Chapter 204

“Not yet.”

“Inform the vanguard to slow the march. Tell Philadelphus to make more noise and draw the enemy’s attention. And… order Alisosis to withdraw the scouts. The situation is clear; there is no need to waste our cavalry in vain!”

“Yes, sir!”

Orders issued, Milon cast his gaze toward the stretch of woods ahead. He knew this place well. Beyond those trees lay the very ground where Melanthius’s army had been ambushed. After the peace treaty with Theonia was signed, Milon had personally led the team to retrieve thousands of bodies—some from allied states, some from Croton. The gruesome scene had haunted him for a long time.

Milon tightened his grip on the reins. This time, Croton will wash away the shame and avenge them!

The troops emerged from the forest onto a flat, elevated wilderness. Here, the Trionto River narrowed, making the water too deep to ford—precisely why Melanthius had chosen to camp here in the past.

“Enemy! Look, the enemy!!” The soldiers near the riverbank grew restless.

Across the Trionto River, a fully armed Theonian detachment appeared, marching rapidly westward along the bank.

It seemed the Theonians had detected their movements and were moving to block the crossing. Milon was unconcerned. Though he couldn’t see the full scope of the enemy formation, his instincts told him their numbers were few. Just as the secret letter had claimed, the Theonian vanguard sent to Castellum numbered less than four thousand. With some troops likely diverted to defend against Philadelphus, how many could possibly remain to stop his main army here?

The Trionto River surged through narrow gorges in the mountains upstream, but once it burst from the canyon into the flat lowlands, it spread out like a child escaping discipline, eagerly expanding its territory. The river widened to thirty or forty meters, the current slowing and the depth decreasing. After flowing gently for over two miles, the terrain rose again, forcing the river to narrow and deepen once more.

At this moment, on the south bank of the Trionto, Milon arranged his twenty-two thousand soldiers—including two thousand light infantry—into a massive column ten men deep. The formation snaked for over two miles, covering the entire fordable section of the river. Across the water, the enemy, numbering perhaps five thousand, stretched their line to match Croton’s length. However, their formation was visibly thin and loose.

Milon remained confident. Even with the aid of the river, a Theonian force so vastly outnumbered cannot withstand the advance of the Croton grand army. Their thin line will inevitably shatter against our weight!

“Attack!” From the rear of the center, Milon issued the command to the trumpeter with brimming pride.

The high-pitched blare of military trumpets pierced the quiet flow of the Trionto River. Aside from the two thousand men Milon kept in reserve at the rear center—deeming it unnecessary to commit his entire overwhelming force—the massive phalanx began to inch toward the riverbank.

Cleobulus was one of those twenty thousand soldiers. Captured by the Theonians in the last war, he had spent half a year doing hard labor building roads under guard, suffering greatly. To ransom him back, his family had incurred a massive debt. Now conscripted by the city-state once more to fight Theonia, he carried not only a burning desire for revenge but also the hope of seizing enough loot to clear his family’s debts.

The riverbed here was not soft sand but paved with cobblestones of varying sizes. The ground was hard yet treacherous to the foot, forcing Cleobulus and his comrades to march with slow, deliberate stability.

The Trionto River lay just ahead. From the front rank, peering through the narrow eye slits of his Corinthian helmet, Cleobulus saw men rushing out from the enemy formation on the opposite bank. Before the officer could shout a warning, he instinctively raised his round shield to cover his chest.

Clang!

A Theonian arrow struck his bronze shield with a harsh ring, failing to leave even a scratch. His right foot stepped into the river.

“Watch your heads!!” The officer’s shout echoed inside his dense helmet, sounding faint and distant.

Cleobulus reflexively looked up to see countless black dots plummeting from the sky.

“Damn it, parabolic fire!” He hurriedly raised his shield to protect his head.

“Eyes front!!” the officer screamed again.

However, the hearing and vision of soldiers encased in heavy helmets and armor were severely compromised, slowing their reactions. Many, struggling to guard their heads, could not protect their bodies in time. Cleobulus was no exception. He felt a thud against his chest, like a light punch, followed by a stinging pain. An arrow had lodged in his left chest. It had pierced the layers of glue-stiffened linen of his cuirass but had lost its kinetic energy, the arrowhead barely scratching his skin. An experienced veteran, Cleobulus knew the injury was trivial.

The comrade beside him was not so lucky. An arrow struck his unprotected thigh. Screaming, he toppled into the river, his blood instantly dying the water crimson. Cleobulus wanted to help the struggling man, but he was powerless; the cunning Theonians were using both parabolic and direct fire, leaving every man to fend for himself. A pang of sorrow rose in Cleobulus’s heart as he watched his comrade stop struggling and drift downstream.

“Stride forward! Forward!” The officers roared, urging the soldiers to cross faster.

The water wasn’t deep—barely past the knees—but the riverbed was slick with stones. Cleobulus and the others crouched low, using their round shields to cover their heads and chests at an angle, letting the water protect their legs. This stance drastically reduced the chance of being hit by arrows, but it made speed impossible. After the initial panic, the soldiers calmed down, moving slowly while shielding themselves, taking the opportunity to reform their somewhat disordered lines as they advanced.

They reached the middle of the river, and the water hadn’t deepened much. Cleobulus, positioned on the right wing, didn’t even feel the current’s drag thanks to the long line of troops on his left blocking the flow.

Suddenly, he noticed more men rushing out from the enemy ranks across the water. They ran almost to the water’s edge, less than twenty meters away. The spear tips in their hands glinted coldly in the sunlight. Cleobulus’s heart hammered against his ribs. Instinctively, he dropped into a squat, submerging almost his entire body.

“Javelins!!” The officers’ voices rose in volume—javelins inflicted far more damage on heavy infantry than arrows.

Cleobulus heard the whooshing of wind past his ear, followed by a heavy thud! Behind him, a comrade let out a blood-curdling scream. A javelin had pierced straight through the bronze facing of a shield, shattered the wood beneath, and pinned the man’s left arm. The kinetic force knocked him backward, toppling the soldiers behind him. Had the surrounding men not grabbed them in time, these soldiers, weighted down by heavy armor, would have been submerged by the seemingly gentle river, choked by water, and drowned.

The sheer power of the enemy’s javelin throw threw the Croton front line into chaos once again.

At this critical moment, the light infantry from the rear finally caught up and began to return fire. Their parabolic arrows rained down on the opposite bank, forcing the enemy skirmishers to retreat and stop their brazen close-range attacks.

The casualties were a drop in the bucket for such a massive army. Though Milon felt a twinge of pain for the losses, he didn’t take it to heart. He was merely surprised that nearly half of the five thousand enemies were light infantry. These troops displayed practiced coordination, clever tactics, and ruthless precision—something he hadn’t seen in previous battles. It raised his vigilance, but the outcome of this battle was no longer in doubt.

“General! Our troops are ashore! We’ve landed!” his subordinates cheered around him.

Milon had thought crossing the Trionto would be effortless. But looking at the corpses drifting in the river and the relieved expressions of his men, he realized the enemy’s light infantry was far more formidable than anticipated.

“Beat the war drums! Don’t let them escape!” From his horse, Milon could vaguely see that as his vanguard stepped onto the river beach, the enemy light infantry was already slipping through gaps in their formation to retreat to the rear.

“Yes, General!”

Before the herald could finish acknowledging the order, a high-pitched, ear-splitting blast of trumpets erupted from the opposite bank—a sound so loud it would require at least ten trumpeters blowing in unison.

Milon could not hide his shock. Did Theonia send more than just five or six thousand men to Castellum?!

The terrifying thought flashed through the minds of Milon and his officers simultaneously. All eyes locked onto the rear of the river beach across the water.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The rapid beating of Croton war drums reached Cleobulus’s ears as he climbed ashore, invigorating his spirit.

“Attack! Attack!” With the rain of arrows and javelins gone, the officers’ commands were filled with adrenaline.

Shouting the name of “Apollo,” the Croton soldiers took large strides, charging toward the enemy.

But a roar of killing cries, even louder than their own, erupted from the opposite side.

From behind the river beach, a crimson military flag rose abruptly. Following it, an endless, tightly packed wall of soldiers appeared. Amidst the thunder of their own impassioned war drums, they charged rapidly toward their comrades who had served as bait.

One by one, flags rose into the wind—flags that evoked painful memories for Croton soldiers like Cleobulus who had once been captives.

We’ve been tricked! It’s an ambush!

The realization struck every Croton soldier’s mind in an instant. It devoured their high morale like a plague, causing them to hesitate at the water’s edge, shrinking back in fear as they watched the Theonian grand army merge with the vanguard and begin to reform their battle lines.