Herald of Steel

873 Hemicus's Bold Move

Chapter 873

"Hahaha! What is this but only a minor set back?"

It was with such a breezy sentence that Alexander decided to soothe Hemicus's aching heart, presenting the currently, already decided in his mind result, as more of a small inconvenience rather than a decisive defeat, and asking the man that he should not take too much note of it.

"*Nod*" And although it was unknown how much of that Hemicus bought, he at least outwardly appeared to consent.

"Good." That was enough for Alexander, for internally even he was a bit peeved at this loss.

But hiding that slight bitterness, he smiled at the man and then urging his horse forward, started to ride towards his right flanks, leaving Hemicus with the words, "You go too! Quickly!"

With Alexander's command, the cavalry reserves were quickly set into position, forming a solid defensive line ready to act as the rear guard and harass the enemy while the legionaries retreated.

As Hemicus finished his preparation and was waiting for Alexander to blow his trumpet signaling the end of the battle, all of a sudden this experienced mercenary leader noticed it!

An opportunity!

His keen eyes noticed that the 7,000 units led by Crown Prince Philips on his side of the flank, themselves had their flanks open to him!

Best yet, these men had not noticed him!

Thus seeing this a sudden thought shot through Hemicus like lighting.

A very, very bold thought.

"Look! The enemy's wings, its open! Charge! We can charge!" Hemicus loudly said, excitedly pointing his finger at Philips's units, his voice carried by the wind to the men nearby.

Who were at first confused, and then a bit terrified.

Not because he was wrong but because what Hemicus was proposing to do went directly against Alexander's order- attacking the enemy when the institution was to defend.

"Captain! That…." So one of his adjutants even tried to talk some sense to him.

However, allured by the potential of victory, Hemicus did not even wait to listen to the man, and throwing all that Alexander had said out the window, he blew his own trumpet in a very specific way, one that signaled the men to charge.

"With me! Charge!" And even shouting the command himself, the man led the men from the front, lance in hand, lowered and ready, the body bent close to the horse, legs firmly inside the stirrups.

"......Ahhhhh!"

And seeing their leader pulling off such a move, although the surrounding men were at first flabbergasted by it, upon actually seeing the magnificent horse gallop fearlessly across the horizon towards the enemy, after a brief moment of stunned silence, they had little option other than to follow suit and charge.

Thus the 1,000 rear guards that Alexander set on this side of the battlefield, suddenly were no more.

They were now the attacking force.

The reasoning behind such an act could definitely be either praised or criticized, as either seizing the opportunity or as reckless glory hunting, especially since this was not at all like how Hemicus usually acted.

But it seemed that this time, whatever the reason, the man had.

And this was not as strange as one might think.

After all, people were not cardboard cutout caricatures of just one trait.

But composed of a hodgepodge of various, many times conflicting characteristics, which revealed themselves only under specific circumstances.

And this was one of those instances, with Hemicus showing a wildly different facade.

Although he never showed it outwardly, the man was a fiercely competitive individual, especially when it came to winning wars.

Thus the reckless charge, as the man disobeyed Alexander and still wished to win the battle even after all this, putting all his faith in the phrase- 'Fortune favors the bold!"

Hemicus galloped towards Philips like a freight train, dividing the 1,000 men cavalry into ten 100 men units, arranging them in double lines of 500 men each, thus presenting the 50 riders in the very first echelon the chance to draw first blood.

And it was an attack that the Crown Prince was not even aware was being launched against him, for he did not even have any knowledge of the existence of any enemy reserves.

He thought Alexander had already committed everything to the frontlines.

Thus instead he placed his eyes squarely on the enemy in front of him, as Philips both excitedly and with shaking trepidation shouted phrasessuch as,

"Just a bit more! Just a bit more and we will have finally won this battle! Just a bit more men."

The man's throat sounded sore by now and he kept on saying that particular phrase, like this was a supplication to the gods.

And this was the similar mindset for many of his officers too, who focused all their attention on the enemy in the front, urging the men to break through as fast as possible, for they too were worried that the center might not hold.

To them, this seemed like a contest between Alexander's flanks and their center, a fight of willpower, a show of strength to show who could hold on the longer.

And understandably everyone on both sides was concerned.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

Thus, consumed by all these thoughts, it was not until Hemicus was literally 50 meters away from making contact that the other side finally detected him, the dust cloud, the roars of the men, the neighing of the horse, and most notably the terrifying thudding sound waking the phalangites to the peril they were imminently facing.

And even then, only the soldiers in the outermost fringes of the formation and the closest to Hemicus were able to detect him, for the battlefield was a very noisy place, and the helmets the soldiers wore restricted all peripheral vision.

But even if the entire formation could have detected Hemicus, by then there was pitifully little they could have done anyway.

Hemicus was literally a few seconds from crashing into them, and

Bang!

Closing the distance in a second in the blink of an eye, the man crashed into the wide open, undefended formation with almost half a ton of mass traveling at 30 km an hour like a cannonball, producing a thundering thud and ear piercing shriek of the dead as he made contact, opening up a gap literally three rows deep in that section.

The force of the impact had been so much that his lance had snapped off at the hilt, lodging itself first into a phalangites's shield which it pierced, then continued onward to skewer the man, following which it pierced the stomach of the man behind him, before sending the duo flying and making them crash into the third row, knocking the trio off their feet.

Such was the fearsome power of a proper heavy cavalry charge.

And following close suit with Hemicus, the rest of the 49 men too made contact, inflicting similar wounds and opening up a gaping hole in the enemy's defenses.

"Wha… where… what was that?"

"Who… how is …."

"What's happening?"

And the attack was so sudden that many of the officers, including Philips lost control of their speech momentarily.

'Was there another army nearby? Are we being ambushed?' The extent of the wound was so much so that the Crown Prince even thought this incredulously.

Rumble! Bang!

And even before he could understand what the hell was going on, Hemicus's second wave hit again, expanding on the gap, while theThesians there panicked.

"The right! We are being attacked on the right!"

"Cavalry! We are being attacked by cavalry!"

"Slingers! Get the slingers!"

"Dead! So many dead!"

"Shields up! Turn!"

"Run! It's an ambush!"

All kinds of mismatched shouts could be heard drifting across the battlefield, and even before any of the officers could come up with a counterstrategy,

Rumble! Bang!

The third wave hit.

And that seemed to be the point at which Philips's men started to crumble.

These Thesians were hired-help and not nearly as zealous as the Tibians in the center.

So when things got bad, like how blood escaped the wound, Hemicus's attack caused the men in the near vicinity to start to panic and melt away.

And disrupted by this attack, the frontal offense of the unit too came to an almost abrupt halt, as the phalangites there began to look around curiously to try and find out what the commission was to their right, from where there seemed to be coming loud bursts of screaming.

*Trumpet*, *Trumpet*, *Trumpet*

But just as Philips's unit was about to collapse, Alexander, unaware of this great success on his other flank, blew the trumpet of retreat just like planned.

In fact, he had blown it a while ago.

It was just that it had taken the other trumpeters some time to pass the message along.

After all, Alexander's one trumpet could not of course cover a battlefield kilometers long.

As for why the man had not chosen to recognize the opportunity that Hemicus had, well, firstly it was because of the mindset.

Unlike Hemicus, Alexander was not still trying to think of a win here but primarily focused on preserving his army.

While the second reason was that unfortunately, Perseus had also placed the 12 elephants on Alexander's right flanks, discouring Alexander from copying Hemicus.

Any heavy cavalry charge had the potential of turning into a massacre just like last time.

Thus Alexander refrained.

"Do not pay attention to that! Continue the attack!"

But if you thought Hemicus was going to stop the stop just because he heard the bell, then you were sorely mistaken!