Herald of Steel

The choice of turning around and running away had seemed very tempting to Quinnolin at some point. After all, what could he even do if the enemy decided to stay and fight?

Nothing! He would vanish like a soap bubble the moment they made contact.

But doing such a thing would be abandoning his brothers on the bridge.

Brothers who were waving their standards like crazy, indicating they were in desperate need of rescue.

Quinnolin imagined what it must be for them now, and then dreaded to think what it would feel to see this glimmer of hope disappear, a hope that was ignited just as they were at the end of their ropes.

If he was with them, seeing the ships coming to rescue them suddenly turn around without seemingly any rhyme reason would perhaps feel like the world's biggest betrayal and the cruelest punishment.

Quinnolin felt he could already hear the desperate howls and despairing cries this would produce pierce his ears and the man understood there that he could not do it, he would never be able to live with himself if he abandoned all his brothers there just to save his own skin.

The act would make every single night for the rest of his life a sleepless nightmare.

Thus Quinnolin made up his mind and kept to his route, intending to fight to the bitter end.

Even if all the other five ships ran, he intended to stay, even if that meant being boarded and slaughtered to the last man.

The loyal man would rather have that than abandon his brothers and be labeled a coward.

*Creak*.... *Snap*.... *Splash*

Just as Quinnolin made the proclamation in his heart, suddenly he heard this crisp snap off in the distance, like a twig snapping and instantly looked up to locate its source.

And there he spotted it immediately, a large chunk of the bridge- made of wood and stone breaking off from the main structure and plummeting down to the ocean at terminal speed, producing a dreadful splash and a giant wave as it hit the water.

And immediately following that fallen part of the bridge came three unlucky men clad in black and a horse, the four helplessly frailing their hands and screaming at the top of their lungs, still unable to understand what the hell just happened.

How had the ground underneath them suddenly given away like quicksand, and how they were suddenly 'flying' through the air?

It had all happened in the blink of an eye.

And most of them died like this, never getting to realize how they died, just that they did, as the screams turned mute the second they hit the water- becoming silent limp, broken flesh.

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It was unknown what exactly killed them, the water or the stone and wood directly underneath.

Or perhaps it was their spears and shields that followed after them, dreadfully banging against their body.

Or perhaps it was by being squashed by each other, the large horse acting as a hammer to the trio's anvil.

'Oh no!' And seeing the entire thing from his ship below, this was the single thought that raced through Quinnolin.

Not joy at seeing his enemies die, but immense, almost unrestrained panic.

Because he man would think off only one reason why a bridge would collapse like that.

A reason that could be solidly buttressed by just looking at the state of the bridge.

Although once made of stone, this great and once very sturdy bridge now looked very rickety, with glime, green moss, and other ferns covering huge portions of the pillars and the underside, laying evidence of its lack of proper care and maintenance.

And it looked as if it was being kept upright with only the support of various wooden stumps, brackets, and planks, in a very haphazard and makeshift way.

The entire structure betrayed decay and instability.

Thus it seemed like just as Lord Bernard had wisely predicted, one of the very rare times for the man to display such wisdom, it had finally happened.

There were almost two thousand men atop the bridge, along with almost a hundred horses, and when all that weight was combined to be concentrated on a very small part of the long bridge, well it seemed the inevitable was happening at long last.

The stresses put on the stopgap measures used to keep the bridge together, such as thick ropes and tight knots, were finally proving too much for the material to handle and so they began to snap and unravel themselves, making the men at the top suddenly find that the ground underneath the was starting to come apart.

And naturally, seeing this they all began to panic as if they had just lost their minds.

"Wha… what happened! Where did the commander go?"

"Ho.. how… why is there a giant hole in the middle of the bridge?"

"The bridge! The bridge gave away! It suddenly broke!"

"They just disappeared! We could do nothing!"

"Listen! Listen to the crackling! It's all around us!"

"You are right! I hear it too! Squeaking and creaking! Dammit! I thought it was just our boots against the stone!"

"Cracks! Look at our feet! It's coming from the cracks! There are cracks all around our feet!"

"By the gods! You are right! The bridge is breaking!"

Yes, the collapse of the bridge was not as sudden as it might have seemed.

It was not as if everything was sturdy one moment and the ground suddenly gave way the next, like a sinkhole.

No.

There had been signs. Many clear visual and auditory signs.

It was just that in the heat of the battle and the joyous thought of imminent victory, none of the men cared to notice it.

Until it was too late.

And now, upon realizing their position, the Heeat family forces began to panic like they had been seized by the devil himself, screaming at the top of their lungs,

"Run! The bridge is collapsing! The bridge is collapsing! Run!"

And so an instant later a complete rout began, as these men threw all their weapons and shields to the ground and turned around with a snap of their heels, before trying to race back to the safety of the land as fast as they could.

The entire chain of events took perhaps less than a minute and it was so sudden, that many of those in the front rows were even yet to wake up to the situation.

The news of the imminent catastrophe was yet to dawn on them.

Thus seeing their rear echelons all of a sudden abandon their positions like they all had their feet set on fire, many officers, including Achillas barked in absolute anger and fury,

"Wha… what are you doing? What's happening! Stay! Stay! We are so close to victory."

"Why are running? Why do you disobey the lord's order? Stand and fight!"

"You stray curs, you dare do this! I will have all of you hung by the next tree."

But the men who knew the truth were way past the limit of being influenced by any such threats.

They did not even bother to turn around and explain, for time was that short.

The cracks were spreading like cobwebs with every passing moment and it was only a matter of time before the entire thing broke, taking all those on it to their watery grave.

Thus they instead ran, pushing and shoving each other with everything they had, shouting all sorts of profanities along the way,

"You bastard! Move, let father through! I'm a lord. Ten of you are not even worth my fingernail."

"You son of a whore, run faster! Or will bash your skull in."

"Motherf…., stop pushin… arghhh!"

"Run you gutter rats! Or we are all gonna di… ahhhhhhh!"

Needless to say, it was not easy to escape from a bridge as narrow as this, especially when you had so many 'applicants'.

And so each man fought for his place at survival, trying to get ahead of the herd through whatever means necessary, even it if meant thinning the pool by pushing the other side down or just shoving him overboard!

Something that all the men in the ships below watched with horror, as men, numbering at least in the tens, came flying down screaming with frailing limbs, before hitting the water and dying almost instantly.

Alxx's worries were indeed correct- the water here was indeed too swallow to safely jump. So if he had done it, he might have left this plane even before Hemicus.

"Get us to the bridge! Now! Quick!"

Quickly understanding the true horror of what was happening, both Ser Robert and Quinnolin had the same idea, to try and rescue their forces from there using their siege ladder, and thus turned to issue similar commands to their captain.

*Creak*, *Snap*, *Splash*

And even as they were rowing their way there, they heard another gigantic snap, this time much louder than before, as the stampede of the escaping men caused another section to break, a very big one at that.

This breakage was so big in fact that the connection to the mainland was now completely severed, as that end of the bridge curred laid below the ocean

Both sides were running out of time.

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