Herald of Steel - Chapter 1129: Naval Battle For Phyrros Island (part-4)

“Aghh! What is that? An arrow?”

“Right! But how are they so fast! And hit so hard? Urghhh!”

“Dammit! Where did this come from? Sheilds! Sheileds! Lift up your shields! Defend!”

“Agghh! It’s no use! My hand! It pierced through my shield to hit my hand! Argghh!”

“Ahhhh.. brother! No! Get up!”

“Shit! They were tearing through our shields like soft clay! What in the devil’s name are they using to fire these things? Shit!”

It was with such alarmed shouts that the bursts of concentrated crossbows and instant bow fire were received by the enemy, producing significant terror and panic.

A phenomenon made all the deadlier by the fact that Heeat family soldiers did not equip themselves as heavily as Alexander’s men, so instead of having chainmail along with a bronze cuirass as armor and a large heavy shield to protect two thirds of the body, they chose to have a small shield, light armor, and a short sword.

And no, it was not because they were foolish, or simply too poor.

It was instead much more a decision that was influenced by the geography of the land they inhabited.

The Heeat family’s territory was very similar to the steeps, with unending stretches of pastures and rolling hills filled with livestock.

Such a place would not be conducive to the use of thick, heavy infantry formations of Thesos, whose congested scattering of city states and hilly geography gave rise to tanky formations that could hunker down and fight face to face without any worry of being outflanked, due to the rough, uneven terrain.

No, the ‘open and flatness’ of the terrain meant that it was a place where mobility and agility were greatly preferred over defense and staying power.

Hence the men tended to dress lightly, in leather armor and a shield that at best covered half of their torso, and armed with swords or even a simple hatchet.

And up until this point, this uniform had generally served them well, both on land and sea, as in the latter swiftness of the feet and freedom of movement was even more important.

Thus the men at sea carried even smaller shields than their regular ones, ones enough to barely cover the upper torso, and instead chose to rely more on their expert footwork and immaculate balance to catch the other side off guard.

The goal was to make the enemy lose his footing amidst the constantly swaying deck and use this chance to get a thurst in, thus neutralizing him.

Which was all nice and dandy on paper.

Until you met a solid wall like the shield locked formation of the legionaries, who simply had no desire to attack, but wanted to only stand in front of the gangplanks and prevent you from coming aboard.

The Heeat family soldiers could not use their superior mobility to take advantage of the other side because there was nothing to take advantage of.

How were they going to show off their superior footwork, when the enemy did not want to even move?

The move thus made the Heeat family soldiers feel stumped.

Now, a few daredevils did try to bypass the planks and instead jumped directly from their ships onto the other’s decks, thus finding themselves on the flanks of the legionaries.

But before they could even think of trying to take advantage of this superior position, they were turned to porcupines by a hail of arrow fire from all sides.

All these men heard was a rush of shouts, “There! There! Shoot! Shoot!” coming from their front, which was immediately followed by a buzzing *twank*, *twank*, *twank* noise, as the taut strings of many of the weapons around were slackened, hence releasing a deadly volley of missiles.

Missles which easily managed to pierce their armor and shield, mortally wounding them, and thus leaving them open to be finished off by a sidewise stab from the numerous legionarries all around them.

Hence that plan was quickly put to rest.

Of course, if Lord Kite’s men from either side had decided to throw their lives to the wind and simultaneously launched such an attack, it was certainly possible that they would be able to successfully overwhelm the defenders, just like they had done with the hooks.

But such manic zeal was one in a million affair. You could not expect to find it normally.

Hence, most of the life treasuring men stayed their hands, especially after finding the Instant bow to be an extreme menace.

Initially, the Heeat family soldiers had thought of trying to take advantage of the slow fire rate of the crossbows to try and punch a hole through the formation, by ducking behind their shields and attempting to use their own bodies as a type of battering ram.

But what they thought to be ordinary archers proved to be an entirely different beast, as even just five ‘Instantbowmen’ standing side by side, were able to discourage more than fifty strong men from even attempting the risky attack.

It was to the point that the rapid, almost blinding rate of fire almost gave the illusion that the bolts were coming out of the men’s hands, as the men pulled back their arms, shot, pushed the arm forward, and repeated the entire process, in a cold, nearly mechanical way.

The accuracy, the deadliness as well as the novelness of the

weapon all worked to make them a fierce threat.

A threat that unfortunately for the Heeat family soldiers was

hidden behind a dense row of armored to the teeth

legionaries.

And thus, after some time of futilely bashing their heads

against this turtle like formation, one of the Heeat family

commanders even started to curse,

“Dammit! Why couldn’t they have shot at such while we were

getting close? At least that way we would have been more

prepared. Did they wait till we got closer to hit us harder?”

The theory got a bunch of nods from the surrounding men,

who cursed Remus’s men for being sneaky and underhanded.

And this might have been very well one of the reasons why

the crossbows were not used at the men throwing all those

hooks.

But the much more likely reason would be that at the time,

these archers were busy getting into their appropriate firing

formation, so had no time to attack.

However, whichever the case was, the inadvertent shock

factor did work in Remus’s favor, as this single ship managed

to hold on against the battering of two, much larger ships.

This was the case for one of the ships, so what about the fate

of the other three under Remus’s command?

Well, although not as disastrous as this one, they were similar.

One of the ships, had their oars snapped on one side, and so

was now hobbling around the sea like a crippled bird, slowly

circling around the battlefield while throwing out bursts of

arrow fire from their crossbows haphazardly, and thus trying

their best to avoid getting rammed.

Something that they managed to avoid for now, although it

was apparent that their luck was going to run out sooner or

later.

As for why it had not yet, well, a large part of it had to do with

the ship with the catapults on it.

By sheer luck, it had managed to avoid any damage, by

swerving past its attacker at the very last second, and so was

currently the most agile ship of Remus’s fleet.

Hence it whizzed past the other eight ships on the battlefield,

all of which were engaged in melee, throwing volleys of stone

and arrow on the enemy fires whenever the opportunity

presented itself.

They of course missed almost all the time, as it was virtually

impossible to accurately determine the range and angle of the

catapult attack through sight alone, at least not without

decades of experience behind them.

But the psychological pressure of ‘what if’ was always there

for the enemy.

What if it hit them?

What if this was the one in a million lucky shot?

Having a 20 kilo solid stone ball hurling through the air and

smashing against you was a confirmed death sentence, no

matter what armor one wore, or what shield they had.

No human could survive that.

And so the ships always took evasive maneuvers, providing

some greatly needed respite for Remus’s vastly outnumbered

forces.

And as a side note, one of the catapults did manage to hit their

target, and by luck, it was one of the two ships which were

besieging the other crippled vessel.

The stone ball had managed to hit a man in the back

completely out of the blue, and snapped his spine like a candy

bar, even producing a dull, popping sound.

Hence the world’s first ‘naval artillery’ kill was scored,

although unfortunately, the name of the soldier who did

would remain unknown.

As for the last ship, Remus’s ships, well it had the great

‘fortune’ of ramming against the enemy’s flagship, the one

commanded by Lord Kite.

And then the two ‘structures’ would become one, as the rams

of either ship impaled themselves into the hull of the other.

Then, instead of trying to pull back, both sides decided to try

and board the other.

And thus on the decks of the two ships, a deadly fight

currently raged.