A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1142 The Games of the Mighty - Part 3
1142: The Games of the Mighty – Part 3
1142: The Games of the Mighty – Part 3
They looked as innocent as could be.
The soldiers did not notice them.
To them, it was the same formation as the previous day.
They didn’t understand the magic of the tactical reasoning that had allowed them to move all but uninterrupted.
Nor too did they understand why it was that those slight chariots possed such a problem.
Karstly took his men to the centre of the battlefield once more, but he moved no closer to the Verna army than that.
The danger that those chariot units posed was not to be underestimated.
He knew that if he were to go in now, just as he’d done the previous day, then the losses would be significant enough.
“It’s almost unfair, Khan,” Karstly sighed.
“You cannot use the advantage of your numbers to such a degree.
To be able to start with such superior positioning – what room do I have for engagement?”
Khan looked down from his tower, as if hearing the question, despite the distance between the two of them.
“So he has seen,” Khan said calmly.
“Then he will know to take this warning, and not repeat the blunders of the previous day.”
Neither of the two men’s retainers could understand the battle that they were waging.
Both were still on edge, expecting the assault to come.
They’d seen what Oliver Patrick had managed to do in such a short amount of time yesterday, and they’d learned to fear those flags that bore the red symbol of a beast.
“…We’re not moving,” Lady Blackthorn noted, her impatience growing, as their waiting stretched as long as an hour.
They heard the continual crash of enemy projectiles landing on their castle walls, and they saw the trickle of falling bricks, but they did nothing in order to stop it.
“The chariots,” Oliver informed her.
It had taken him a little while to see what it was that Karstly saw, but he had found them in the end.
The tactical threat of a pincer attack, especially from the likes of Verna chariots, was not to be taken lightly.
“…Just those?” Blackthorn said.
“Is there still not something that we can do?”
“The opportunity will have to be created…” Oliver said.
To him, it looked very much like a stalemate.
If either side were to move, their positioning would only worsen.
It was a situation that didn’t leave much room for any attack from any direction.
With a smile on his face, Karstly simply sat, apparently enjoying the staring match between the two armies.
He left them like that all the way until midday, when the heat of the Verna sun began to intensify, and even the men who were not moving found themselves drenched in sweat.
And then, when the sun was set to become almost blinding, without a shred of warning, and with a suddenness that was so typical of the poet General, he turned his horse around, and set off for the battlefield to the left.
Khan looked, and it was not a glance this time.
It was a long, hard stare.
It was a move that was designed to make him think, and it had achieved just that.
From the central castle, Blackwell too, finally nodded his approval.
He’d been waiting since the first day for Karstly to do just that, and now, he finally had.
“If we can win the battles to the left or to the right, this war shifts in our favour,” Blackwell said.
“We have three fields to choose from… But the same is true for them.”
Only, those three fields did not hold Generals of the same calibre.
Khan was without a doubt the strongest General that the Verna had brought with them on their defensive campaign.
So it was true that Blackwell ought to have been the strongest General that the Stormfront men had brought.
Towards such prey, Karstly sent himself.
On the flat plains, the army of the left flank looked far closer than it was, given the flatness, but it was still a distance of a couple of miles.
It took the men nearly half an hour to approach it at a moderate speed, without completely exhausting themselves in the chase.
And here, again, Karstly brought them to a pause.
He left them staring at the enemy, just as he had before. freewebnoveℓ.com
Their eyes drifted towards the state of the castle, and they were relieved to find that it wasn’t nearly in as bad a condition as the central one.
There were fewer siege weapons here, just as there were fewer men.
It seemed to stand to reason that the damage the enemy was capable of inflicting would also be lesser with such limitations.
“Are we just going to stand and stare again?” Firyr said, a little too loudly.
For a man such as him, these strategic games quickly grew tiresome.
He wanted to be sent in to cause havoc.
He’d managed to tolerate the waiting that had come the day before after they had finally been set loose, but now there seemed to hardly be a prospect of action.
Karstly heard him.
It was difficult to miss that loud voice of his.
Still, he offered no response.
He was content to merely wait, getting a measure of his enemy.
He saw the golden plume of the Verna General, sat high upon his horse.
Unlike Khan, that was where he remained, rather than on his tower.
The man couldn’t help but steal a thousand glances towards them as they hung there ever so ominously.
For an army of twenty thousand, even their detachment of two thousand men seemed like much more of a threat.
“Can I break you?” Karstly purred, looking up and down the line of men for weaknesses.
He had chariots, and cavalry, and heavy infantry.
He also had an encampment of his own behind the lines of men, with stakes around it.
There were likely to be just as many civilians there as in Khan’s own encampment.
It certainly would have seemed to many like a tempting area of attack.
