Herald of Steel

Alexander choosing to give battle to the Margraves suited them perfectly fine.

Many were even fearful that Metztil's men would run away before they could catch them.

So when they saw Alexander approaching them, many relished the sight, with much of the nobility among the rank and file cheering, shouting to the surrounding men,

"There they are. Quickly men! March! Do not let them escape."

The Margraves's idea here was to use speed to rapidly approach Alexander and use sheer speed to shock and break the will of the natives… then the true slaughter could begin.

And the only one to express any real concern over this simple idea of just throwing troops to the melee so haphazardly was surprisingly the 'politician' Lord Bernard.

He asked with an unsure voice to the man next to him,

"Lord Bakerfield, are you sure it will be prudent to meet Alexander head on just like this? We number less than him. And he has inflicted quite a bit of damage on us even when we held the advantage! Would it not have been better to follow Lord Parker?"

This Bakerfield was that same elder noble who had become consumed by my vengeance, and the reply he made was anything but constructive, uttered in a voice of extreme annoyance,

"Young brat! You talk too much! Don't bother me with this now!"

The fact was Lord Bernard already had the same talks quite a few times, trying his best to have the two families stick together.

However, the newly joined nobles did not listen.

The general consensus among them was this was not a true concern and that Lord Bernard was simply inflating things about Alexander to make himself appear more competent.

"Lord Bernard, you are young and inexperienced in warfare. So it is natural for you to misjudge the enemy and overestimate him after just one or two victories. We veterans can see the true picture. This Alexander is hardly anything." The more polite ones placated him as such, reassuring him it was not Alexander's expertise that won him all the previous battles, but Lord Bernard's own shortcomings.

While a bit more logical nobles hypothesised that,

"Lord Bernard, from what you have told us, the forces Alexander actually controls are actually small, 5,000 Adhanians at best. That means the rest of the 20,000 are the barbarians. And you know like all of us that those beasts will never be our match. Once they see our armor and taste our steel… hmmmp!

Even if this Adhanian Lord is as good as you speak… there is no way he can stop those cowards from running. And then what will he have left…?"

The actual commanders of the Margraves army, the ones possessing true skill assumed correctly that Alexander could never truly command those natives and thus found Lord Bernard's assessment of the man to be not relevant here.

They incorrectly based this on the pre-supposed assumption that the natives would not… could not give them a proper fight.

Thus it was not that they did not believe Lord Bernard, but thought it was not applicable here.

As for the last group, they were barb-tongued replies coming from those noble with whom Lord Bernard or his family had worse relations were far less courteous.

They openly mocked him for cowardice and incompetence, saying,

"Heh! You got betrayed by your own officers and lost an entire ship! Yet you dare tell us what to do? That Alexander might have been a pig and he still could have thrashed you! We are not like you… we did not get to command an army just because of our father's name! "

While some of the more extreme proponents even accused him of siding with the 'enemy'- although here it was used to describe the Heeat family, not Alexander.

The reason was, that some of these most bellicose men found their pride wounded upon hearing Lord Bernard's insistence that they attack Alexander together to be infuriating.

As retainers of the Margraves family, there had always been a subtle pride among them that the Margraves were no weaker than a ducal house, that the only difference between the one was a name and a title.

Some of the Margrave's heads even subtly hinted and encouraged this.

Hence the more Lord Bernard insisted they ally with Lord Parker to deal with Alexander, the more these hot blooded nobles rejected this idea, wanting to prove him wrong.

In this way, the Margraves nobles either underestimated Alexander's skills, were blinded by their own ego, or simply thought his force was too fragile.

And facing such universal condemnation, even Lord Bernard began to doubt himself, finding it hard to refute the torrent of accusations.

Even when he spoke, whatever he said sounded hollow and lacking in strength.

Then soon afterwards, sensing his reluctance and using his inexperience as an excuse, the man was even replaced as the commander of the army by Lord Bakerfield, thus completely muting his voice.

Under their new commander, the army continued to make its ill advised march forward.

As the two forces neared, Alexander who was at the back quickly noticed the approaching Margraves, and the first thing he did upon seeing them was mutter in astonishment,

"There really are not that many! And they are all wearing green!"

The low 15,000 troop number and the absence of the Heeat's telltale black uniform was a very strong reinforcing agent for what Alexander thought to be validation for his theory- 'there was an ambush waiting for him.'

Thus turning to Remus he ordered succinctly,

"Take the thousand cavalry we have. Ride around five kilometers south along the river until you disappear from sight. Then find a suitable place to cross it and turn around. By then you should be at the enemy's rear. You should know what to do then right?

Since Alexander had no idea what tricks the Heeat might have up their sleeves, instead of passively waiting for it and being on guard all the time, he decided to concentrate his focus more on the bait right in front of him and destroy it before they could do anything.

As they say, the best defense is a good offense.

"Catch them in a pincher!" The excited Remus was more than happy to comply, immediately taking the riders and disappearing from sight, the dust cloud raised by the marching army helping them cover their track.

With the cavalry taking a lot more circuitous route, the rest of the army kept advancing unimpeded and quickly reached their destination- the river bank, without any unforeseen instances.

Then across the relatively narrow body of water, soon identified their quarry- for the Margraves too had arrived on the opposite side.

But here came a problem- which was crossing the river and actually meeting the enemy.

"Are we to wade across?" Facing the body of water, some whispered as such.

And indeed it was shallow and slow enough to do this…. provided that you did not have an army of very angry men staring you down.

No matter which side dipped their toes first, they would be torn to ribbons by the opposing archers and javelin throwers.

Both sides had initially thought they would be able to finish the crossing before the other side got here but how could they have even controlled the other's side pace?

Hence by sheer coincidence, they appeared at the same place almost at the same time, producing such a dilemma.

Thus they stood there still for quite a while but could still see no other way.

'What should we do now! Back off a bit so that the other side can cross?' Hence many thought incredulously.

At last, it was Alexander who broke the deadlock, as he turned to order a few thousand of his men in the reserved,

"Cut the trees near the banks to make a bridge! We don't have time to waste."

Unlike the Margraves who were content to take their time, Alexander was worried that if he waited here for too long, Remus would arrive at his position only to find the Margrave's army simply idling.

And without Alexander to pin down the front, his flanking attack would be far too ineffective, as the Margraves would be able to sacrifice their rear to have their front turn around and destroy Remus.

Thus the men quickly got to work- cutting the trees, chopping them into logs, and setting them onto the river as makeshift pontoons, with ropes tying them together to give them some stability.

And this did not take nearly as long as one could expect- the entire thing being finished within about an hour.

This might seem too rapid, but one really not underestimate how much work a few thousand determined men could accomplish.

In history, there have many instances of armies building huge bridges within just a few days to cross the river.

Julius Ceaser was particularly adept at this, with his magnum opus perhaps being the construction of a huge wooden 400 m long, 3 m wide, and around 10 m tall bridge across the River Danube in just ten days.

When compared to that, Alexander's simple wooden pontoon bridge of barely twenty to thirty meters within an hour was hardly anything impressive.

He at least demanded this much from his engineers.

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