Herald of Steel

"Aghhhhhhhh!"

The horrified and terrified shouts of falling men were loud enough to pierce the ears of all men in the ships, even though they were a great distance apart and despite the huge open surrounding working to dissipate much of the noise, thus laying witness to how big a group had just lost their footing and were hurling to their depths.

They were so large, numbering close to around fifty and so packed together at the moment of their fall that from a distance they initially looked almost like a lump of black, solid stone, before quickly disintegrating into many misshapen pebbles, ones that were wildly frailing around their contours in absolute fear and panic.

And as they hit the water, it created a gigantic splash that rivaled even the peaks reached by falling debris, rising high up into the air and turning frothy with a pink hue.

Then soon afterward, these bodies rose up to the surface in the form of floating corpses, forming a nasty clump where everything was maliciously mangled and twisted, bent in ways that felt painful to even look at, with blood, bone, organs, and even bodily excrement polluting the water around there.

Thus the sea in the vicinity began to turn, first pale and rusty, and then a deep, reddish blood, bloody looking pigment.

The entire thing was very nasty to look at, and as the bodies on that part began to clump together to form a 'rock of flesh', QQ and his men found themselves instinctively turning their heads away at the macabre sight, for the scene proved too gory to look at even for these experienced men.

"Hurry! Hurry! Row faster men! We don't have much time! The entire thing's falling apart!"

So instead they turned to order their rowers to move their arms faster, hoping to reach their destination before any more tragedy could ensue.

As the ships from both sides raced to save their men, the men atop the bridge all of a sudden found themselves frozen still, letting a strange, deathly silence reign the place.

All attacks had stopped, all movements had stopped, and even all the various shouts and orders that were eternally present in a battlefield had stopped.

It was like time itself had ceased to exist, causing everyone to become stuck in place.

Of course, the current 'stalemate' was not induced due to time in the cosmos freezing, but because of the men freezing in fear.

Fear of the same thing happening to them. Fear of them too falling to their deaths and becoming fish food.

Among the three forces, the most shaken were undoubtedly the Heeat soldiers, who got a front row seat to the entire thing.

So it was with absolute horror that they laid witness to how most of their brothers at the rear got swallowed up by the sea in the blink of an eye, save for a small lucky few who were in the very front and managed to make it to the others side, all else vanishing to the frothy depths, as a huge, gaping hole opened up between them and the safety of the mainland.

This collapse of the bridge basically left the rest of the army stranded on this part of the bridge, as the gap behind them was too big to jump across.

Not to mention, the other side looked as if it could crumble away at any second, so there was no one daring enough to even try to jump on it, fearing that may be his last.

In fact, being the closest to the 'epicenter', there were many that did not dare to even breathe too hard, forget jumping or any of the fighting, stabbing, and pushing.

They only stood there, with half shaky legs, looking down at the various cracks spreading through the bridge with every subtle movement they made with the greatest trepidation, and listening to each and every creak and groan of the floor with frightfully pale and panicked hearts.

They wished they could stop breathing or even stop their heart from beating, all to slow down the collapse, even if by only the tiniest, ephemeral amount.

Even all the usually bellicose and martinet officers had gone quiet, sharing the same thoughts as the men, which included the general of the army too.

'Shit! To think the one time that cock sucking slimeball was right! And I had to be the one to get caught up in it! Shit! Shit! Bloody fucking shit!'

Facing this predicament, Achillas found himself cursing in his heart as such, swearing at himself for getting caught in this death trap even after being warned by Lord Bernard, the man whom he found most hateful.

It was to the point that for a while the man found himself to be more angry at his situation than fearful, cursing at the smug look Lord Bernard would be pulling if he knew of his predicament.

And the aggravated feeling was so high that if they were not on top of a rickety bridge that was disintegrating right under their feet, then the stocky man might have been stamping his feet and screaming his heart out.

But given the current precarious circumstances, he kept silent, burying the anger deep inside and indicating everyone around him to do the same, as he clenched out the following order in as soft but still as menacing way as possible, "Don't fucking move a muscle."

Achillas was not going away like this. Definitely not in such an undignified way of falling off a bridge.

The mere thought of how all his enemies would gloat over his corpse filled Achillas's body with that promise.

And since the general had commanded, no one dared to raise their voice either, thus the soldiers were let off for halting their advance even though they were so close.

The decision had been made- killing the enemy could wait. Now was the time to save their own skin.

This was a great boon for Alexander, but at the same time a bane for Lord Parker- that there were no suicidal people on his side, one who wanted to take the enemy down so much that he would not mind going with him.

Achillas would have been richly praised by the man if he had managed to take his lord's biggest thorn down with him.

It was just too bad that the man wanted to be here when Lord Parker praised him, and not at the bottom of the sea.

Thus the Heeat soldiers stood where they were, waving at the Margraves' ships to come to their rescue.

Speaking of the Margraves, the units on the opposite side of Alexander's formation had stopped their attacks too, due to the various alarming creaking and snapping sounds popping off all around them, which was starting to occur with increasing frequency.

Here too the bridge was beginning to snap but had not yet mostly because unlike the Heeat forces, the Margraves did not have any horses with them.

So the pressure on the wood was relatively less.

Then, due to the Margraves' ships being close to the bridge, a few messengers sent by Ser Robert were able to quickly climb up to inform them of the apocalyptic situation they were in, urging them, "Stop moving at once! And evacuate! This thing is not going to last very long."

It was a piece of advice these troops were on their toes to follow and thus the siege ladders were quickly filled with moving men, this time their steps being in the opposite direction.

Everyone was itching to get down from the bridge, when just a while they were fighting tooth and nail to get on it.

Ah, the irony.

As for the last faction trapped in this deathtrap, the legionaries, well they were all initially very puzzled by the turn of events.

For them, the actions of the Heeat and Margraves forces simply translated to seeing all the offensive pressure suddenly and almost instantly disappear, thus saving them from the brink of disintegration.

And initially, they were unable to figure out the cause behind such a sudden and generous show of mercy.

'The enemy had not shown any such obligations before. So what gives?' The legionnaires found themselves asking and then began to hypothesize various plausible scenarios such as,

'Are they stopping to ask us to surrender?'

'Did our ships scare them?'

'Are they giving up?'

And even the supremely optimistic theory,

'Did we beat them?'

But none of these seemed to fit and thus many began to see it as a small miracle

But things soon became clear, and only within a short while, a cacophony of loud, panicked, and alarmed cries began to ring out from all across the formation, with each claiming various, at the time, outlandish claims.

'The bridge collapsed! The bridge ahead collapsed. The whole thing is breaking apart!"

"He's right! Look at the cracks there… they are spreading! They are coming this way!"

"The enemy fell from the bridge! We are next!"

"Don't move! Stay still! Stay still! Keep calm!"

Hearing all this for the first time, Alexander was a bit flummoxed, wondering what the hell the others were talking about.

But that soon changed, and like the others, he too began to feel as if his feet were on fire.

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