Herald of Steel

Chapter 892

The news of Perseus's 'death' spread like wildfire among the ranks, his empty horse standing like a flaming beacon of testament to that claim.

And seeing that, the melting pot that was already the streets of Kalimat started to finally boil, as panic and desertion set in with its full effect.

The men threw away their weapons and armor to try and find a way to run as fast as they could, which they of course failed to do spectacularly.

The narrow terrain constricted their movement like an anaconda straggling its prey and many died due to the actions of their own men, as they pushed others into harm's way to save their own.

While their lack of weapons made them like defenseless sheep in front of Grahtos's men, who found the lines had devolved into a squishy hodgepodge that any army could only dream of encountering.

To the legionaries, it appeared like every swing of the blades would reap a new life, making many of the men who were farmers feel like they had been taken back to their fields, where they were cutting wheat.

By this point, that part of the fight could no longer be called a battlefield.

In fact it could no longer be even called a fight.

More like a slaughterhouse, with the animals being unfortunately replaced by humans.

"What! Father is dead? How?"

However for Philips, the ongoing near complete obliteration of a part of his army was far less precedent than the report of the death of his father.

As soon as the news reached his ears, he suddenly felt faint, as his vision blurred and his head swirled a bit.

'Finished! Everything is finished!' The man's worst fear had seemingly come true as he agonizingly then howled in his heart, for he knew perhaps better than anyone else what this meant.

Although Perseus was no great administrator of the lands, he was still considered a great ruler, being very charismatic and seen as a titan in the hearts of the people.

His presence alone inspired the men around him, and it could be said the only reason they had been able to keep fighting for as long as they did was purely due to him.

So Philips was not wrong to judge the loss to be irreplaceable for them.

And with his father's supposed death, Philips judged his country to be also lost.

Tibias could be said to be a country that was originally held up by five pillars.

And these pillars were, in order of descending importance, Perseus, Leosydas, Mithriditus, Philips, and Lord Theony.

Currently, out of the five, three were dead and one had defected, leaving Philips all alone to try and pick up the pieces.

A task that would have been a mammoth undertaking even in peace times, where he only would have had to deal with internal rebellions.

Whereas now that a foreign power was literally a day's march away from him.

Philips could only see darkness in front of him.

"......."

The scout that had delivered the news of the king's demise saw his prince go completely silent after his initial outburst, like a computer that had suffered a sudden glitch and froze.

".... Order the surender." And then suddenly unfreezing himself, Philips in a woody, mechanical voice abruptly commanded this.

With his father dead, and the large losses they suffered today, there was no way Philips would be able to continue the fight, even if he had the charisma and prestige of his old man.

Thus he saw no point in continuing this pointless struggle, feeling that if he waved the white flag now, even ended up in the gallows, perhaps he could at least save some of his men's lives.

"Wha…? Shouldn't we escape Your Highness?" But it seemed the scout had other thoughts, as he looked at Philips with an incredulous face.

This man here was one of the most zealous proponents of the school of fighting on till the death, and so at his prince's, or perhaps in his eyes now the king's order of such a thing almost seemed like a betrayal.

"Go! Do as..."

And sensing this, Philips turned his head with a fierce expression on his face, furious at being questioned and wanted to heavily rebuke the man, when suddenly another herald came racing towards them, pointing towards Philips's rear and shouting in a voice full of panic and despair,

"Your Highness! Grave news! There is an army approaching us from the rear! Look!"

As if Perseus's death was not bad enough for Philips, right when the Crown Prince was at his most vulnerable, Alexander decided to make his appearance, heading straight for the main gate of the city.

He had finally managed to cover the long journey, and as he approached his target, the forward scouts he had sent forward came with the current position of the bulk of the enemy's force.

And being unable to endure the lure of hitting an unsuspecting enemy on the flanks, Alexander drove his men quickly towards it.

"Hurry men! Our brothers need us. Look the enemy is besieging them!" The officers urged the legionaries.

And as the men quickly marched, they at last came into Philips's view, who felt like he was seeing a moving sea of blue carpeting the lush greenery underneath, rising out of the horizon like some kind of summoned swarm,

"......."

Seeing this Philips simply froze.

As did whatever little will to fight he might have had left over.

Then in some small schadenfreude way, the man began to feel happy to see Alexander, as he felt like he was being put out of his misery.

No longer would he have to continue this long and grueling but mostly pointless fight, nor would he look too cowardly for surrendering.

It was the best ending he could think of given the circumstances.

And it was the same case for many of the men, including that zealous scout behind him.

Seeing Alexander's huge 20,000 men army right on their doorstep, pressing against their back, while they faced the city walls, with nowhere to go, it snapped their fighting will in half and they knew the game was lost.

Philips did not even have to give the order to surrender.

Most men did so voluntarily, raising their spears high up into the sky which symbolized the holstering of the white flag.

While Alexander was more than happy to accept a win without bloodshed.

"Send the orders. No company (100 men team) is to engage the enemy in fighting unless they are attacked first."

"If anyone disobeys it, he will be court martialed and executed!"

Alexander had bled enough for this campaign and did not want to lose a single more man and feared some of the more glory seeking men would disobey him for credit.

The legionaries soon formed a semi circular arch around the phalangites, surrounding them, before starting to separate and dismantle the army unit by unit.

"Throw down your weapons. Everything you have. And then lie down."

Came the orders, and the regular grunts quickly followed, lying down on the muddy ground that had been churned up the steps of tens of thousands of men and beasts, with their hands above their heads.

Alexander and company had not brought enough ropes with them to take all these men prisoners at the same time, so after the surrender, fast riders were sent out to Alexander's base camp asking for it, while at the same time, about 10,000 phalangites were unarmed and set on a march towards the camp, escorted by a legion of 5,000 men.

Given Alexander's size of the camp, that was the maximum number of prisoners he could handle without being overwhelmed.

As for the rest, well they were made to lie in that wet ground the whole time, while Alexander tried to make arrangements for them outside the city, as he tasked some of his men to build pens to 'herd' these men in.

The engineers thus got to work cutting down nearby trees to make a very rudimentary fence, asking the men to spend the night under the open sky.

The only people who were given an exception to this treatment were the 3,000 Thesians who had stealthily defected to Alexander prior.

These men had not accompanied Perseus into the city for merriments, though some of them were part of the overzealous who had rushed into the city, although most with the intention to kill Perseus, not save him.

So when the time for surrender came, the leader of the group introduced himself and got a pardon from Alexander, being allowed to rest inside the city.

And this was the same treatment that Philips and the other captured nobles received, while Perseus, who was still breathing, was given Alexander's personal physicals to try and close the man's wound and save him.

Alexander wanted to have him as the main attraction when he did his triumph.

*Trmupet*, *Trumpet*

And as the day came to an end, it was this ceremonial trumpet that rang out from Alexander camps, reverberating throughout the surroundings, its sound appearing especially melancholic to the losing side, for they knew that sound not only signified the end of the battle, but also the end of Tibias a country.

Alexander had won and Perseus had lost.

(End of Volume-3)

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