A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1016 - General Karstly’s Plan - Part 2
1016: General Karstly’s Plan – Part 2
1016: General Karstly’s Plan – Part 2
A groan escaped from Oliver’s lips at the movement.
The surrounding men shared looks.
Hopeful looks.
“Commander?” Firyr said slowly.
An eye flickered open halfway.
An eye golden enough to give a man’s chills.
Where Blackthorn should have felt warm relief, she felt cold dread, and unconsciously she took a step back from him.
“What a mess…” the young man said, his voice deeper than it normally was.
“What a mess of incompetence.”
The other eye flickered open.
He freed himself from Firyr, and drew himself to his feet, cradling his head.
“You are quite right, my Lord,” Verdant said, dipping his head.
“We have failed you.
But there is no time for admonitions.
We must move, here and now, else we are liable to be trapped forever.
The way is closing up, even as we speak.”
“You tell me what I already know, priest,” Oliver said.
The air was cold.
He stared down his own men as if they were enemies.
There was violence in his eyes, the sort of violence that would have calmly killed innocents.
His words hung in the air dangerously.
He himself did not seem to recognize the significance of their intensity.
Instead, he simply inspected his hands.
He looked at his left hand, and sniffed, clenching it into a fist.
He looked at his right hand, and he ground his teeth, before hiding it behind his back, and heaving a sigh.
The gold from his eyes faded ever so slightly.
A clear wrestling was written on his face.
“Apologies.
It’s time to leave,” Oliver said.
“We have been bested today.
This victory does not fill me with joy.
We were bested, but I swear to you it shall not happen again.
I will breach this gulf, and I will do so swiftly.”
There it was, the words of their leader once more.
Verdant’s quiet face opened up into a small smile, and he bowed his head once more.
“But of course, my Lord.”
“ALL PATRICK UNITS!” Oliver said, putting steel in his voice, making use of the anger that he felt for the position that they’d fallen into.
“WE’RE BREAKING OUT!
LET’S MOVE!”
He was offered Walter’s reins by Firyr, and he took them gladly, taking care to use his left hand, when he would ordinarily have used his right.
“…Are you quite sure you’re fine, Oliver?” Lasha asked, pulling up her horse beside him.
There was still blood running down the side of his head, and it seemed to Lasha that he was making quite the effort to disguise the pain.
“Not yet,” Oliver replied simply.
“No – I am far from fine yet, Lasha.
But let us fulfil our duty and I can reason through this position that I find myself in when I am done.”
He took the vanguard once again, as he had done all day, but his attacks fell differently from how they had earlier.
Lasha was confused by that for a second, until she saw the obvious reason why – Oliver was fighting with his sword in his left hand, rather than his right.
His foes were still falling, but not with the same flourish that they had before.
She eyed the hand that he’d put behind his back more carefully.
She recoiled at what she saw.
Never was there a more obvious broken set of bones.
The angle of his fingers, and the angle of his wrist… It was a mess.
Even in the heart of combat, she couldn’t help but gasp.
Oliver must have felt her eyes on him, for he turned to her, stern of face, with gold in his eyes again.
She gulped and lowered her head.
She knew what that look meant – keep it quiet.
She put her efforts into her sword instead.
She rode further up than she normally would, until she was almost leading the charge herself.
Her body was bruised and battered, but she willed her rapier to a state of swiftness that she would have been proud of even in her best form.
She cut down man after man.
Even when a golden-armoured man slipped in amongst the rest, she did not hesitate.
She would worm into her combination one of Oliver’s feints, and make quick work of him.
“FORWARDDD!” Oliver roared again.
The way was just beginning to close behind Lombard’s men.
He sped them forward to catch the gap, and the men responded to his call.
Though they ought to have been exhausted, they fought with a viciousness, as if they too were angry.
The leaderless foes had no chance of stopping them.
Both shield wielders and spear wielders were slapped aside.
“Blackthorns, to the front!” Lasha said.
Her men yielded to her call.
They’d wanted her to give them orders from the start, but she’d never known what to say to them.
Now she knew, for now, she knew what she wanted.
They couldn’t make Oliver carry the same burden that he normally did.
Oliver spared her a look, one that was not altogether happy, but he did not say anything, and Lasha did not acknowledge the look either.
She stiffened in her pretence, as if this was how she would normally fight.
She pushed ahead, forming the tip of a spear, and Verdant fell in alongside her.
The ex-priest must have known as well, Lasha thought, but he carried himself far more carefully than she did.
He wasn’t at all his clumsy self when it came to problems like this.
He did just enough to relieve Oliver’s burden, without making it obvious what he was doing.
Between them, it was not long before they found their way back towards the heels of Lombard’s men.
It was a reuniting that came with no small amount of relief.
Now, they were at the back of a momentum that they did not have to generate.
They could ride the coattails of what Karstly had created.
It was a much easier endeavour.
Still, Oliver seemed to want to push up further.
He was not content with the very tip of the rear.
He wound his way forward, straight through the Lombard men, making their groups of 300 and 400 into 700.
“You live,” Lombard commented, seeing him.
One would have thought him a cold man for such words, but the fact that he’d remained at all was evidence of Lombard’s good-heartedness.
“I should have known that even a fall from a tower like that would not be enough to kill you.”
