A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1136 The Next Patrol - Part 7
1136: The Next Patrol – Part 7
1136: The Next Patrol – Part 7
His soldiers followed after him, with his retainers and Oliver Patrick following close by.
As soon as they stepped onto those plains, Oliver found that he had the overwhelming sensation that he was being watched.
Of course, that was only natural, given that they could not be missed, when there was no cover to be offered from the land any longer – but still, this was a stare of such intentness, as though it was looking right at him.
It felt like the gaze of an archer, locking in an arrow towards his chest.
The Verna had set up their tents on the plains along with their troops, and as soon as the Stormfront men made their presence known, more than a few soldiers guarding those tents began to stiffen.
They had not merely brought soldiers with them.
They brought enough supplies to last them a year, and they’d brought women and even children along with them.
It truly was more of a moving town than it was an army – though, if it were to be called a town, then it would be the best defended town in all the world, given how many soldiers it had for its protection.
Of course, only the smallest fraction of those soldiers were left behind to see the tents guarded against sabotage.
Stakes had been driven into the ground when the Verna men had made their encampment, making a frontal rush difficult, and amongst those stakes, their guarding soldiers stood, warding off the enemy.
General Khan turned to look Karstly’s way from the top of his tower, acknowledging the man’s presence with a brief batting of his eyelids.
He had supposed that this would come, and so he was ready for it.
It was the obvious expectation after the outpost on the Lonely Mountain was established.
“For a certainty now, it seems our good friend Phalem has perished,” Khan said to himself.
His men knew not to reply when he spoke so quietly.
He’d predicted Phalem’s demise when Karstly had gone rushing off after breaking through his rows of men, and he’d almost confirmed it when he’d stopped receiving updates from the ever-punctual General, but now that Karstly here, it was confirmed in its entirety.
That was another man whose family he would have to apologize to.
Another man who had died on his orders.
Khan knew that well enough.
He’d killed Phalem just as surely as if he had driven the spear through his chest himself.
But that was the choice that he’d decided to make as the Great General of this defensive campaign.
He judged that with an army of his size, the merits of rushing to Phalem’s defence were far outweighed by the demerits of losing the progressive forward motion that they’d built up.
“Send ten thousand men to guard the encampments,” Khan said, giving the order.
That was all that needed to be said from him, and then his attention once more was entirely focused on the three castles before him, as they underwent their relentless sieging.
The Verna men were moving within minutes.
Ten thousand feet were set to marching all at once off a single casual order from their General.
Their movement was enough to set the earth to shaking.
“Ah,” Karstly said, smiling.
“For this much to be a casual move for you… It does hammer the point home, good General Khan.
You outnumber me five to one with a mere defensive contingent, and you still have ninety thousand men ready to attack on your behalf… However, numbers are not everything.”
He set his troops to a faster march.
His cavalry came near the front to pick up speed with him, and the foot soldiers hurried on behind them.
In the centre of the formation, Oliver found himself fighting to keep his horse from getting too excited and galloping off ahead of his men.
He had to continually remind himself that he was a Captain, and that he had other things to attend to.
He wasn’t a mere fragment of the many, like riding in that army of two thousand had led him to believe.
Along the side of the Verna flank, Karstly brought them.
Not close enough that the chariots could be easily sent out to deal with them, but close enough that they could cause a threat.
He ran his men all the way along the column of attackers, and he moved almost too close to the siege weapons that were continually firing.
He did all that, and nothing more.
He didn’t even draw his sword from his scabbard to threaten a true attack, he just hovered nearby, and he allowed the Verna men to listen to the beating of his hooves.
From his central castle, Blackwell watched, and he nodded his approval.
“Good,” he said.
The effect was immediate.
The Verna charge became less focused.
Even the reloading of the siege weapons dulled.
It was a man’s instinct to look at danger when it arrived, and Karstly, just by being present, was one such danger..
He invited opportunity, and the men’s imaginations filled them in on what that opportunity was likely to be like.
It reminded Oliver of a similar tactic that he’d pulled in his own battle against Talon, when he’d set his men to riding around Talon’s fort, when he didn’t know what else to do with them as far as opportunity went.
However, Karstly carried it out with a greater deal of finesse than he.
When he rode, it really seemed as Karstly would find a weak point, and he would charge in through it.
It hardly seemed just like a threat – it looked very much like his real intentions.
“However… This is only one battlefield,” Karstly acknowledged to himself.
There were three castles under siege, and three Verna General that were in charge of sieging them, with General Khan in the centre overseeing all the forces, and General Blackwell facing off against him.
A short few miles to the right, there was another castle, and another twenty thousand men.
To the left, there was yet another castle, a similar distance away, with the same amount of men.
