Chapter 91: The Battle of the Great River (II)

Seville staggered back a few steps as he struggled to throw the spear that he held in his hand in order to fight back, but his already tired body had been struck once more, and so he fell and slid down the slope…

Seville’s death did not frightened the warriors that followed. Their belief to survive gave them temporary courage and strength. Even though numerous warriors were repeatedly shot down, but a lot more warriors rushed up. Seeing that the Lucanian warriors are approaching the top of the slope…

A salpinx resounded and the peltast unit quickly retreated from the gap between the hoplites’ formation. The hoplites stepped forward and formed a long and thin phalanx formation, and stood at the top of the slope to destroy the hope of the enemy from escaping. While the peltast that were behind them continued to throw their javelins, arrows and rocks, regardless whether their arms are sore, as they threw their projectiles in a perfect arc over the hoplites at the front and rain down on the slope, continuously killing the enemies. And the slaves at the back brought bundles of arrows and javelins to replenish the projectiles of the peltast.

Drakos stood at the forefront of the defensive line and faced the enemies who are beginning to rush up the slope. He doesn’t feel any tension and fear, on the contrary, his morale soared, “Brothers, drive them down!”

“HOUU!!!” His morale infected the soldiers as they raised their shields and spears, and roared at the same time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

As the great leader of Grumentum and the leader of the Lucanian alliance, Akpir, who is over 50 years old, is unlikely to rush into pursuit like a young soldier. And so, he did not chase them. Of course, his guards that are composed of 400 Grumentum warriors is in charge of his safety, and couldn’t possibly just leave him alone to chase the Greeks. Like them, the leaders of Nerulum and Laus were in the same situation. There are a total of about 700 warriors in these three groups.

Once they reach the hot spring swamp, they heard the sound of fierce fighting and screaming…

The complexion of the leaders changed.

“Go quickly!” Akpir urgently issued his order.

The fast-moving group suddenly encountered the mercenaries of Davos who were also rushing to complete the encirclement.

Philesius saw the enemy on the mountain path, and his heart “thump”. Fortunately, due to his experience, he manage to quickly make his own arrangement. The first, second and third units that were under the command of Kapus, will block the encircled enemy. While the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh units will follow him to attack the enemy ahead.

At the same time, Philesius dispatched the herald, “Tell Mersis to arrive quickly together with the slaves!”

When Akpir saw that the Greeks dared to divide their troops in the face of this situation, made him feel more and more uneasy. ‘If there are no any urgent matter, then would these timid Greeks even dare to divide their troops?!’ And he immediately issued an order, “Attack them with everything you got!”

The two heavily armed groups and are both elites, collided directly with each other without deploying any formation…

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kapus led his troops to the west of the great river and ran into the startled Lucanian warriors who had manage to just climbed out of the slope.

The enemies were immediately hit, leaving dozens of corpses rolling down the slope, and the mercenaries immediately closed the gap of the encirclement.

Now, to the east of the great river is Taranto’s reinforcements. To the north is Drakos and their mercenaries, and also all the peltast and slave soldiers. To the west are the hoplites of Davos’ mercenaries. To the south are the hot spring swamps and the river Tiro, which gets flooded due to spring rain.

More than 9,000 Lucanian troops were surrounded in a narrow low-lying area about a kilo-meter long and few hundred meters wide. While the total strength of those that encircled them was only over 7,000 (plus the slave soldiers). The encircling line is weak, specially the one in the west, as there were only about 600 of Davos’ mercenaries, which is almost only a single row of infantry and extends to the north towards the mercenaries of Drakos in order to connect with their formation, just like a thin skin of a dumplings with a lot of stuffing and are in danger of breaking at any time. Fortunately, the Lucanians inside the encirclement are temporarily disordered and disorganized, as they collided with each other like headless flies and are unable to form a unified front.

In the plan of Davos, the range attack of the peltast is the main factor in weakening the strength of the enemy. His Persian expeditionary troops have not only played a role in completing the encirclement, but also was his most trusted offensive force. Now, due to an accident, the force of this expeditionary troops have split up. After Davos learned about this emergency situation from the scout, even though he was anxious, it was still one of the several possibilities that can happen in his plan. Therefore, he has a countermeasure.

So he immediately sent his cavalry to urge Mersis to speed up his progress to the place where Philesius is currently fighting. And join Philesius in wiping out the unexpected enemy in one fell swoop, then rejoin the encirclement and annihilate the Lucanians.

Now is the key moment to the victory of the Greeks.

Akpir also realize its importance.

Two elite troops bloodily fought with each other. On one hand, the warriors selected from all of the Lucanian tribe alliance are still energetic from not having fought any fierce battle. On the other hand, the Greek mercenaries who had gone on an expedition to Persia were experienced and highly skilled, but their constant running had made them lack stamina. However, the course of the battle surprised Akpir. He originally thought that the Greeks that did not form a phalanx formation will be weaker in this kind of melee fighting, and it should be the Lucanian warriors that are used to this kind of fighting have the advantage. However, the Lucanian warriors were gradually beginning to be pushed back…

Standing high in the rear, Akpir observed that the Greeks will often gather in groups of dozens(in fact, this is the uniqueness of the units of Davos’s mercenaries). They weren’t just very organized, but also flexible, and they have a tacit cooperation between them, which made it more lethal. While the Lucanians which is like a piece of loose sand were cut into pieces by them…

This made him realize the seriousness of the matter. So he quickly sent a small group of warriors and ordered them to quickly return to the camp, and inform the leader of Pyxous, Cincinnag, to immediately lead the remaining warriors to come and help him defeat this enemy, and to destroy their scheme!

The warriors that went back to report the situation were then followed by Ledes (last night, Davos borrowed ten horses from Burkes to rebuild the mercenary’s cavalry team). But due to the rugged mountain path, the speed of the cavalry couldn’t be fully utilized. Therefore, several wounded warriors manage to escape from their pursuit and ran all the way back into the camp of Lucania.

“Quick…quickly inform leader Cincinnag! We were ambushed, and he need to send reinforcements!” They shouted urgently at the warriors who were about to withdraw from the camp.

However, the expression of the surrounding warriors began to become somewhat strange.

“Crap, they are Vergaean!” The warriors who reported about the situation found that these people were different, and were shocked.

But the man squatting down saw him and asked him, “Ambush?! What happened?!”

He seemed to remember that the man who just spoke was a leader of Vergae named Salu…

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Akpir asked the Pyxous and Vergae to take charge of the evacuation of the camp, but Cincinnag left all the hard work to the Vergae, while he and his son and other several leaders were in the main tent and are currently discussing about “how to protect the interest of Pyxous after occupying the plains of Sybaris”. When the guards suddenly burst in and shouted in panic, “Great leader, it’s not good! The Vergae suddenly attacked us!”

‘What!!’ Cincinnag was startled and immediately sweared angrily, “Those Vergae, they don’t want to live anymore!!”

When he stepped out of the tent, he saw a scene far beyond his expectation. Smoke billowed everywhere in the camp as countless tents were burning, and the Vergae’s were armed with spears and were divided into numerous groups, chasing and slaughtering the unprepared Pyxous’ warriors. While the other Pyxous warriors fled in panic…

Cincinnag’s ears were filled with the shrill screams of his people, which almost drove him mad, “Ahhhhhh!!…I knew that we should’ve killed these despicable Brutians, but Akpir just won’t listen!…Gennat quick! Quickly go and organize the warriors to fight back! Fight back! Beat them back! Kill them all! And destroy Vergae!!…Aaahh!!…”

There was no need for him to say more as Gennat and the other leaders had already rushed out in a hurry.

But for Pyxous, this situation is the worse, as the Vergae had come prepared, while Pyxous has suffered too many casualties yesterday (more than a thousand people were injured), and most of their warriors have stayed in their tents to take care of their comrades, while the Vergaeans set fire everywhere, causing many Pyxous to be burned alive in their tents…

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