A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1140 The Games of the Mighty - Part 1
1140: The Games of the Mighty – Part 1
1140: The Games of the Mighty – Part 1
Looking around, he saw that his other men were all but finished up as well.
Yorick’s men had run down the last of the units’ survivors.
They’d been completely and utterly trampled, and from the blood that stained the men’s armour, they’d more than managed to collect their fair share of heads.
“RETREATTTT!” Oliver barked.
“JORAH, LEAD US FROM THE FRONT!
RETURN TO KARSTLY!”
Jorah began the retreat as swiftly as Oliver would have hoped.
The men had been waiting for the order for the entire duration of the assault, and so they were able to respond to it just as quickly as their Commander.
They went dashing off at full sprints, managing to find energy from somewhere, their eyes bloodshot as they aimed themselves towards the Karstly army that had seated themselves a short distance away.
Just as Oliver stepped over the corpses of the heavy shieldwielders, did the first of the reinforcements begin to reach him.
A spear was thrust up towards him in his saddle, but he managed to twist away in time to avoid it, before slashing back himself, and catching the man across the face.
Oliver was the last person at the back of their group, and the only one that the reinforcements managed to touch.
The rest of them were cavalry, and they galloped ahead long before the spear points could find and threaten them.
As the infantry grew closer, Karstly brought his men forward threateningly to receive them.
Any pursuers that they might have had knew to turn back then.
Chapter 9 – The Games of the Mighty
It was the first time that General Blackwell had seen Oliver Patrick in battle.
All he’d heard was conjecture, and all he’d seen for himself was that single instant in the garden of Lombard’s estate, when he’d managed to overturn the experienced Captain, despite being a mere Second Boundary boy himself.
“…So this is it,” Blackwell said.
“This is what causes the King such fear, and makes both Skullic and Hod foolish in their support.”
He smiled as he said it – for that was a promising youth that he had on his side.
It had taken him less than a handful of minutes, but he had managed to dismantle one of the siege weapons that bothered them completely.
He’d done it with fineness.
It wasn’t only Oliver Patrick himself that Blackwell found himself impressed with, it was the entirety of the Patrick Forces.
They didn’t show the slightest fraction of weakness as they stormed those few hundred men that the Violet Commandant had presided over, and even when they had encountered a man that had passed through the Boundaries, he’d been struck down as if he was nothing but an ordinary soul.
Of course, Blackwell had to acknowledge it was General Karstly who had so generously enabled the attack to take place.
If not for his probing, and his mocking of the enemy, never would there have been enough time for the Patrick men to get close enough for an attack, no matter what they did.
“But still…” Blackwell murmured.
“But still, it would seem that we have a weapon that will be most useful.
I am almost jealous to have lent it to you, General Karstly.”
From across the field, he could almost feel General Karstly’s self-satisfied smile, as he allowed his men to put more distance between themselves and the enemy.
Now those Verna men were truly looking their way.
Even Khan was.
Now, General Karstly knew, they could no longer be dismissed as a mere distraction.
“Well, it would seem your hand is indeed healed,” General Karstly commented dryly, as the Patrick men returned amongst them.
“Mm… That might indeed be all for today.
I cannot imagine that we will find more opportunities like that.”
Of those men, only Karstly likely could have made such a proclamation.
The rest of them, from Colonels all the way down to the infantry, could feel adrenaline beating its way through their blood.
After such a vicious slaughter, they could feel battle was the only obvious follow up.
With those chariots, they would almost certainly come to exact their revenge.
Everyone knew to fear the Verna chariots, and those men were no exception.
With the infantry that they had, they would make easy targets should they be let loose.
But Khan did not budge, and none could understand why.
None save for General Blackwell and General Karstly.
The relentless assault of the siege weapons was paused.
The formation, finally, was shifted.
Khan doubled the thickness of ranks around the siege weapons, adding more defenders to them, and in the process, he stopped the continual rushing of his foot soldiers towards the walls.
No doubt he could feel where Karstly’s eyes would be pointed next, should that assault be allowed to continue.
Even the sun had begun to set, as if in agreement with a pause to their conflict.
So it was, on the first day of Karstly’s arrival, the battle was ended with a surprising amount of quietness.
The sole blood for the day seemed to have been left entirely in the Verna court.
They’d lost so many hundreds of men to arrows in their attempts to storm the walls, but at least they could write that off as progress, given the state of the castles.
However, the systematic slaughter of one entire unit, along with its Violet Commandant and its siege weapons, that was a difficult matter to write off.
Only when the Verna soldiers began to slowly trickle back to their encampments along with the fading light of the sun did Karstly men begin to truly believe that the battle would be ended there for the day.
It didn’t feel at all like the battles that they had come to expect.
Few of them had experience with extended warfare, and especially not those that had gleaned all their experience from Karstly.
They’d expected something decisive to happen as soon as they’d begun to move, even after Karstly himself had warned that with the capture of the Lonely Mountain, it would be in the best interests of the Stormfront men to wage of war of attrition.
“Those siege weapons left alone like that…” Oliver said, as he watched amongst Karstly’s men on the edge of the battlefield.
“They make for quite the target.”
