"This looks good enough! Quickly! Ford the river! We have wasted enough time already!"
As Remus made the loud order, the urgency in his voice was palpable.
They had traveled quite a bit further down the river than originally asked by Alexander as they were unable to find a suitable place to cross at the ordered location.
Their main problem was since this river flowed from the hilly northern areas to the flat south, it generally got deeper the further down you went, away from its source. Adding to that also came to the issue of currents, as the arrival of February heralded the coming of spring and the 'great thawing'.
Rivers that had been largely dormant in the past two months suddenly started to wake up and cold, rapid currents filled the once 'dead' channels, making crossing even relatively narrow sections quite perilous.
Encumbered with their armor and horses, Remus thus had to look quite hard to find a safe place where he and his steed would not simply lose footing and get washed away by the raging tides.
Thankfully he managed to at last find a relatively decent spot. And wasted no time in utilizing it.
'The heavens favor me! If it had taken any much longer, I might have had to start cutting trees to make small rafts. Or worse... turn back!'
Remus said this to himself in relief as he crossed, his body shivering while the biting cold water splashed against his lower torso.
Then gathering his thousand men as soon as possible, he quickly turned around, wishing to repeat the journey once again but this time, hopefully ending up at the enemy's rear.
While Remus turned his forces around with the greatest of urgency, Alexander patiently watched the unfolding battle from the back of his formation.
By now the ten thousand Helvati and his five thousand legionaries had managed to bring some much needed stability back to the buckling lines, solidifying it, and turning the center into a stalemate once again.
Alexander half breathed a sigh of relief at this, but at the same time turned half vigilant, muttering to himself in a slight whisper,
"What trump card have you hidden now?"
The man was convinced that the Margraves had to have some kind of last minute trick involving the Heeats and that they would have to reveal it very soon.
Because although it might not look like it, the battle was really not going in their favor.
After fighting and leading so many battles, Alexander had developed almost a sixth sense when it came to things like this and he could clearly feel that this stalemate was largely temporary, largely being forcibly held together by the martinet Margraves nobles.
They shouted, threatened, and urged their poor levies to fight on and not even dare think of breaking and running.
The unfortunate grunts did not have the guts to defy their local lord... at least for now.
However, it did not take a genius to see that this was hardly a long term solution.
Their morale was being strained to the utmost limit and that taut string of loyalty was naturally bound to snap at some point or another.
And from the looks of things, it seemed it was bound to be sooner rather than later.
But paradoxically, the closer this inevitable snap got, the more anxious Alexander began to feel.
Because in his mind, the man was utterly convinced the black clothed Heeat forces were hidden somewhere in the vicinity.
As for fixing the drawback of his formation, well, first of all, there was no miracle formation in the world that could do everything at once.
However, Alexander had a clever work around his current dilemma and its name was- Crossbows!
Yes, the hollow formation had 1,000 of these deadly projectiles wielding men inside, ready to pepper the Heeat forces with deadly, inch long bolts from a hundred meters away.
Forget the slow infantry, even if the Heeats were to charge them with fast cavalry, they would find a wall of withering arrowfire greeting them.
Alexander had not only replenished his stocks with the arrival of Menes's reinforcements but Lord Janus's fief had also allowed his engineers and blacksmiths to pump out some thirty thousand new ones.
Fortunately for him, none of his preparations would be needed, for...
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As Remus approached, the uniform galloping of a thousand horses advancing in rhythm caused the earth beneath to begin to subtly vibrate, kicking up a cloud of dust that gave the impression of a force far larger than it really was.
"What is that!" And as Lord Bakerfield turned his head to try and locate the source of this new chorus of neighs and roars, he could not help but let out a shout of utter incredulity.
But that detection unfortunately came a little too late.
Given the enormous clamor and din that filled the battlefield, it was not until Remus was within a few hundred meters of his prey that the Margraves even noticed this fresh set of foes.
But by then, the horses were figuratively neighing right behind their necks, ready to charge!
"Oh no!"
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The men's already faltering morale finally crumbled to dust as they realized the mortal danger they were in.
And then without ado... they did the most logical thing- they ran!
Which was in all fairness the best thing to do... because there was no winning here.
The golden rule of any battle was to never let the enemy attack you from both sides. Because if things got so bad that you could be attacked from either side, there was no way to defend from that.
Rather than trying to save the battle, you were far better off trying to save yourself.
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