Hi there, a little something to announce my return for now

Chapter 34: Tusks

The air still bears the pleasing chill of the night, the sun doesn't yet show above the horizon to the east, but the sky already lightens up. Down in the basin, protected from the sharp desert winds, the camp of the syrian army is about to awaken.
Neolaos dozily rubs his eyes. The coming morning marks the end of another uneventful watch and soon would be time for the changing of the guard. Neolaos looks up to the top of the ridge in the west, where the morning's sunlight will first hit the ground, before slowly descending into the basin.
There, a bright spot appears on the slope and starts growing. Reflections flash up along the ridge. The startled guard blinks and it takes a moment for his perceptions to go through his dozy mind.
"Alarm!" Neolaos, suddenly fully awake, shouts at the top of his voice. "Alarm!"

The Boar has come to show the might of his tusks. Demophon's soldiers are positioned along the ridge, utilizing the high ground to which only a narrow natural ramp leads up between steep acclivities. The basin, which has been useful against the sandstorm, now serves as a trap.



The galatian commander's men fiercely fight at the bottleneck, where their enemy's greater numbers count for nothing, while the seleucid Taxiarchoi try to bring order to the ranks of their regiments.
The king's adjutant is galloping back to the center of the camp, where his master awaits him. "Basileus! It is futile, we can't advance a single foot. They will be able to hold the ramp for ever this way!"
Antiochos Theos grimly nods. "So let's see what brute force we have left."

Among the noise of the fighting, of clashing iron and bronze, of crying and shouting, a new sound is mixing, the powerful trumpeting of the majestic indian beasts, Antiochos' elephant corps. They are fearsome animals, larger than the ones that dwell in Aithiopia and at the eritrean coast and mounted with archers who rain death from above. The mere sight of their charge brings disorder into the enemy's ranks and the pure brutal force of their weight ploughs deep gaps through the ptolemaic formation. Into these gaps Antiochos sends his Peltastai Makedonike and his own Galatai, the Tindanotae, who show the foe their disdain by fighting naked. With furious anger they charge into the chaos left by the elephants, irresistibly carving their way through Demophon's terrified men, for whom the day had began so promising. Soon the line finally breaks and Antiochos' heavy infantry sweeps away the remaining resistance.



The galatian Boar has proven to be a dangerous adversary, able to spot opportunities and willing to take risks in order to utilize them, but for today the longer tusks of the seleucid king's indian elephants remained victorious.