Herald of Steel

Chapter 40 Fish In A Barrel

Damious was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Although, he did not want to split his forces and his mind kept telling him to ignore Samaras, a small doubt of 'What if' lingered at the back of his mind.

As Samaras had pointed out, it was true they didn't do the proper scouting last time, though it was mostly because it was Adhania who had approached them to engage, leaving them no time to do it.

It was also true that they didn't know where all of Adhania's forces were.

If Samaras was right and there was an ambush waiting for them, to fall for the same trick twice, they would be lucky future generations only called them donkeys.

As Damious was busy contemplating a myriad of things, seeing him dally, Samaras pleaded again, "Damious, I am convinced there is an ambush waiting for us. I am begging you, tell your mercenaries to intercept them. There's still time."

Samaras had changed his words from wanting to scout for an ambush to confidently proclaiming there was an ambush.

Hearing, Samaras's plea and his confident tone and thinking back to his own earlier experience, Damious, at last, became convinced really might be something.

Because if there really was an ambush waiting for them, for them to have even a molecule chance of winning this battle, they had to foil it NOW.

"Okay, I will send a thousand soldiers to each flank." Damious finally relented.

"No, send the two thousand I requested." Samaras objected to the halved number of soldiers.

"We are already outnumbered. And now you want to split our forces even more?" Damious complained with some certain anger in his voice.

"We need to send the two thousand. " Samaras claimed. "Our soldiers are very tired and I fear if they come across some strong units, they might simply break at contact. With two thousand, they will at least have some depth to fall back into." Samaras spelled out his reason to choose the number two thousand.

From this little exchange, it could be seen that Samaras was no incompetent greenhorn and whatever minor foibles he had was a result of inexperience leading large armies and not because of a lack of skill.

For example, to use this particular incident, he had taken into consideration the soldiers' physical state and fighting capabilities and prepared an appropriate mass of force to ensure their survival.

As a matter of fact, Samaras was recognized as a genius in Cantagena and this fame was not undeserved.

The brilliant move Agapios used to catch the Adhanians off guard was in reality jointly developed by the master-disciple duo.

He was Agapios's protégé who was accompanying him in this campaign as a way to gain experience and eventually take his mantle.

He was also to be Agapios'son-in-law, though, alas, that prospect now seemed unlikely.

Hearing Samaras's reason, Damious was a bit taken back at the in-depth thinking and quickly agreed, dividing the twelve thousand-strong army into three parts- the eight thousand-strong central core of mostly Cantagenans and two flanks of two thousand each sent to scout both sides made up of mercenaries.

Although this tactic seemed sound on paper, if they were a bit more patient, they would have realized that Adhanians splitting up to ambush them did not really make sense.

The battle was happening at the foot of a valley and Samaras had camped atop a hill, meaning any and all troop movements could be clearly seen from the vantage point.

Also, ambushes were typically done by outnumbered enemies to surprise and deal critical damage to the enemy.

Why bother waiting for the enemy to get into the appropriate position and then attack them when you can amass your larger force and directly take the battle to them?

But Samaras had made a rash proposal in the heat of battle, letting his doubt and over-thinking get the better of him, and Damious too, seeing they were so close to engaging the enemy had no time to properly think and so in a blind moment of panic, decided to defer to Samaras and split the army!

This would prove to be a big mistake!

"Kefka, His Majesty has sent me to take over," Manuk informed his long-known colleague, placing his horse behind him.

"You're late. So, I have already started the plan." The blonde, flashy man replied in a crafty tone, as if happy to be able to pull one off the star of this war.'

"Good then. I wasn't too optimistic about the cunning fox to bite, but it seems I over-estimated him." Manuk replied in praise, unconcerned about the unauthorized deployment.

This 'wasn't sure' statement seemed to rile up the thin-faced face as he complained, "You…you know how many good soldiers we lost because you commanded them not to close the cauldron too quickly."

"A true tragedy. My heart beats for them all." Manuk replied in a pious solemn way.

Though Kefka knew his colleague as the archpriest at the temple of Ramuh had long ago perfected the art of appearing to bleed for the masses while in reality not feeling the slightest emotion for them.

"But it was worth it wasn't it? I was afraid we would need to fight multiple battles but Ramuh has blessed us. The enemy has swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker." Manuk justified his approach.

"Hmph, don't count your fish until you caught them."Came Kekfa's displeased reply.

Nestoras was moving left, along with Rigias's mercenary group who were tasked with scouting that side.

Nestoras still could not understand why they had received a last-second order to change course from marching straight ahead to marching left, in a northwest direction. and although he wanted to resist, he was reminded he was no longer a mercenary leader here but a mere grunt.

As the group traversed the extremely muddy ground, they soon found out that the closer they got to the forest, the drier the ground became.

This was because the forest was a bit elevated from the open field down below, allowing the soil to drain better.

The soldiers were ecstatic that they could finally properly place their feet on solid ground and not have them sink a few inches and quickly proceeded to the forest.

The head of the formation entered the forest to check for hidden soldiers and fortunately found no signs of an ambush.

Which was good.

What was less good was what lay instead in front of them.

They were stunned at the new nasty surprise waiting for them there, which was no hidden army but just a mass of white!

In their eyes, the forest floor had turned completely white, or more accurately it got fully covered in white fog.

The fog had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and was rapidly filling up the forest floor and it seemed it would soon engulf the entire foot of the valley, where the battle was occurring.

As if the darkness wasn't enough, now they had to fight in the fog too!

Impossible!

Regias decided on the spot he had to inform Samaras of this and then order a retreat.

But just as he was about to order a 180-degree turn to return, a discord of panicked and fearful screams hit his ears.

Because, just five hundred meters to their right all of them saw it, a contingent of Adhanian heavy infantry rapidly closing in on them, determined to smash right into their exposed right flank.

"So this is how it ends, huh."

This was Regias's first thought after seeing the black mass approaching them, wielding, to him what seemed like not spears but the scythes of death.

But, how did such a large force sneak up on a force of two thousand men?

Well, it was already dusk and visibility wasn't the best.

The approaching orderly soldiers seemed to have meshed perfectly with the tall, neat tree lines and the sound of the two thousand men drowned out the approaching march of the enemy.

If anyone did hear anything unusual, most would think it came from their own side.

But many may ask, did none of the four thousand eyes or thousand ears catch a glimpse or hear the sound of so many men?

Well, it is very hard to hear anything with the heavy leather-padded bronze helmet on and even if someone did hear it, there was no way to if whose side it came from.

That's why using unique horns and trumpet sounds that soldiers beforehand memorized was the only effective way to communicate in battle.

As for seeing the enemy, imagine trying to see anything out of a thing that has slits about the size of your eyes.

And not only that the soldiers were always arranged in as tight a formation as possible, without any gaps, to prevent the enemy from exploiting those.

Now, picture yourself in a queue where everyone is almost squashed together and then you try to see what's in front of you.

The only thing you would be able to really see is the hair of the person in front of you and nothing more.

If it's too crowded even raising your head to look up would become difficult as your head might hit someone else's head.

So, although it seemed impossible for an entire army to sneak up on a formation, it was actually possible.

And by luck or by superb strategy, Adhanians managed to pull exactly that off.