Volume 6: The Meeting of Two Heroes, Chapter 98: The Battle of the Ramato River (Part 7)

“Report! Commander, our blocking force has been repelled, and the enemy is advancing on our right flank!”

Although Philistos had prepared himself for this, the news still sent a shudder through his heart. He anxiously stared ahead at the dust-shrouded front, where shadows of men moved and the clamor of voices remained unchanged. The Daonian Army Corps he had placed such hope in showed no sign of breaking through the enemy...

“Commander... what... what should we do?” his adjutant asked nervously.

Philistos said nothing. At this moment, what spare strength did the allied army have left to block the enemy’s reinforcements?

A shred of hope still lingered in his tangled mind, but it was quickly shattered.

“Report, Commander! Enemy reinforcements have appeared on the right flank! At least... ten thousand men! They are fiercely attacking Croton’s rear formation. Croton... the Crotonites cannot hold... they are beginning to rout...”

“What?!” Philistos and his attendants were struck as if by lightning, all frozen like wooden chickens.

The battle-hardened Philistos was the first to regain his senses. He immediately shouted hoarsely, “Retreat! Sound the retreat bugle at once! Retreat immediately!!”

Since the allied army was already doomed, then... he had to bring the Fourth and Fifth Army Corps back safely! Under Philistos’s agonized gaze, the “Woo! Woo! Woo!...” of the retreat bugle rang out across the rear of the allied forces.

Not only did the bugle notes shock the Daonian soldiers, they also left the officers at all levels incredulous.

“Has Philistos gone mad?! We were on the verge of breaking through the Syracusan defenses, and he dares to order a retreat at a time like this!” Drakos bristled with rage, his hair and beard standing on end. Even after a messenger later explained the reason for Philistos’s order to retreat, Drakos could not accept it for a time.

“Give me a little more time! Just a little more! Let my corps break through the enemy in front of us before we retreat! The Daonian Army Corps has never been defeated! We cannot lose that honor on our watch! This is a disgrace!...”

Listening to the corps commander’s anguished cries, those around him lowered their heads in shame.

...

“We... have lost...” After hearing the messenger’s words, Epithenis clenched the mane of his warhorse so tightly that the gentle beast neighed in pain and pawed the ground with its front hooves, yet he was completely oblivious.

“...Move the military banner.” He forced these words from his mouth, his face already glistening with tears.

When the bugle sounded, the corps soldiers still looked to the military banner for direction. This was because on the battlefield, noise made it difficult to distinguish friend from foe, so the banner served as confirmation.

“Look! The banner is moving!!” The Daonian soldiers who looked back erupted in commotion.

Not only the corps banner, but also the battalion banners and company banners were all waving toward the rear, one after another...

“Congratulations, my lord! The Greeks of Magna Graecia are routed! You have won this battle! This is a great victory—from now on, this land is yours to command!” Faced with Damocles’s flattery, Dionysius was not overly complacent. Seventy thousand against fifty thousand—victory had been within expectation. But what he hadn’t anticipated was that Syracuse’s most elite heavy infantry had been completely suppressed on the battlefield by the so-called “corps” of Daonia—especially since these were the Fourth and Fifth Army Corps composed of foreigners (Dionysius had been diligent in gathering intelligence on Daonia). If they were to face the vaunted First and Second Army Corps, what would the Syracusan heavy infantry do?

Thus, even in victory, Dionysius remained vigilant: “Though the enemy is routed, the fight is not over. Continue urging the reinforcements on both flanks to pursue relentlessly. Kill and capture as many of the Greeks of Magna Graecia as possible—especially the Daonians!”

“Take all the messengers and find Achilita and Gaba. Tell them I am extremely displeased that they disobeyed orders and failed to assist in attacking the enemy’s right wing. Unless they immediately pursue those black-armored enemies, kill as many as they can, and capture them, they won’t see a single silver coin in payment!”

Ephialtes had practiced retreat procedures in military training, but he never expected to use them in his first battle. With great reluctance, he hurled his long shield at the enemy, then turned and ran, short sword in hand. An enemy soldier threw a short sword that struck him in the back, making him stumble and nearly fall.

Ephialtes scrambled back to his feet, hands and feet working together. His platoon had already fled more than ten meters from the enemy’s ranks. He spotted the fluttering military banner and hurriedly chased after it.

The moment of turning to flee was the most dangerous. Some soldiers were stabbed by pursuing enemies. Seeing their comrades fall and cry for help, the corps soldiers—usually so emphatic about unity—now had no thought of saving their brothers. They ran for their lives, hoping only to widen the gap.

When the platoon leader’s shouts of “Quick! Quick! Quick!...” reached his ears clearly, Ephialtes’s tense heart relaxed a little. The officer’s cry of “Quick!” did not mean the soldiers should run wildly. According to the Daonian Military Code, during a retreat, soldiers should gather as close as possible to the nearest military banner and follow its movements to avoid chaos and loss of organization.

As he ran, Ephialtes noticed the footsteps behind him gradually fading. He looked back and saw that the enemy had fallen far behind; some had even stopped pursuing. He understood why: after an hour of continuous fighting in heavy armor, their stamina was exhausted. The Daonian soldiers were running for their lives, and armed cross-country running had been a key part of their training—the Spartans had practiced it since childhood. The victorious Syracusan soldiers clearly lacked both the will and the ability to pursue further.

Ephialtes’s anxiety eased even more.

But after the main force had run for a while, they began to slow down.

This was because the Fourth Army Corps had been positioned to the right, near Trina. Enamenas led the Campanian mercenaries from west to east, trying to round up the fleeing Trinians. At the same time, sailors from the fleet moored along the riverbank, seeing an opportunity to plunder, also came ashore to join the interception. The net of pursuit grew tighter and tighter, pressing the panicked “fish” of Trina eastward—which naturally compressed the retreat space for the Daonian Fourth Army Corps.

“Quick! Quick! Quick!...” Epithenis, standing on the bank of the Corace River, urged his corps soldiers to cross the river as fast as possible, ignoring whether they could hear him in the chaos.

On the opposite bank of the Corace River, Philistos was in even greater agony. He had chosen this river as a barrier to limit the enemy cavalry’s outflanking maneuver, and now it had become a trap hindering the Daonian corps’ retreat. Though the river was neither wide nor deep, tens of thousands of terrified soldiers surged into it at once, turning the banks into a muddy quagmire. Once a panicked soldier fell, it became a disaster not only for him but also for those behind.

Countless soldiers were tangled together in the riverbed, all order lost. They shoved and jostled, the scene growing more chaotic by the moment...

Philistos felt as if he were witnessing a replay of the tragedy in the Persian pass years ago. His shouts and warnings along this ten-stade stretch of river were so feeble as to be utterly negligible.

Philistos was consumed by regret and shame. He dared not look any longer. Turning his head, he saw the row of trumpeters and war drummers behind him. In a flash, inspiration struck: “Quick! Sound the ‘Battle March’! Play the ‘Battle March’!...”

He shouted like a madman, startling the trumpeters into hurriedly putting their round horns to their mouths. In their nervousness, the first note was off-key, but gradually they played more smoothly and with greater strength.

The “Battle March” was also adapted from a symphony Davos remembered from his former life. Its vigorous, powerful, fast-paced melody conveyed the fearless spirit of soldiers marching into battle and charging the enemy. As the melody echoed along the Corace River, the Fourth Army Corps soldiers who heard it felt their courage and honor rekindled, gradually regaining their composure. The chaos in the riverbed began to lessen...

Philistos also ordered the light-armored infantry who had retreated from the riverbank to enter the riverbed and form a dense formation, separating the Trinians to reduce interference with the orderly retreat of the Daonian Fourth Army Corps. In an emergency, they could even use force to drive the Trinians westward. At this moment, Philistos had no choice but to harden his heart against his allies.

“Commander, the Fifth Army Corps... the main force of the Fifth Army Corps has not yet reached the riverbank!” an adjutant rushed up to report.

“What?!” Philistos felt his head might explode. One wave had barely receded, and another arose. Even his normally patient temper flared: “What is Drakos doing?!”

Because of Drakos’s reluctance, he had hesitated over the retreat order. Most soldiers heard the bugle call but saw the military banner unmoved, so they dared not fall back.

Only when Drakos noticed that the units on both sides of the Fifth Army Corps had all pulled back in a rush, leaving his corps nearly isolated, did he hurriedly order the retreat.

In theory, the Fifth Army Corps’ retreat should have been smoother than the Fourth’s, because the fierce attack from Croton had turned the Syracusan right-wing formation into a semicircle. Of course, the Crotonite left-wing formation had also become an arc. The Crotonite soldiers at the far left, originally facing south with their backs north, had nearly turned to face west with their backs east. After being attacked by Phasipesas’s reinforcements, their main direction of rout was southeast. The Scylletian soldiers led by Arcesias were closer to the center. Since their mother city of Scylletium was not far to the east, most Scylletian soldiers, unaware that enemy reinforcements were blocking them in the east, instinctively fled eastward—and collided with the Crotonites.