Herald of Steel

"Charge! Ahhhh!"

"Forward men! *Trumpet*! Forward!"

"Kill those bastards! Remember what they did to us!"

"Revenge for our brothers! Revenge for all our suffering! Revenge for our tribe!"

"A thousand years of blood debt! Repay it all! Repay them and then some!"

As soon as the last of the wooden pontoons were laid down, shouts of such animalistic fury rang out from across the whole of Alexander's ranks as his men ran across the rickety bridge to meet their enemy.

Well, technically they were not his men as it was the center that had charged and that was composed entirely of the Helvati,

But the sentiment was the same.

Upon seeing their hated enemy right at their fingertips, these fierce tribal folks lost all their inhibition for battle and discarded any concerns about fighting on such a rickety platform like a floating pontoon bridge to bulldoze towards them like a bull seeing red.

While seeing this display of great bravery, the Margrave tropes were caught a bit off guard.

They had been told that these unshaven, shabbily dressed barbarians would not dare meet their much better equipped forces head on.

So they had expected them to run, not construct a rickety pontoon bridge and charge madly towards them eager for a fight.

However that initial shock quickly wore away, and the relatively experienced troops quickly rallied and firmly planted their feet on the ground.

While from the front and center their officers and commanders continued to urge them with great booming shouts of encouragement,

"Don't falter! These barbarians are nothing. You have fought them before and you have beaten them before."

"That's right! These are little more than the death throes of the rabble waste. They will give away the moment you push back. Now go!"

"Attack! Charge forward and attack! Show these improvised wastes what the Margraves family is made of!"

"Push them off the bridge! Swing your shield and push these fools into the river. Teach them what blind defiance brings!"

And these encouraging shouts quickly had their effect as the 15,000 men let out a giant hurrah, before continuing the melee.

The Helvati found the prospect of fighting on a pontoon bridge surprisingly easy.

Many of them had feared the wooden logs would wobble and slip, but much to their satisfaction there was nothing of the sort.

The reason for this was- one- they were quite well made for the short time it took to manufacture, with the knots being particularly well done.

They had been apparently tied by the servants Lord Janus brought with him, and many of these men were sailors. And as anyone would know, sailors knew their knots- it was one of the very basic skills they were required to master as it was vitally needed in riggings.

Hence the logs were held together very tightly.

And the second reason for the ease was the large number of men that were on the bridge.

Their heavy mass helped push the wood down into the water, lowering its center of gravity, while due to the men being in formation, that mass was spread equally across the surface, providing superb stability.

Hence despite urging from their commanders, the Margrave troops found it very hard to use their shields to push the Helvati overboard.

Even a good shield bash that stunned the opponent and made him disoriented was not always a guarantee that he was going to lose his footing and fall over.

Rather, most of the time when someone tripped, the tightly packed formation of men helped straighten the falling man all by himself.

And as the battle raged on, initially it began to favor the Helvati, with some of their units even managing to push the defending Margraves back so far that they by now had a foothold on the other side of the bank.

And this had happened despite their numerical inferiority!

Yes, due to a lack of space in the pontoon bridges, Alexander was not able to deploy his entire force across the river.

So for now, despite Alexander technically outnumbering the Margraves, only the 10,000 Helvati were engaging the 15,000 of the enemy, while a large part of Alexander's legionnaires were busy expanding the bridge by attaching more cut wooden logs to it, eager to join their allies' as soon as possible.

Although given the Helvati were winning without them, one could ask why the rush?

As for how Metztil was doing so well?

Well it had to do with their distinct style of fighting!

Now, since both sides used very similar weaponry, they fought in broadly similar styles, engaging the enemy in a shoulder to shoulder formation, with each soldier responsible for protecting his two brothers on either side, using their spear to swat away all the incoming attacks.

But if one looked a bit closely, they would find that the Helvati fought in a kind of more loose formation where individuals fought by themselves with little regard to the wishes or awareness of their partners, while the Margraves were much more reserved and coherent in their attacks.

The reason for this practice was because the Helvati, or the native tribal folks in general had always prized their own personal achievements in battle, as it way to show off to their brethren and gain social and even political prestige.

Hence, every man was for himself, thus forgoing any coherent strategy in favor of raw, brutal strength to smash the enemy all by themselves.

This translated to their attacks being very flashy and powerful, and the much less zealous Margraves who were told the enemy would not put up any great resistance found it hard to swallow the huge strikes easily.

After all, unlike the Helvati who were fueled by a hatred spanning a few hundred years, these poor men had nothing. And if not for the threat of being hanged in the center of the market for disobeying their lord, these men would likely not even be here.

Hence deep inside many lampoons,

'Are these the same natives we have been told about? When did they get so fierce?'

'I thought we would not have to fight! I thought we would be able to scare them off with just our armor. We are wearing the best chainmail and wielding the best spears from Zanzan! What gives?'

'Dammit, you wild brutes! How dare you defy father! Shut up and die!'

However although the green recruits and grass root men were stunned by the impressive show of power from the Helvati, the experienced officers and nobles were actually far less concerned.

"Hehe! These animals are the same as always!" Lord Bakerfield in fact even chuckled amusedly, as if he found seeing his men get pushed back funny.

But anyone who looked at his eyes would find no desire to share the laugh, for it was burning with an extremely hot flame of rage.

And that rage soon turned to actions, as at a certain decisive point in the battle, the elderly noble turned to his nearby herald,

"These barbarians should be tiring soon…. Send orders to the officers! They are to halt retreating and start pushing back. The gods have given us the most opportune chance today. We must not let a single one of these animals escape. Slaughter them all!"

Yes!

The entire giving up space had been a trap!

The experienced noble had been in many expeditions against the natives and knew their fighting to the tee.

Which was why he did not bother to meet them head on steel for steel.

Rather when the Helvati mindlessly charged, he cleverly absorbed the initial blows by slowly having his army retreat, letting these 'glory hungry fools' tire themselves out against his huge shield.

The core problem with the Helvati's approach to war was that they did not really fight as a unified, coherent force.

Rather, since they each fought with a mind of their own, any tactical breakthrough they made along the lines was unable to be capitalized by the army as a whole.

After all, no commander in the world would have had the time to respond to such sudden and erratic changes on the fly.

So the best way to deal with such chaotic fury was to be patient and let the other side simply vent it all out.

Then launch the most vicious counterattack only after, thus catching the breathless baffoons off guard.

This would inevitably cause massive casualties among them, forcing the lines to crack and break.

It was a very good plan and really went to show that a Marquis family with a few hundred years of history was nothing to scoff at… even when it was at its weakest point, there would always be talented people to lead it.

And even if these talented people made mistakes, it would most likely never be due to incompetence, but more as a result of a lack of knowledge or faulty assumptions.

Thus as Lorder Bakerfield gave the order and time began to pass, some subtle but glaring differences started to arise on the battlefield.

Up until then, it had been mostly a relentless barrage of the Helvati trying to break through the Margrave's lines using uncountable spear thrusts, jabs, and pokes, while defending against the same attacks using their large shields and armor.

But now….

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