Herald of Steel

Looking down at the very uneven grounds, Remus cursed at how he could have missed such an obvious fault.

But the answer soon came to him.

The ground was previously obscured by the fighting men from both sides so that when Alexander and the others came up with the plan, they had simply extrapolated what they had seen near the foot of the hills over onto the whole hills.

Needless to say, over time the foot of the hill had been much more smoothed out by tear and wear as well as the general actions of the people living around it.

Thus, seeing the upper terrain for the first time, Remus was forced to reevaluate his strategy.

'What do I do? Attack anyway! Turn back! Slow down and then take my time!'

All three opinions had their drawbacks.

The first one where they stuck to their plan was quickly ruled out as it had the least chance of success and most likely chance of the formation breaking apart by themselves.

Even if only a few of the horses tripped and broke their legs, the rest of the galloping riders behind would not have the time to stop but stumble over these fallen beasts, creating more obstacles and thus causing a domino effect.

The second option was also unacceptable as not only would that mean failing Alexander, but Remus also doubted whether it could even be done.

After all, they could not even take a roughly 180 degree turn, so how were they doing to do a full 360?

As for the third and final one… well that was also easier said than done.

Stopping now on this rough, steep hill without slipping was needless too hard, and Remus doubted he had the time or space to be able to pull that off.

And even if he did, he would have to once again regain that speed once he started his charge on the enemy's rear. As already said earlier, charging down the hill carried significant risks of the horses breaking their legs.

Lastly, all this was not to mention the threat of Lord Parker responding to Remus's sluggish maneuvers by simply sending his own forces to attack the young general's own rear.

Remus could already see the heads of many horses peeping out from the camp atop, presumably getting ready for just that.

So whatever Remus wanted to do, he needed to hurry…

'The problem is my men are going to die if I push any faster!' Remus cursed his conundrum, trying to rake his brain to decide which least bad option to pick.

When suddenly he recalled something that made his eyes glow like two small suns.

"Let's go up! We will attack the enemy main camp directly!"

The loud shout shook the men next to Remus immensely.

They could of course see where the man was coming from.

Since they were behind enemy lines, why hit the rear when you could take out the headquarters, especially when it was right there straight ahead of them?

All they needed to do was charge up the hill in a single file and smash into it.

"Bu… but isn't the ground too steep? And surely there are many guards protecting Lord Parker!" However, the decapitation strike that could end the battle in one go also had its challenges as revealed by such cries of fear and apprehension.

The officers around Remus knew the man to be somewhat crazy but this was on another level.

Just by their eyeball estimate the enemy was bound to have at least 2,000 men up there in reserve. So how were they going to break through with half the numbers?

Realizing this some of the officers thus even half believed that Remus had not really given this suicidal command but all this was a result of miscommunication created amidst the chaos on the battlefield.

"There's no problem! Follow me!"

Their optimistic hopes were however cruelly dashed when Remus shouted so, and he then shut all of them up as he took the lead in speeding up the hill.

The young general refused to waste any time explaining his thoughts and decided to lead by example.

While seeing their commander take the front, the rest of the officers, no matter how reluctant, were forced to follow.

They could not let the man go at it alone, and thus as they sped up along him, they could only pray the young man had not lost his mind.

'It's easier to control the horse climbing up than climbing down! Hopefully, they won't trip! And if we can get up there…. Those loose guards won't be able to stop us in time!'

While in his mind, Remus reasoned this as a method to his madness.

Yes, the boy planned to use his horse's momentum to simply smash through the static guard formation, slapping them out of his way with his huge lance in order to expose the soft camp core.

*Thud*, *Thud*, *Thud*

It was with that thought that Remus and his men thundered their way up, much to the first puzzlement and then horror of Lord Parker!

Initially, the young scion did not even understand what he was seeing, and looking at the billowing dust cloud thought to himself,

'Did a part of the army break? Why are they running towards me?'

It was only after he blinked a few times and confirmed the bright aqueous color of the uniform that Lord Parker finally figured out who these trespassers were.

He could not believe it, causing him to exclaim, 'How did they get here?'

The feeling Lord Parker was feeling was perhaps the exact one Lord Bakerfield had felt when he first spotted the same group outflanking him.

And like Lord Bakerfield, Lord Parker's first thought was to run.

"Men! To formation! Get in formation!"

But it was Lord Macht's urgent booming voice that pierced the calm veil of the camp, as the giant, veteran man took command of the situation at their most dire point.

And seeing the black, prestigious man take the helm, the rest of the panicking soldiers also suddenly found their courage suddenly returning to them.

"Right! Get in position! Get in position!"

"Hurry… Stand together! No need to get your horses! Simply stand together!"

"Enemy behind lines! Enemy behind lines! Hurr…. Arhhhh"

Unfortunately for the Heeats, despite Lord Macht's best efforts, the tragedy unfolded just as Remus had envisioned.

He had struck too fast and the distracted guards who were expecting nothing of the sort were caught too off guard.

Many of them did not even have their horses with them, leaving the beast in their stable or letting them graze by the nearby fields.

This was because it had been generally assumed they were not going to be deployed due to the unfavorable terrain.

So rather than sitting uncomfortably atop a bored beast for hours on end without any reason, it was far more logical to let both the rider and beast rest and recuperate.

The tragedy of this innocuous action only revealed itself when Remus, equipped with his long lance hit them.

On top of them being able to only hastily form a few lines, most of that was comprised of dismounted infantry, and as such, these thin lines were unfortunately grossly inadequate to present even a token resistance to Remus's enormous blow.

*Bang* , *Neigh*, *Crash*!

The moment the two sides met, the lines snapped with a thunderous crack as Remus's metal tips dug into both men and horses of the enemy, skewering through flesh, muscle, and bone and lifting them off the ground before throwing them back down.

Remus's lines were much too thick and had much too much momentum from the mad gallop that they had started with when climbing up the hill.

Couple this with the cavalry's unique heavy charging tactic, with their specialized equipment designed to break through other enemy formations, and these poor men did not even have a ghost of a chance of success from the start.

The first three lines which were mostly composed of cavalry were basically decimated, as they were forced to just stand there and take the full brunt of the impact, causing the ground to be dyed with blood, spilling organs, and mangled bodies of men and beast, each furiously crying out their last death throes.

And the amount of talent and expertise the Heeats lost just from these three echelons would have been enough to make even Duke Heeat wince in regret.

It took a lot of time and money to produce such elite troops, yet, now they were sacrificed like cannon fodder just to slow the enemy down a bit.

But Lord Macht did what he had to do. And at the end of the day, he was correct in his deployment.

Because if he had used the much lighter, dismounted infantry to soak in the damage…. well let's just say even with the barricade of much heavier cavalry, Remus's initial charge was able to produce such an enormous, grievous, bleeding wound that most of the remaining defenders found putting up any defense had become largely moot.

If the line was the ship Titanic, then Remus was the iceberg that sunk it.

Thus when the second wave of riders came for them, the enemy guards, as gallant as they might have been, decided to abandon ship!

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