Herald of Steel

Alexander hawkishly watched the battlefield, repeatedly turning his back to see if Menicus was near and then swinging around to see if the horsemen had arrived at the gates.

'Time's running out!' Alexander's heart began to beat with anxiety as the small group was only a few football pitch lengths away from the city gates.

Then, with the grace of the heavens, he spotted the riders riding towards Adhan, screaming the phrase he had taught them, 'Open the gates, open the gates! The king is coming.'

This loud shouting coupled with the fact many experienced soldiers could see the all too familiar golden armor they had seen their king on just four days ago when Amenheraft re-took the city was enough to convince them.

They had long spotted their god-king being surrounded by the enemy and were praying to Ramuh to save their king.

A large number of the city watch and the garrison, numbering around two thousand strong were also assembled just behind the gates and they were about to set off to rescue their king from the horse vultures.

So, when the messengers of the king arrived with the order to open the gates, and seeing their king was only a few hundred meters away, they didn't ask questions and immediately released the complex mechanism holding the gate.

Alexander was ecstatic by this but it was very short-lived as he experienced a brief moment of elation followed by plummeting depression.

Because standing right in front of them were two of the five thousand men Amenhearft had left behind and their numbers were swelling by the minute as more and more of them were being woken up from their slumber and told to join the formation.

Alexander wasn't the only one confused as the forty men were also nonplussed.

Their original plan to just cut down the few men manning the gates and then take control of it was no longer possible. So they just kinda stood there, dithering.

Then he began to return as if to show they were going to rescue their king.

'Dammit, of course, the Adhanians would gather their forces to rescue their king, they had hours to do it. My brain must have been eaten by shit," Alexander was infuriated at himself for not considering this simple tactic.

If he could, he would court-martial himself.

But there was little use crying over spilled milk and soon Alexander took a deep breath to calm himself, "*Sigh*, calm down, calm down. Center yourself and think. There must be another way."

And like a light bulb going inside his head, it came to him.

"Men, to me! Form up! Form up for a charge!" Alexander roared with all the might he could master, ordering to form a line with him and to do a cavalry charge!

And soon, the cavalry gravitated around him and thus relieved the Adhanians of the encirclement.

Seeing the calvary disperse, the Adhanians were ecstatic and their elation turned to rapturous joy when they saw the city doors open with two thousand men behind them, eager to greet their king.

But then. just like Alexander, they also experienced 'a brief moment of elation followed by plummeting depression'.

"Charge! They are forming up to charge the open gates." Amenheraft was the first to realize the danger and screamed in terror as he turned his turn his head to the right to see the mercenaries form up in a line.

"Our men haven't realized the danger! They are still in the middle of changing formations and must be getting ready to march toward us." A noble beside the king gave his analysis with equal horror mixed in his voice.

"We can't let them do that. Their spears will not be positioned correctly and will have no time to point them forward," Another military veteran, him quite composed, pointed out a simple fact.

They were just three hundred meters away and the horses could cover that distance within less than a minute.

"The garrison thinks the enemy horses had given up and are retreating and regrouping. They don't know they are under threat" Kefka shouted so loudly that it seemed he wanted the garrison to hear his voice.

"Kefka, you take the lead. Now the siege has been lifted and they are forming lines, it's the perfect time to break up and charge into the city!" Amenheraft could not let bear the thought of being so close and failing.

The last few hours had been brutal for the mental physic of Amenheraft and he wanted this whole ordeal to be just over with and so ordered Kefka to act as bait while they charged.

"At once, your Majesty!" Kefka nodded and then began to form a wedge-shaped charging formation.

And then, *Whoosh*, they were gone.

The front lines of the hollow square formation magically seemed to collapse as the soldiers seemed to break away, while from the center came a screaming, blind gallop of twenty horsemen led by a magnificent golden horse like one out of a painting.

'The king is running!' Alexander's heart sank to the inky depths of hell at seeing the golden sun-like horse starting to disappear into the horizon.

He thus frantically raised his spear to the sky and screamed a chase, "Charge!"

And so the epic horse chase of the century began, with twenty horsemen kicking up dust clouds as they tried to outrun the fifteen hundred horsemen led by its vicious commander Alexander.

"Faster, faster," Alexander whipped his horse, even causing him to get out of formation and be in danger of being caught isolated.

Amenheraft too glanced back to see which man had managed to push him so close to the abyss and his deep, black profound eyes met the furiously blue steely eyes of Alexander.

But Alexander did not know he was looking at the king, his focus was instead squarely placed on the golden armor worn by Kefka.

Then Alexander noticed the forty men that were returning from their half-successful mission and shouted, "The gold! Kill the gold!"

In his mind, the forty horsemen could easily stop the twenty Adhanians or at least kill the very leading man, which happened to be the king.

'Hahaha, the heavens are still smiling at me,' He hysterically laughed in joy at this happenstance.

But how could anyone hear a tiny human's voice over the galloping of a thousand and a half horses?

And even before the men could understand what their commander was moving his mouth about or even who was charging at them, *whish* they had gone past them.

'Fuckkkkkk,' Alexander's disappointment was immeasurable and his day seemed to be ruined.

But, luckily, there was one sharp man who managed to understand the situation and screamed, "The king! There's the king!"

This was Laykash, who immediately turned with his horse, and started galloping.

'Shit! We were so close,' He cursed himself as he tried to catch up with less than two hundred meters remaining.

As such, a strange scene developed just outside the biggest city in the East.

Twenty horsemen led by a golden horse led the front, followed by a solitary horseman behind, and then a thousand and five hundred men even more behind them, whipping up plumbs of dust storm in the process as they charged.

Laykash maneuvered his horse very skillfully and even started to gain on the Adhanians as, as a Sycarian his horse skill were top-notch, much better than the likes of Kefka and the others.

But it was too little, too late.

The distance was too small and the twenty horsemen finally reached the gates of Adhan.

They were safe.

The king was safe.

'It's over!' Alexander bitterly cursed his heart, 'The king will now disappear into the city and the soldiers immediately will point their spears forward to stop the cavalry charge and then close the door within minutes.' He told himself.

Or so he thought!

Or so everyone else thought!

But this was not what Laykash thought!

Because, unlike Alexander who had started to slow down his charge, he showed no signs of stopping.

Instead, he spurred his warhorse, his buddy to speed up and galloped full speed ahead

And because as twenty Adhanian men inevitably slowed down nearing the gate to not smash into their own men and thinking there was no lunatic stupid enough to still keep charging at them, they couldn't see this coming.

Even in their wildest dreams, they didn't expect what would happen next.

Laykash zipped past everyone, ignoring the other nineteen tired men gasping and panting and leading their horses through the large city gate, and keeping his spear pointed directly at the back of the golden armor.

And then *Pierce.*

The steel tip, powered by the momentum of the horse and man, pierced Kefka's heart like butter, killing him even before he could a sound, even before anyone could understand what was going on.

Everyone just saw a shadow, arriving behind their lead man, and piercing him with a spear out of nowhere, and then, because Laykash hadn't bothered to slow down, the golden horse their 'king' toppling over.

For a moment, that seemed to run towards eternity, the nobles, the soldiers, and even the horses seemed to have hit the pause button as they all went wide-eyed and just kept staring at the golden armor slowly being dyed red and the Catagenan whose femur bone seemed to be sticking out of his thighs.

All seemed paralyzed by fear.

"The king is dead! The banner has fallen!" This howl was not from the Adhanuian but from Alexander, who being just thirty meters away from the gates saw everything clearly.

And because of the pin-drop silence flowing through the Adhanians right then, every peasant, soldier, and noble heard it as clear as a day.

And they routed!

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