Herald of Steel - Chapter 1144: Margraves Vs Alexander (part-3)

Alexander watched his men form up and launch volley after volley of crossbow fire with a real gladdened tranquility in his heart.

When he had first noticed the approaching ships, his insides had lurched, and his beat soared to a height it had reached only a few times ever.

This was because Alexander was currently in a very precarious position- atop a narrow bridge with only five hundred men having waters on both sides.

Waters which danced between being sometimes deep and safe and at other times being swallow and dangerous, with deadly corals and sharp reefs.

Meaning if Alexander was ever contemplating jumping, well it was basically a coin flip, choosing between a safe landing or being torn apart and drowning due to excessive blood loss.

The man naturally was not keen on taking such a gamble.

Hence he was happy to see that his men, despite being dwarfed by the enemy were still able to very effectively stop them in their tracks.

The confusion caused on the enemy decks by the deadly attack was clearly visible from the bridge, and the sight of the green armored men running back and forth in absolute terror and shock made the legionaries above very happy.

Thus they cheered,

“Haha! Father has not had so much fun in months! Those traitorous bastards! Serves them right.”

“Shoot! Dammit, shoot faster! Aim with our shoulders and shoot.”

“Another one! Hah hah… that makes it ten! Haha, made ten hits today! You guys owe me a drink.”

The results of their attack spoke for themselves, tuning the enemy’s pace almost to a crawl and making each of their step bloody and difficult.

And seeing how the opposing side was huddled together on the decks, with a snail, unable to move back or forth, but just defend, Alexander felt a profound sense of happiness, to the point the man patted himself on the back for inventing the crossbow.

That single weapon had saved his butt for times than he cared to count, be it the very first battle where he was attacked by Pasha Djose, the defense of Zanzan against Perseus, the conquest of Tibias, or now.

The ability to wield so many archers with such minimal investment was a profound game changer in the realms of warfare.

And its effects were being laid bare for all to see here and now.

However despite the barrage of attacks from Alexander, the Margraves ships still continued on their planned course, and soon under Ser Robert’s orders siege ladders were placed against the bridge walls.

Following this, the muscular commander would be heard quickly shouting, “Up! Start climbing up! Quickly! The first to land on the bridge gets a hundred wesas! A hundred wesas!”

It was apparent that given the highest commander of the fleet was repeating the announced bounty, it was something special.

And it was indeed so.

1 wesa was equivalent to 10 ropals.

So with 100 wesas, Ser Robert was offering about six months of their pay to those who were willing to take the risky endeavor.

It had to be known that even the man himself earned only half of that amount monthly.

However when considering the risky nature of the job being asked of them in exchange, well this compensation suddenly became not that much.

In fact, it could even be argued that it was not enough as to say such an endeavor was risky would be a gross understatement.

Not only were conducting ladder rushes generally risky, always producing great casualties in their attempts whether they succeeded or not, but against an actively defended wall such as the one now, it was close to suicide- nearly impossible to succeed.

The legionaries were able to easily fight off the lone attackers coming to face them in a single file, as the Margrave troops fed themselves into the meat grinder one by one in a piecemeal fashion, and thus were picked off individually

The legionaries had a field day with this, able to very easily overwhelme the other side.

And Ser Robert was not oblivious to this.

However, despite that, he still decided to commit his forces to the tactic.

Because his boss had ordered him to take the bridge and this was the only realistic way.

The man was usually an extreme stickler for rules.

And to try and accomplish this he proposed the 1,000 ropal bounties, coupling it with a few threats of having the men court martialed as deserters if they did not quickly get up.

This carrot and stick worked in tandem to quickly produce the desired results as the reticent men, who were all bunched up together in their cozy formations, scrambled to quickly get out of their huddled shells.

And then the men aboard the five ships start to swiftly work to prepare their siege ladders, simply bearing through the arrow fire coming from above by holding a shield up above their head and praying that they got lucky, that the arrows missed them.

The men prayed to anyone or anything that would listen, not just the gods but nature itself.

And fortunately for them, the gods seemed to answer most of their asks, letting a majority of them escape the assault unharmed.

This was of course not because the men were any particularly pious men with them or those especially blessed with luck, but more due to the fact that at the end of the day, Alexander’s forces were simply too small, and thus the number of crossbowmen too limited to suppress all of the thousand men across all the five different ships simultaneously.

Thus when the arrow fire from around one hundred crossbowmen was spread over a thousand armored men all wielding large, sturdy shields, and coupled that with the ships swerving and moving around to avoid the hits, well, even the generally accurate crossbows failed to deliver the desired results.

Combine this with the fact by the time the ships had detected they were already quite close, and the men also did not get to make that many attempts to try and rectify their shots.

Thus after the first few volleys where they managed to land some good, deadly shots, courtesy of the surprise factor, the arrow fires lost their efficacy and became more of a tool to suppress the enemy, to make them keep their heads down.

Not to outright kill them.

Hence the casualties sustained aboard these ships quickly decreased to a relatively low degree, or at least much lower than what the sight would dictate- a bunch of crossbowmen shooting all they had had toward a bunch of men on the congested deck of a ship, under an open sky.

The casualties from such an effort should have been much greater, but given that bows and crossbows were not guns, and arrows and bolts were not bullets, that did not happen.

Alexander very much regretted that, that would have made not just this, but all his fights so much easier.

But he did not, and so the Margraves troops managed to push forward, finally arriving at their destination. where the ships quickly matched each other in a smooth parallel line, dropped their anchors to steady themselves, and essentially docked themselves.

While the men above quickly set up around twenty siege ladders side by side along the bridge walls and without needing much more encouragement, all started climbing it simultaneously, carrying as their choice of armament only a large shield over their head, and a short sword in their hands.

Alexander, who was observing all this from above. was frankly astounded by the bravery of these men that was on display.

He could not believe anyone would choose to obey such a suicidal command without any sort of protest, climbing up these steps that were so risky that describing them to be perilous would be very tame.

First, there was the obvious but still extreme danger of the constant crossbow fire and stones being hurled at them from above, as well as the thick unit of infantry just waiting to hack them to bits as a reward for bearing through such an ordeal without falling over or dying.

But even separate from that, there was the danger of the ladder itself.

From Alexander’s perspective, these thin wooden ladders did not seem at all sturdy, especially given they were grounded on the deck of a ship, which, even if it was anchored still swayed with a slow, rocking motion with the waves.

So to keep the ladder from moving with the waves, Alexander could see that there were several strong men holding the ladder at the base, keeping the whole thing sturdy, while another group used their shields to cover them from the potshots Alexander’s men were taking at these vulnerable but critical sites.

But this was clearly not going to work in the long term, as these men could only continue to get lucky and dodge these shots for so long.

And this soon proved to be the case, as casualties mounted to such heights that it became clear to everyone that this ladder rush was not going to work.

Ser Robert had to find another way.

Fortunately, that way came in the form of the help of Lord Parker, who finally became alert enough to send his own reinforcement through the bridge!