presumed imminent fate greatly troubled the man.

And thus he seemed to be in no mood to care about such frivolities and instead turned his gaze to the battle unfolding only a few kilometers away in the open sea.

That was the real cause for concern.

And Alexander agreed, thus at being asked to provide help for his trapped men, the pasha threw all strategic and tactical concern out the window, and without flinching even for a second, came out with a plan on the spot.

Whereupon he shot out with great purpose,

"Send a skiff to Kazid on Phyrros Island. Order him to immediately take four of his ships, along with two hundred men as well as the necessary rowers to go meet the enemy. Have him drive them back! No matter what! Remus must be rescued!"

As Alexander said this, in his haste at issuing the command, the man erroneously left it ambiguous whether he wanted Kazid to rescue Remus no matter what, or wanted the enemy to be driven back no matter what.

It was a subtle, almost imperceptible mistake, and it remained to be seen what, if any, such a thing would have on the course of the battle and of all those participating in it.

For now, though, the messenger quickly tucked the hastily scrawled letter under his belt and boarded a small, fast boat towards the fateful island, where, with any luck, he would be able to find the commander without too much looking around.

As the man bearing Alexander's official seal sailed off with such hope, Alexander himself did not choose to go back to his rent to rest.

No, but instead, seeing his amphibious force get bogged down, the man decided to form a brand new task force to replace the old one.

Yes, despite the setback, Alexander was not yet ready to abandon Phyrros Island.

After all, even if he wanted to, how could he?

So many of his men were stationed there and losing them would not be just crippling, it would be mortal.

He had to rescue them.

And he thought the best way to do that would be to clear the place of any Heeat family soldiers.

So this time, he intended to reach the western side of the island by not going east like Remus, but by first traveling north, sailing past the first group of his men, and then turning left to ultimately flank the enemy from the west!

And as Alexander came up with that route, he even half cursed at himself, 'Dammit! I should have chosen this path the first time. It was clearly so much safer."

This was clearly the case, as the northern route would have had Phyrros Island to his left, where there were moored seven more of his ships, while to the right was the vast, blue, open sea, devoid of any nasty surprise.

But it was just that Alexander did not pay much attention to the route to be taken, because he thought the enemy had no usable ships left.

Clearly, that was a miscalculation on his part, a blind spot in his intelligence, thus leading him to become aware of the fact that he had failed to bring all the vessels down only now.

But there was little point in shedding tears over Lord Parker's successful salvaging of the doomed ships now.

Thus instead, while Kazid was asked to deal with the new enemy, Alexander back at camp began to give out fresh orders, asking his officers to prepare for him another three ships, and four hundred men.

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