Herald of Steel

"Aghhhh!"

"Ughhhhh! Hey! Shields up! Shields upaahhh!"

"Shit! I stepped on something! My leg…. I think I twisted i… ahhhhh!

"Ahhhh, bastard! Don't push! I'm getting off as fast as I can!"

"Brat! I'm letting you go first! Listen to your elders! I am ten times older than you!"

"Brother, you are the most heroic of us all. You take charge. We will bring up the rear!"

All such schemes and screams were being plotted and produced by the attacking men as they quickly lept down from their ships onto the soft sandy beach, hurriedly raising their shields and wading to the shore as fast as possible.

The name of the game here was speed, so they tried to get off their ships and into proper formation within the least time possible, working very hard to stay in that dreadful zone of the most concentrated enemy fire as little as possible.

Of course, this brave and straightforward tactic was only used by the more honest and perhaps gullible of the soldiers, the ones who followed orders without question.

The far more clever ones instead tried to urge their comrades to take the risk in their stead, to have them jump into the thick of it first, so that they could act as an effective meat shield.

And they tried various ways to try and goad them into it, be it threats, flattery, or simple trickery, all while they hung back to wait for a proper beachhead with established lined formation to be formed.

In this endeavor, some lucky bastards succeeded, while others were forced to join the disembarking 'gullible' men regardless, under the metaphorical whips of their officers.

These men were the captains and commanders who actually did the dirty groundwork, leading and conducting the assault on the ground with their individual units.

And all the units that were tasked with taking the island by storm had been decided beforehand. So when their deployment times came, the captains of each of the units blew a wooden whistle hanging from their necks,

*Whistle*, *Whistle*, *Whistle*, that produced a sharp, piercing sound, and let his men know it was time for them to all advance.

These units would then soon find themselves jumping into the fiery crucible regardless if they liked it or not, with their captain not only following suit, but most of the time even bravely leading from the front.

This type of command structure was of course the norm of the time, designed with the thought that military officers should lead by example.

And the Heeat family naturally followed the convention, instead of having a 'weird' chain of command like Alexander's- where the officers stayed in the rearer echelons of the frontlines.

And this traditional formation had its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage wise- it greatly boosted the fighting men's morale, and the results of it were clear to see on the current battlefield.

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Undoubtedly, the landing party would not have been able to maintain the kind of momentum they currently had even with the amount of casualties they had sustained without these officers showing the troops the way.

As for the disadvantages, well the casualties among these experienced men would always be dreadful, making it very hard to replace them in any reasonable time.

After all, it took years if not perhaps a decade to become a truly competent officer, and they could be sniffed out just as easily as a levied grunt.

Such was the case now, where these precious personnel were being eaten up at a prodigious rate, as they were doubtlessly the most targeted part of the force by the firing enemy.

This happened due to the flashy off white uniform gilded with gold etchings and the large white feathered helmet they wore, one that starkly contrasted with the general black dress of the regular troops.

It let them stand out like a beautiful peacock amongst all the common fowl, which was fine for trying to catch their men's attention when giving out orders.

But far less so when charging at fixed enemy formations under open sky under heavy arrow fire.

And indeed many of the garrisoned legionnaires chose to intentionally focus their shots on these high value men, causing a disproportionate number of officers to be wounded or killed.

But even when one fell, another would be there to quickly pick his standard, using the death as fuel to urge the rest of the men forward.

The peerless bravery many of these men showed in spite of such great danger really went to show that although these officers wielded great power in the military, they were also burdened with great risk.

Their privilege was not given by anybody for nothing but rather earned through courage, blood, and steel.

Of course, there were always exceptions to this rule, but even those handful of men who got their appointment using nepotism still chose to put on the act.

They might not have jumped to the front like the rest but rather chose to stay in the middle or rear of the formation to maximize their chances.

While the most craven of the officers held themselves back in the ships with their aides, and constantly blew their dreadful whistles to herd any reticent or cowardly men out of the vessels and into the meat grinder.

To those men, the sound of that piercing shrill sounded the same as the approaching footsteps of death.

However as afraid as they might have been and as much as they might have wished to run in the opposite direction, they knew they couldn't.

Not only would they be outright executed for desertion, even if they somehow managed to dodge it, they would still to mostly likely bear with the ignominy of all their family knowing that they abandoned their friends and family in the war.

Because the Heeat family, like many of the forces grouped men according to the place they were recruited from. Meaning many of the men in a unit knew each other and their family, so whatever any of them did, would eventually creep up the vine to eventually reach their known ones.

And all of this was not to simply mention the fact that there was not even anywhere to run to- they were on a ship surrounded on three sides by the sea.

As Lord Macht said- the only way for them was to march forward.

So that was what they did, with herds of men mindlessly throwing themselves into the bloody pit, seeing which the others magnetically followed, until the shores of the island were scattered with countess bodies, all floating and bobbing there like discarded mannequins, creating quite an eerie sight.

Yet more and more of them kept advancing, regardless of the losses taken.

"Dammit! These motherfuckers really don't know when to give up!"

The sight of this quickly made the legionaries curse out in frustration like so, annoyed that the enemy still showed no signs of breaking.

They just kept coming.

When they first started the fight, the men were initially quite pleased with the battlefield layout, finding it extremely advantageous. It was even enough to wipe out much of the dissent they had about leaving their well fortified camp behind.

When Scorpyo had initially ordered the tactic, there were many who were reluctant to follow it despite the man's prestige.

Because just like the two officers had posed, the legionaries just could not bear to leave all the hard work they had done behind so easily.

There were times when the earth was so frozen solid that the men could not even properly dig their latrine pits deep enough and instead had to resort to dumping their waste using buckets into the sea. Yet they had soldiered on, working tirelessly to complete the ramparts.

Thus it had taken a bit of placating even by Scorpyo to get the men to come to greet the landing enemy.

And luckily for him, his gamble had worked.

Not only was the enemy exiting their ships right under his nose but just like he had predicted there was no hidden second armada.

The man perhaps breathed a greater sigh of relief seeing that than watching his men obey him.

Because truth be told, there was a significant part of his heart that did partially believe his officers' analysis. It was just that such a thing would have too despair inducing to even contemplate.

So Scorpyo forcefully shaped his reasoning to fit the mold.

But at the end of the day, all this mattered little for it worked.

The concentrated volley of bolts gave the landing men a very bloody nose, while the stone throws by the catapults spread panic on the decks of ships.

In fact, if the garrisoned forces had more of these artillery pieces, they might have been able to even sink a few of the smaller, more damaged ships, as judged by the size of the cracks some of them developed while withstanding the battering.

All this was good news.

It was just that the bad news was that the enemy refused to break in spite of its losses.

Their numbers were too great and their leader fearlessly stood on the deck on the flagship, constantly urging them to push on, despite his aide's constant advice for him to take shelter.

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