"Aghh! What is that? An arrow?"
"Right! But how are they so fast! And hit so hard? Urghhh!"
"Dammit! Where did this co from? Sheilds! Sheileds! Lift up your shields! Defend!"
"Agghh! It's no use! My hand! It pierced through my shield to hit my hand! Argghh!"
"Ahhhh.. brother! No! Get up!"
"Shit! They were tearing through our shields like soft clay! What in the devil's na are they using to fire these things? Shit!"
It was with such alard shouts that the bursts of concentrated crossbows and instant bow fire were received by the enemy, producing significant terror and panic.
A phenonon made all the deadlier by the fact that Heeat family soldiers did not equip themselves as heavily as Alexander's n, so instead of having chainmail along with a bronze cuirass as armor and a large heavy shield to protect two thirds of the body, they chose to have a small shield, light armor, and a short sword.
And no, it was not because they were foolish, or simply too poor.
It was instead much more a decision that was influenced by the geography of the land they inhabited.
The Heeat family's territory was very similar to the steeps, with unending stretches of pastures and rolling hills filled with livestock.
Such a place would not be conducive to the use of thick, heavy infantry formations of Thesos, whose congested scattering of city states and hilly geography gave rise to tanky formations that could hunker down and fight face to face without any worry of being outflanked, due to the rough, uneven terrain.
No, the 'open and flatness' of the terrain ant that it was a place where mobility and agility were greatly preferred over defense and staying power.
Hence the n tended to dress lightly, in leather armor and a shield that at best covered half of their torso, and ard with swords or even a simple hatchet.
And up until this point, this uniform had generally served them well, both on land and sea, as in the latter swiftness of the feet and freedom of movent was even more important.
Thus the n at sea carried even smaller shields than their regular ones, ones enough to barely cover the upper torso, and instead chose to rely more on their expert footwork and immaculate balance to catch the other side off guard.
The goal was to make the enemy lose his footing amidst the constantly swaying deck and use this chance to get a thurst in, thus neutralizing him.
Which was all nice and dandy on paper.
Until you t a solid wall like the shield locked formation of the legionaries, who simply had no desire to attack, but wanted to only stand in front of the gangplanks and prevent you from coming aboard.
The Heeat family soldiers could not use their superior mobility to take advantage of the other side because there was nothing to take advantage of.
How were they going to show off their superior footwork, when the enemy did not want to even move?
The move thus made the Heeat family soldiers feel stumped.
Now, a few daredevils did try to bypass the planks and instead jumped directly from their ships onto the other's decks, thus finding themselves on the flanks of the legionaries.
But before they could even think of trying to take advantage of this superior position, they were turned to porcupines by a hail of arrow fire from all sides.
All these n heard was a rush of shouts, "There! There! Shoot! Shoot!" coming from their front, which was imdiately followed by a buzzing *twank*, *twank*, *twank* noise, as the taut strings of many of the weapons around were slackened, hence releasing a deadly volley of missiles.
Missles which easily managed to pierce their armor and shield, mortally wounding them, and thus leaving them open to be finished off by a sidewise stab from the nurous legionarries all around them.
Hence that plan was quickly put to rest.
Of course, if Lord Kite's n from either side had decided to throw their lives to the wind and simultaneously launched such an attack, it was certainly possible that they would be able to successfully overwhelm the defenders, just like they had done with the hooks.
But such manic zeal was one in a million affair. You could not expect to find it normally.
Hence, most of the life treasuring n stayed their hands, especially after finding the Instant bow to be an extre nace.
Initially, the Heeat family soldiers had thought of trying to take advantage of the slow fire rate of the crossbows to try and punch a hole through the formation, by ducking behind their shields and attempting to use their own bodies as a type of battering ram.
But what they thought to be ordinary archers proved to be an entirely different beast, as even just five 'Instantbown' standing side by side, were able to discourage more than fifty strong n from even attempting the risky attack.
It was to the point that the rapid, almost blinding rate of fire almost gave the illusion that the bolts were coming out of the n's hands, as the n pulled back their arms, shot, pushed the arm forward, and repeated the entire process, in a cold, nearly chanical way.
The accuracy, the deadliness as well as the novelness of the
weapon all worked to make them a fierce threat.
A threat that unfortunately for the Heeat family soldiers was
hidden behind a dense row of armored to the teeth
legionaries.
And thus, after so ti of futilely bashing their heads
against this turtle like formation, one of the Heeat family
commanders even started to curse,
"Dammit! Why couldn't they have shot at such while we were
getting close? At least that way we would have been more
prepared. Did they wait till we got closer to hit us harder?"
The theory got a bunch of nods from the surrounding n,
who cursed Remus's n for being sneaky and underhanded.
And this might have been very well one of the reasons why
the crossbows were not used at the n throwing all those
hooks.
But the much more likely reason would be that at the ti,
these archers were busy getting into their appropriate firing
formation, so had no ti to attack.
However, whichever the case was, the inadvertent shock
factor did work in Remus's favor, as this single ship managed
to hold on against the battering of two, much larger ships.
This was the case for one of the ships, so what about the fate
of the other three under Remus's command?
Well, although not as disastrous as this one, they were similar.
One of the ships, had their oars snapped on one side, and so
was now hobbling around the sea like a crippled bird, slowly
circling around the battlefield while throwing out bursts of
arrow fire from their crossbows haphazardly, and thus trying
their best to avoid getting ramd.
Sothing that they managed to avoid for now, although it
was apparent that their luck was going to run out sooner or
later.
As for why it had not yet, well, a large part of it had to do with
the ship with the catapults on it.
By sheer luck, it had managed to avoid any damage, by
swerving past its attacker at the very last second, and so was
currently the most agile ship of Remus's fleet.
Hence it whizzed past the other eight ships on the battlefield,
all of which were engaged in lee, throwing volleys of stone
and arrow on the enemy fires whenever the opportunity
presented itself.
They of course missed almost all the ti, as it was virtually
impossible to accurately determine the range and angle of the
catapult attack through sight alone, at least not without
decades of experience behind them.
But the psychological pressure of 'what if' was always there
for the enemy.
What if it hit them?
What if this was the one in a million lucky shot?
Having a 20 kilo solid stone ball hurling through the air and
smashing against you was a confird death sentence, no
matter what armor one wore, or what shield they had.
No human could survive that.
And so the ships always took evasive maneuvers, providing
so greatly needed respite for Remus's vastly outnumbered
forces.
And as a side note, one of the catapults did manage to hit their
target, and by luck, it was one of the two ships which were
besieging the other crippled vessel.
The stone ball had managed to hit a man in the back
completely out of the blue, and snapped his spine like a candy
bar, even producing a dull, popping sound.
Hence the world's first 'naval artillery' kill was scored,
although unfortunately, the na of the soldier who did
would remain unknown.
As for the last ship, Remus's ships, well it had the great
'fortune' of ramming against the enemy's flagship, the one
commanded by Lord Kite.
And then the two 'structures' would beco one, as the rams
of either ship impaled themselves into the hull of the other.
Then, instead of trying to pull back, both sides decided to try
and board the other.
And thus on the decks of the two ships, a deadly fight
currently raged.
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