"Lord Commander! Reinforcements! We plea for reinforcements!"
Lord Macht was just done quipping out a joyous roar as his units' amazing progress in hounding the enemy when suddenly a frightened runner came to him beg him as such.
"Hmmmm?" And at first even this experienced general was caught slightly off guard hearing so, thus appearing puzzled.
'Reinforcements? What reinforcements? Where send reinforcements? We are just about to push these bastards into the sea!' He thought to himself, and then even turned to look at Remus's units to make sure he was not just dreaming.
And sure enough, he could see the entire enemy contingent of five hundred men had been pushed nearly a kilometer, to the point, the vague outline of the sails of the ships docks near the coast was starting to become visible.
And the abject state of the legionaries who were forced to retreat like beaten dogs while doing this was not something someone as experienced as Lord Macht would ever mistake.
He even could subtly hear the enemy officers roaring and loudly urging his men to hold on, while the most eye catching of them all, a tall man dressed in shiny golden armor and wearing a large red plumb feather, could seen rushing to and fro the frontlines on his horse, trying to boost morale as best as he could.
There was no way to fake such desperation.
Thus Lord Macht easily determined the enemy was on his last legs, and just a few more strong push from utterly disintegrating.
Hence the man that was leading from the front felt what this runner said made little sense.
"There my lord! Send help there!"
It was only when he was forced by the runner's pointing arm to crane his neck behind him that he realized the predicament he was in and nearly had a heart attack.
"Wha... Wh...when did this happen?" Lord Macht could not help but cry out with an incredulous shout upon seeing the unfolding disaster, using a tone that he could not remember when he had last used.
His brain was instantly filled with an incredible amount of thoughts and quickly realizing he had been baited, he wished to instantly give his army the order to turn around, even intending to fully abandon the current enemy in front of him.
This was of course because Lord Macht saw through that whether these men lived or died was a moot point by now. Their only job was to tie him down.
And even if they were destroyed, Lord Macht's rear would still be vulnerable to an attack from a much larger force.
A force that Lord Macht, due to leading from the front had completely missed.
There was also the fact that the general never expected his good units would fall so easily, causing him to curse out into the open air,
"*Bah! Those incompetent curs! How could they allow themselves to get pushed around like this? The enemy is not even that many! Aghhhh.... I will hang all those responsible for this!"
Lord Macht still being unaware of the friction between the Margraves and Heeat and given that Scorpyo only had a slight manpower advantage over the Heeat forces, the general naturally came to the conclusion that his men were cowards. He vowed to make all of them an example once he managed to rescue them.
But at the end of the day, this was not really as big a deal as one might make of it... as long as Lord Macht could keep winning.
And since the general was very confident about his chances, he did not bother to think about it too much.
Until now that is.
The Margraves unintentionally clamping his feet at this critical moment meant that Lord Macht would require almost triple the normal time to turn his men around. Time that he was desperately running out.
But unfortunately, no matter how much tried to think of a way to speed up the movement, he could do nothing.
The Margraves were very deeply 'woven' into the formation. Lord Macht had personally seen to it that they were so squash any chance of mutiny.
Thus all he could curse his bad luck and then curse the enemy commander, mumbling to himself,
"Shit! This Alexander is too tricky! Is he the reincarnation of a war god? Young master seems to have poked a hornet's nest!"
Unfortunately for Lord Macht, it was not Alexander he was facing. But the sentiment engraved in the frustrated cuss still stood.
The fact was unless he could have guessed Remus's exact plan ahead of time, Lord Macht could have never foreseen his current set of circumstances.
All his mistakes up until now had been fairly innocuous with little plotholes, made with all the best intentions for his family.
Which perhaps made it all the more brilliant - how such an airtight plan was suddenly made into his greatest Achilles's Heel at the drop of a hat.
Remus really showed his brilliance here by deciding to play to his men's strength of mobility, taking advantage of the terrain, and most of all, personally taking huge amounts of risks.
"Run! We have lost! Run!"
"To the ships! Make to the ships! Save yourself!"
"Our flanks are destroyed! There is nothing we can do! Retreat! Retreat!"
And the young general's gamble appeared to have paid off, the first part at the very least.
Because Scorpyo's had succeeded in their mission- to cause an utter rout!
It happened when taking advantage of the gap opened up between them and the main army, some of the much more mobile legionnaires units from the rear were able to swing to their right and attack the defenseless flanks of the retreating Heeat formation, easily destroying them.