Herald of Steel

"Will these armorless idiots even be able to hold on?"

As Alexander expressed his wish to use the natives as bait in the upcoming battle, Remus seriously questioned whether these men even had the equipment to pull it off.

However, Alexander felt Remus was being too snobbish towards the native's attire.

Although perhaps not as good as the legionnaires' bronze, mail, and thorax combination, the linen clothes cum armor worn by the general soldiers was not half bad.

In fact, there were even records of cloth being better than metal armor in some cases.

For example, when the Spaniards fought against the Aztecs, they found the linen armor those South Americans wore was so good that it even managed to stop their bullets.

Now admittedly the muskets back then were not as powerful as its later cousins.

But still, for mere flimsy cloth to stop a solid, iron ball… it was nothing short of absolutely impressive.

The Spaniards fighting there also learned from this and started to wear these looted armor although they had good, solid plate armor.

They would wear the cloth underneath the metal dress for added protection, going on to show just how effective cloth could be.

As for the nobles and rich tribal natives, they wore much better scale armor, which was basically a downgraded version of Alexander's chainmail armor.

The difference between the two was that in the latter, countless interconnected small metal rings protected the body in a maze like matrix.

Whereas in the former- numerous small, metal, pieces in the shape of a rough square or circle were strung together around the body using metal strings sown into thick clothed padding.

It was like kind of wearing a tunic that was covered with many metal pieces.

And depending on the quality of the armor, this could be a single layer, or even multiple layers, with the metal pieces overlapping with each other to give extra protection from stabs and thrusts.

As a matter of fact, these did not even have to be metal pieces like bronze, iron, or steel. Anything hard would basically do.

So the Helvati nobles who were particularly religious used roughened leather, stones, horns and for the truly zealous of the bunch, even large, dried seeds of certain fruits could be utilized.

Now just from reading this, scale armor might seem actually better than mail.

After all, which sounds better for body protection- a solid consignment of iron pieces wrapping around the torso with no gaps in between, or a measly collection of metal rings which could easily let the tips of a spear or sword go through huge gaps in the center?

These were rings after all, by definition its centers were empty.

However, although the answer might have sounded obvious, here the phrase- 'Reality is often stranger than fiction' came into play.

The presumed problems with mail armor would never manifest, because these rings were surprisingly adept at 'catching' the tips of spears and swords before they could get through, especially when you paired them with some kind of linen armor like gambersons.

While all the seemingly huge advantages with scale armor were sadly not that huge. And this was mainly because of how the metal pieces were arranged.

Because they were just strung together using a metal string like Christman lights and not interconnected to each other like in mail, whenever they got hit, they tended to simply slide off and give away, letting the blade through.

Also, because of the 'flimsy' way they were connected to the clothed padding, using only a thin, relatively flimsy string, a good hit tended to knock them off, kind of like a medieval equivalent of a tank losing its reactive armor had getting hit by an anti tank weapon.

And like that tank, once the metal piece was lost, that part of the armor became vulnerable.

However, this was not a problem with the chainmail as even if the rings broke, due to their interconnected nature, they would still retain their shape and provide at least some kind of reduced protection.

And lastly, the problem with scale armor was its weight.

Needless to say, wearing solid iron pieces was much heavier than thin metal rings.

But scale armor also gave a clear glimpse into how armor developed over time.

Chainmail was basically created by taking scale mail and separating it into two parts.

The metal pieces were turned into hollow rings to save on weight, while the clothed padding that was the base for the scales was separated into its own thing.

It was clear that the current civilization would have likely developed chainmail very soon even without Alexander's intervention.

All they lacked was iron with sufficient good quality that could be drawn into long strings without snapping and an armorer with that tiny spark of inspiration.

Towards Remus's skepticism, Alexander did not bother to correct the man.

He only insisted that Metztil's men would take the vanguard and bear the brunt of the attack.

"I plan to place the 10,000 Helvati in the center. You two will take the flanks and I will be in the back." Alexander succinctly revealed the basic structure of the formation he wished to use.

And since he had spoken, his two generals could only nod and obey.

They might be able to advise and even argue with Alexander, but at the end of the day, he was their boss.

Not only was his prestige among the soldiers unlike anything else, but even if he did not have that impressive record of success, just by courtesy of his title, Remus and Menes were still oath bound to follow him regardless.

Of course, Alexander very rarely used his title to muscle his way, which was why, although unable to change Alexander's mind about the deployment, Remus still wished to mitigate the risk of this 'highly risky' move.

"Alexander, you should know better than me that these barbarians are highly suspicious. Didn't they betray the Margraves just a few decades ago? Is it wise to give them the most important position in the army?" He chimed, wishing to poke at Alexander's insecurities.

The center of the army was like the spine of the army.

If the flanks broke, it was like breaking the wings of a bird, making it plummet to the ground.

However, even then, that bird might still be capable of fighting, hopping around like a cripple.

But if the spine was broken, well there was nothing to fight with then.

Hence most commanders tended to place their strongest troops in the center.

Their success usually spoke of the whole campaign's success and their failure demoralized the whole army.

And hearing Remus bring this, the young pasha silently smirked at this in his heart

Just like he had come to know the brash Remus, it seemed Remus too had come to know him, knowing what Alexander most feared was a stab to the back.

But it was just that the latter still knew the former much, much better.

So giving a tiny smirk to Remus, Alexander chuckled without batting an eye,

"It is precisely because I do not trust Metztil that I am placing him in the center. This will let me do two things.

One- by placing the natives in the most critical position, it will help me show them that I completely trust them. This will hopefully let me earn some goodwill so that even if they wanted to betray me, some of the more honorable men might think twice.

And two…. if they really want to attack, being on the flanks, we will be able to easily scatter to the left or right. The Margraves suffered those huge losses precisely because they were in the center and got caught between the attackers and their own formation."

"..." Remus as well as Metztil was stunned to the point of becoming half mute hearing.

They never thought Alexander would act this like, as demonstrated by a stunned Remus,

"You want to give up on the battle if Metztil's betrays us? Why?"

It was almost an instinctive knowledge that when you had a party suspected of being disloyal, you tried to mitigate the chances using whatever ways you could.

Not give them everything they wanted and hope for the best.

And although Remus or Metztil did not say this out aloud, their facial expression and body movements seemed to express that.

But Alexander had also thought of that, and hearing the pained cry of the man, simply lightly chortled,

"Heh, so let me guess? You instead want me to go and break Metztil's men. Make them join our legionary formations and put all the men under our command. Problem solved right? No mutiny!"

The sarcasm laced in those words was so thick that it might as well have dripped down like honey.

"Hmmp, well then, let's say we do what you say. Do you think a single one of those men will trust a single word you say? No, better yet, do you think they 'understand' a single word they say? Who are you to them? Absolute strangers!"

"No! You are worse! You are 'outsiders', the devils who took their land away from them… There is no point in trying to check Metztil. We have discussed the terms but if he betrays us even then, we will give up on the battle and retreat to here."

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