Herald of Steel

Many of Lord Kite's men had vehemently opposed their commander's initial orders to retreat from the battle for they felt that such a cowardly move made all of their sacrifices till now been for nothing.

So instead, they wished to continue the fight further still, aiming to achieve final victory in battle no matter what. Furthermore, many of them were even convinced that the brutal fighting had softened the legionaries enough that they were close to breaking, thus fueling the bellicose sentiment even further.

This last part did have some kernel of truth to it as a lot of Remus's units were indeed close to cracking.

But the caveat here was the same thing could be said for the Heeat soldiers too. They were just as susceptible to turning their ships around and running as the other side.

Lord Kite, who was standing at the back was able to quickly figure this out and determined that his chances of winning this fight were roughly half and half, certainly not an inviting concept.

And besides, even if they did win, so what?

Dusk was already settling in and the rapidly dropping temperature made even the well wrapped up man shiver at the chilly winds that were starting to blow.

What good would his group of blind and cold men could do at that point?

The commander thus wisely decided there was little point in putting his men through this meat grinder and instead ordered a full retreat, wishing to save his strength for a better day.

As for all the complaining men, he shut them up with a few very simple words,

"The collapse of the bridge is a sign from the gods. It would not be wise to dismiss them! Let's go!"

All the men, from the most belligerent to even the most irrational instantly piped down the moment this 'great analysis' was made.

Because in this era, almost anything and everything that happened was attributed to the gods, especially if it was something bad.

And given that few omens could trump the destruction of an entire stone bridge, this act proved irrefutable in the minds of all these men that the gods were against them and victory here was impossible.

Thus they quickly heeded Lord Kite's words, and slowly retreated back to their ships in good order, fully maintaining their formation before swiftly disengaging their vessels from Remus's and heading back.

It took almost as much time to carefully retreat from the battlefield as it was needed for them to navigate through all the broken and floating bridge sections along the way, as these huge obstacles proved quite the challenge to swerve through.

There were even quite a few times when the bottom of their hulls was hit by the newly submerged debris, scraping and sometimes even cracking the toughened wood, causing water to leak in.

That part of the passage was definitely the most perilous one.

While on the other, Remus watched the enemy fleet slowly and cautiously navigate the deadly maze from the back of their ships with a mixture of various complicated feelings.

When the bridge had crumbled, Remus initially had the absolute bonkers thought that somehow a part of Phyrros Island had just sunk. And although the reality was not exactly that, the sight still felt surreal to the young man, his observing eyes becoming enlarged with passion at the marvel.

He did not think the signal to end the fight today would come in such an absolutely flamboyant manner.

Remus was also glad to see no white standard with a blue flower on top of it while the thing fell apart, thus letting the man enjoy the whole without any worry.

As for the rest of the crew, well they too had a variety of thoughts, both on the bridge and Lord Kite's retreat.

Some of them pulled slightly regretful faces seeing the prey slip by their finger in such a slow, sluggish manner, others gave no effort in hiding their relief at the ordeal was finally over, while many more wore a blank looks as if they were unsure how to feel about all the things that had transpired at all.

Proud that they fought the other side to a standstill?

Pleased that they lived?

Or pessimism about all the brothers killed and wounded?

Most could not decide.

However, whatever these men were feeling, one thing that was coursing through all of them without exception was fatigue and extreme lethargy. Because there were men in there who had been fighting for close to eight hours straight and could barely keep their eyes open, forget standing up and battling.

Remus was also able to use them as an excuse to shut down some of the more madder officers who chimed up to urge him to chase the enemy, as they did not want to 'miss the perfect opportunity'.

Snort! What opportunity?

Given how tired and worn out the legionaries were, any chase could have been like a double edged sword, and there was always the chance for Lord Kite to suddenly turn around and launch a powerful counterattack.

Having survived a very near death experience just a few hours ago, Remus was not at all in the mood to tempt fate so foolishly this way and so felt greatly satisfied with the established status quo.

Hence with dusk soon approaching, both Remus and Kazid also followed Lord Kite's thought process and returned to their own port, where they immediately spotted a huge, brand new looking ship that should not have existed docked by the harbor- for it bore the emblem of the Margraves family on its sail.

"What happened here? Who captured this? Was it Alexander?"

So excited was Remus to see this prized vessel in their inventory that immediately upon his disembarkment, he ran to the closest officer he could find to pose this, beyond excited to know the story.

"Careful Remus. This is not a name you should say aloud like that!"

The young boy's only mistake in this was who he had made the query towards, a middle aged man named Scorpyo.

With a neatly trimmed beard and steaks of grey, white hair running down his sides, this unimpressive looking man was actually a high ranking officer, even being high enough to be the one who had been left in charge of the camp today while Alexander and the others were away.

And he had come here upon spotting Remus dock, wishing to know how the troops had fared in their fight.

But when Scorpyo heard the boy's breach of etiquette, the much older man was quick to childe the overly eager boy.

"Sorry! Sorry! Force of habit… Heh hee…" And credit to Remus, he did immediately apologize after being pointed out his mistake.

He might be the overall commander of the forces here, but that did not mean he wielded the same power as let's say someone like Achillas, whose words were basically like a divine revelation for the troops.

Instead, here, there were several people who had far more prestige than the young boy and certainly could put him in place if the situation called for it, such as now.

It was knowing this that he did not take the scolding to heart, a sensible thought that pleased the officer.

So finally turning amicable, the man revealed the summarised version of the prior events in a deep yet soft voice,

"Nobody captured the ship, they defected!"

The immense claim naturally made Remus's eyes go wild in surprise and intrigue,

"Wha…." and as his face clearly lit up, it swiftly indicated that he wished to do the whole thing.

The middle aged officer did not hold the young man in suspense and

"A bit around late afternoon, one of my men suddenly noticed that Margraves' ship sailing towards us! At first, we thought it might have been the lead ship of a fleet sent to attack us. So we immediately scrambled to get our ships in the water."

"However just as we were about to set sail, the other party suddenly began to wave a white flag towards us, showing they wanted to surrender, hahaha!"

The relief in that man's chuckle as he said this was unmistakable, letting Remus clearly understand that if the other side had really made a determined attack on their port, the ships he was seeing around would likely not be there.

The numerical disadvantage was that much.

While Remus made this observation, Scorpyo resumed his retelling following the pause,

"The white flag was such an unexpected sight that at first some of the men even thought it was some sort of trick… to try and lure us into lowering our guard and letting the ship get closer without detection"

"Thank goodness that soon turned out not to be the case. The Margraves ship stopped quite a bit further away from the harbor while still keeping the flag up, and then signaled that it wished for us to escort it."

"The gesture appeared sincere enough and given it was all alone as far as we could see, we sent two ships with three hundred men to board it, figuring no matter what tricks they might have, they could not possibly catch all of them off guard.."

"Heh heh, you would not believe the prize we found there!"

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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