Herald of Steel

Samaras was stunned upon hearing Damous wanted to just quit.

Quit when they were so close?

He had given the man everything he wanted, every penny he had just to get him to take part in this battle, and now he wanted to run?

Just like that?

How could he ever accept that?

But he knew snapping off at his largest supporter right here in the middle of a war was not the best course of action.

So with a herculean force of willpower, he kept his cool and said, "Damious, we have already opened the cauldron. We just need a little more time for all the soldiers to get out."

"If you don't run now, none of you will ever get out." Damious roared in frustration.

"Damious, you are injured. Let me get you some medical treatment first." Seeing the two-meter bear was adamant about leaving, Samaras tried to change the topic.

But it didn't work.

Damious simply ignored what Samaras said and shouted, "Brat. I just lost two thousand good men right now. To verify it, I even personally went to the front lines and lost my good eye. Yet, you don't believe me? Fine, if you want to stay, then stay. I am leaving."

Then, he addressed directly his soldiers, "Men, we are retreating. Right now!"

After that, without listening to even a single thing Samaras had to say, Damious decisively left the battlefield field taking around three thousand of his soldiers with him.

Samaras's grand army of fifteen thousand had now been reduced to a mere eight thousand.

Just as Samaras was about to also order the retreat, he saw the mercenary leader Alcmene rushing to meet him.

"Sir, I think Damious is exaggerating. Don't order the retreat." These were the first words the leader said to Samaras. Then he explained, "I don't think leader Damious saw everything clearly in the fog. Think about it, if he can ride to and deliver the news to you before your runners could, it means the Adhanians are not yet close enough to be spotted. And in this fog who knows how long it will take." He intelligently pointed.

Though Alcmene had his own agenda for saying this.

Because if Samaras did order a retreat, he likely will get zilch from him, and given his mercenary group's financial situation, it will likely cause him to bust.

That's why when he confirmed that Damious was pulling out, he feared Samaras might too and thus ran all the way from the back to meet him.

And Alcmene's words worked.

Because Samaras seemed to share his views, "You do make some good points. Okay, let's wait a bit longer." He agreed.

Though some might say he agreed a little bit too easily.

This was because Alcmene was the voice of 'reasonable possibility that Samaras needed to convince himself that he still had time to rescue all the soldiers.

He planned to let them safely return to camp while his army slowly retreated, acting as the rear guard to protect them from the pursuing Adhanians.

Also, another reason he didn't believe Damious but did Alcmene was because he wanted to.

Because if Damious was indeed right, then he was royally screwed.

Retreating now would be tantamount to losing the war.

And then his only realistic option would be to surrender.

Thus, the young man, not wanting to do that, decided to bury his head in the sand and hope Alcmene was right and the injured man was wrong.

And good news!

Because the injured bear was indeed wrong.

Decimating the right flank of two thousand troops consumed quite some time for the Adhanians, and in this fog and mud, their march slowed down to a crawl, as they proceeded slowly to keep unit cohesion.

And Samaras, being a competent general, although dismissed Damious, nevertheless chose to pay some attention to the claim as he sent multiple runners to look out for any incoming attacks to their right flank.

And that's where the good news ended.

Because although the Cantagenan right wing had managed to put up some fight before being obliterated, its left flanks just vanished like a puff of smoke at mere contact with the enemy.

Also, what's more, the left side of the battlefield was significantly less muddy than the right side, meaning Ashania's left wing was rapidly gaining on the Cantagenan central left flank, a blind spot that Samaras overlooked because his communication lines with the left wing had been cut off and he assumed they were still there, though he was unsure of what they were exactly doing.

Thus with having all their eyes in just one direction and forgetting about the other side, they never saw what hit them.

As the doom procession silently approached, Samaras and co. were kept none the wiser but instead, they kept receiving good news after good news, saying how they were pushing back the Adhanians and how many of their rescued brothers were rejoining their ranks to participate in the fight.

But a small nagging did creep into some captain's mind, mainly that much fewer than anticipated people were running towards them.

This was of course because of Manuk's tactic, which caused the soldiers at the back, who due to the fog could not properly identify directions, to run through the opposite 'exit' into the Adhanian camp.

And this was missed by the Cantagenan captains, who, without proper visibility and lack of communication, chalked up such doubts as human error.

It was amidst this euphoric high, did a runner all of a sudden ran up to Samaras, white as a sheet of paper, and give him the unbelievable news, "Commander, the Adhanians are behind us and they are attacking our rear, The escape route is cut off!"

"What? Which Adhanians? Where are the Adnanians?" Samaras, expecting another pie to fall from the sky, seemed genuinely confused at the report.

The best his mind could come up with was that Damious had chosen to return and rejoin the battlefield.

Sensing his commander's disbelief, the runner reported again, "Commander, the Adhanians are behind us. Leader Alcmene is dead and our escape route is cut off. I confirmed it with my own eyes."

It had to be said that Alcmene was the one who negotiated with Damious to be placed at the back in exchange for joining this battle.

And in a cruel twist of fate, it was because he positioned himself at the very back, thinking that if things did go south, he would be the first to bail that he was the first to bail.

Just not in the way he intended.

Upon hearing the confirmation of the disaster, Samaras felt faint and he struggled to stay atop his horse.

He had a strange deja vu feeling that this exact thing had happened just this afternoon.

But he was still a trained military commander, so he bit his tongue to regain his composure and lambasted in an enraged voice, "What the f*ck are those runners and scouts doing. I specifically told them to pay attention to the right flank. Where are they, I will personally behead all of them before I die. Traitors! All of them are mother f*cking traitors."

Samaras cursed out slangs that he, as the eldest son of one of the largest noble houses in Cantagena, had never ever uttered, nor ever thought that he would have to.

"No, sir, you seem to misunderstand." ." The runner understanding his commander's confusion tried to elucidate, "They didn't come from the right. They came from the left."

Yes! This was the same group that butchered Nestoras and co.

Hearing the runner's explanation, Samaras felt that he had turned deaf, with sound managing to enter his ears but his brain not being able to process them.

"The left flank, the left, left, lefttttt…" Inside Samaras's head, only the word 'left' kept ringing.

And then he started cursing himself, 'I forgot about the left. I forgot about the left. How could have I made such an amateur mistake of forgetting my right and left.'

"...order, your order….Commander, what is your order?" After what seemed like a long time, did finally Samaras began to feel some coherent sounds entering his ears, which apparently were the incessant shouting of the herald and he, at last, snapped back to reality.

The herald had noticed his commander simply daze off into the distance after his report and so to snap him out of it, he kept repeating asking him to give them their next command.

It was only after his third shout did Samaras's gaze finally return.

Samaras then turned to look back at the expectant runner with a mournful smile and uttered in a shaky voice three words, "Order the surrender."

"Yes, sir." Surprisingly, the runner kept a professional face as he received the order and didn't argue with his commander.

Because even the most basic student of military tactics knew that once your enemy can attack you from both the front and back, the battle is over, you know you have lost.

So how did the wing that was ordered to attack the flank of the centre end up attacking the rear?

Because as the Adhanian slingers slowly retreated, the Cantagenans chose to push their advantage and advance, so the place where their flanks were before the fog set in now became their rear.

As per Samaras's command, the order for surrender was passed down from captain to captain, who were informed of the situation, who then passed it from man to man.

Thus the war between Adhania and Cantagena had effectively ended, with Adhania against all odds triumphing decisively above Cantagena.

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