Herald of Steel

*Creak!*"

"*Snap!*"

"*Split!*"

"*Bang!*"

With every moment that passed aboard the bridge, the fearful noises of the woods creaking and stones slipping off into the water got louder and louder, and the cracks propagated further and further, until the bridge underneath the Heeat family soldiers looked just like a tattered web of cobwebs, ready to shatter any second.

Initially, these men were disinterested even by this alarming sight and inadvertently worked to expand it, by carelessly stomping over it with all they had just to reach their destination faster.

At that moment, nothing seemed to matter other than avenging their presumed to be dead general.

But that began to change as the men finally got to calm down.

The birds were beginning to come back to roost after two of the pillars were hit by Alexander's heavy ship, and the men were forced to wake up to their doomed reality.

"Run! To the other side!"

"The island! I can see its shore! It's close!"

"Quickly men! Quickly! Do not waste a second!"

Initially, they tried to take refuge by attempting to reach Phyrros's Island's shore, a destination that seemed to lay well within their reach, for they were already halfway there, with only a football field's length separating them from safety.

The hundred or so meters would take a running man fifteen, at most twenty seconds to complete.

However the condition for reaching this place that lay within their grasp was that the men did not all start running towards it at once, but instead moved in batches, to spread their pressure through the entire structure evenly..

But the problem was, who was going to exactly stay behind on this rickety bridge while letting the other pass?

These men were warriors, not altruistic saints.

Hence they naturally were found quarreling, "Why should I stay and you go? You stay and let me go. I am older/stronger/richer/ higher ranking/ etc. etc. than you.'

Perhaps if Achillas had been there to command them personally, the men would have obeyed regardless of the peril. But the man was on one of the Margraves ships under intensive care, drifting in and out of consciousness due to the immense pain.

He had hardly the capacity to breathe, much less do anything else.

And the general's right hand man lacked the capital to command the same level of respect among the troops.

Thus the entire crowd of nearly nine hundred men all fought to cross the bridge at all.

And given that one of the pillars Alexander's ship hit was around those parts, the severely weakened sections under the stampeding pressure suddenly gave away like a box of wet cartoons the moment.

It was almost a one to one repeat of what had happened with the group that had tried to initially run, and just like that time, the broken section here too produced a huge gaping hole, with only a thin line along the left holding the entire structure as one.

Even for all the daredevils in the formation, that perilous 'stone string' proved too risky to traverse, fearful that it would snap the moment they stepped on it.

Thus, given they had the alternative, they instead turned to ask the Margraves ships that were all sailing around them, once again begging for rescue.

It came as a great relief to them that they responded, a fortune created due to a weird set of consequences, i.e.- Ser Robert and Anoon wishing to defect after falling off with their boss.

As such, four of their ships were moored close to the bridge, two on each side, to take part in the rescue, while the last one stayed at the rear and kept watch, just in case Alexander decided to do something very, very stupid.

It was of course very unlikely as pointed out by Ser Robert in a very proud, boisterous manner,

"Bah! Those cowards can barely stand after the thrashing we just gave them! Where will they get the gall to attack us? I dare them to! No, I wish them to. We can finish the job then!"

However, Anoon still insisted on this precaution, pointing out in a cool voice, "If we can attack them in such a sneaky way even if it made no sense on our part, then so can they. It would be disastrous for us to get rammed here. Look! The bridge looks like it could fall at any moment. It's best we stay as far away from it as possible."

Ser Robert was initially fully of the mind to contend with his adjutant's claim that they attacked the other side for no reason, when clearly they were the aggressors, attempting to assassinate their general.

But that thought was instantly wiped away by the slim, black man's slim finger gesturing towards the dilapidated, on the verge of total disintegration bridge, as Ser Robert subconsciously shifted his gaze to there.

And then couldn't help but feel a slight tremor run through his heart at the sight of this once in a life view. Because if the view of the damage was bad from above, then it was perhaps tens of times worse from below, prompting the man to instantly blurt out,

"My the gods! It took like a cracked eggshell. The yolk is going to spill out any second now!"

Anoon found the description quite apt, especially given that when these men would fall, most of them would become runny and bloody like a broken egg.

So he commented to his heart that his commander had quite the poetic side to him,

Then quickly nodding his head, he noted, "That's right! That's why we need to get these men off now. We cannot wait till the Adhanians are finished off."

Thus the Heeat soldiers were quickly evacuated through the ladders, during which some of them expressed their gratitude, some of them kept quiet and ran down like a manic, even kneeling down to kiss the ship's deck, while a few even murmured in annoyance and arrogance,

"*Tsk*, took you long enough. That kept you so long. First the general and now this. You really are…."

Only the word 'waste' was left out of their gross vocabulary.

It really went to show that there will always be people who are impossible to please no matter what you do. Even if you were to tear out your heart for them, they would only wrinkle their nose and say, 'It's dirty, Go wash it.'

The Margraves troops were of course very angry by this show of utmost arrogance, with many even wanting to give them a good smack. But given it was their commander's order, they stayed their hands.

While at the same time, they kept looking up fearfully at regular intervals, afraid the bridge was going to give away any second.

They were not directly under the bridge, so there was no danger of them being crushed. But they were still very close to it, and given the size and weight of the falling debris, it was sure to create enormous waves that could throw any one of them overboard.

Not to mention the ever present danger of any stray projectile hitting them out of nowhere and extracting their soul then and there.

Thus these men just keep their mouths shut and let the decks fill up as quickly as possible, eager to get out of here at the briefest time possible.

But that prayer unfortunately went unanswered for them. Because soon that age old problem of 'not enough space on the decks' reared his ugly head again.

They had temporarily forgotten about that in the heat of the moment, abandoning the attempt in pursuit of Alexander. But now, they were forced to deal with it once again.

The decks aboard all four of the ships had already become jamp packed, to the point the mixture of black and green meshing with one another almost no longer looked like separate individuals, but one big, smashed together clay, a bubbling cauldron of hodgepodge where the participates constantly shoved and pushed each other to make as much as room possible.

"Move! Move! Let our brothers get on board."

"Hey, don't shove! Move where? There is no space left."

"Oi fucker! Any more and I'm gonna fall!"

"*Tsk*! Then fall! A little water is not going to hurt you! Let our brothers in!"

"Aghhhh! Can't breathe! Can't breathe! Motherf****, ugghhh… move"

In a very weird twist of fate, many in the Margraves' ships were experiencing what Alexander had just a while ago, a crushing, as the ships, even though they were bigger than Alexander's and had a holding capacity of around two hundred fifty to three, was still now nowhere enough for its current job.

The four ships engaged in the rescue managed to hold around twelve hundred soldiers, and then adding the rowers in the lower decks, reached its absolute capacity of around about fifteen hundred.

This put the ships over being just simply overweight and to the point of sinking under their own weight.

However, even then there were still about three hundred men stranded atop the bridge.

And there was only one ship left.

Ser Robert's flagship. And even with its larger size, it could never accommodate the rest, for that would make the number reach there reach nearly six hundred.

In fact, the people on the ship did not wish to accommodate even a single one, as iterated by the commander himself, "All our ships are overweight. They are gonna capsize if wet ake any more. Leave the others and let's return to shore."