A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1143 The Games of the Mighty - Part 4
1143: The Games of the Mighty – Part 4
1143: The Games of the Mighty – Part 4
Before he moved any further, though, Karstly looked over his shoulder, back towards Khan.
He paused for a good while, looking in that direction, waiting to see whether the Great General of the Verna would make a move.
But there was nothing.
“Are you quite sure you can leave him alone with me?” Karstly said, amused.
“If you’re so confident, I’m going to have to give you a reason to worry, aren’t I?”
There was but one reason, Karstly thought, where General Khan hadn’t sent any troops after him, and that reason stood quietly atop the central castle. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
His name was General Blackwell, and Khan had every reason to treat him carefully, given that his people had already lost to the man once before.
Karstly rolled out his neck, and he loosened out his shoulders.
His was the expression of a satisfied man that had finally found what he was looking for.
He’d heard Firyr’s earlier complaint, and it was one that he shared.
If he was able to, he much preferred to rush a battlefield along quickly.
The drama of doing things quicker than they would have naturally fallen about – it invited so many interesting little scenarios, as one pressed the laws of the flow to their utmost degree, and allowed for the potential of disaster to fall in on themselves.
He moved his men forward, dangerously so.
They came within fifty metres of the Verna men, and they hung there, paused.
Now there could be no complaint from the Stormfront soldiers.
They were on edge, as tense as men were likely to be.
The same, of course, was true of the Verna.
They shifted uncomfortably, and now the golden plumed man that they called their General was focusing his attention entirely their way.
His hand went up into the air, and he gave the first of his orders.
His chariots began to rumble down from the front, and towards the Stormfront men did they come.
“See, Khan.
This man is not worthy of even being a toy,” Karstly said, completely unmoved.
“I will point out his weakness to you, and I will make you stop this relentless bluffing.
I have already demonstrated my strength to you once before – let us cease to pretend that I am no threat to you.”
When those chariots came, with all the calm in the world, Karstly brought his men back away.
He went at a jog, and the chariots were made to look foolish.
Some five hundred men had come charging, but now the flank of the enemy that they’d been so set on targeting was no longer an option.
They’d have to charge the numerically superior Stormfront man’s head on if they wanted to deal any sorts of damage.
The men hovered, doubtful.
They came to a halt, pausing, much like the Stormfront men had.
Now the attack on the left side castle had nearly completely ceased.
The men operating the siege weapons had devoted themselves to defence.
They picked up their shields on the orders of the General, and carefully, they observed the enemy that stood nearby.
“…Terrible,” Karstly noted.
Merely in making the whole army freeze like he had, he’d already achieved his job.
If two thousand men could set twenty thousand to complete immobilization without a single causality, then that was a matter for great celebration.
But of course, a man like Karstly always pushed things further.
It was enough to make Blackwell frown when he saw Karstly begin to move again.
He’d dared to celebrate the man’s achievement with a brief “good,” before directing his attention all towards Khan again.
Now, seeing Karstly about to undo the deadlock that he’d built up, his heart was set to thumping.
He was a man of the most conventional strategy, and he excelled in it.
Blackwell didn’t need creative flourishes of strategy when he had the hard won careful calculations and theories that he had honed to the finest point.
He was a General that frustrated his opponents with his patience – but the same was true of Khan.
They were men that seemed to fight their battles with the coldest hearts, gently chipping away at their enemy.
It was far removed from the burning passion that Karstly found himself engaged in.
He’d whipped his horse up to a charge, and he’d whipped his men up with it.
“We’re going to cause some trouble, men of mine!” He said, riling up their battle fury.
“We will see some blood spilled this day!”
He took them in a rounded charge towards the left of the Verna formation, just next to their encampment, but without charging at the encampment itself.
It took them well clear of the chariot units who were still paused in place, and it invited the most furious series of orders from their golden plumed General who sat in the centre of it all.
“HEAVY SHIELDS!” The man bellowed, feeling sweat drip down his face.
“BRING UP THE WALL OF HEAVY SHIELDS!
WHEN THEY ENGAGE, WE BREAK THEM WITH THE CHARIOTS!
HOLD THEM AT BAY FOR NOW!
WAIT FOR THEM TO EXPOSE THEIR FLANK!”
It wasn’t a direct enough series of orders to be called good commanding.
It was the sort of thing that his retainers were left to interpret, before delivering more straightforward orders to the infantry.
Still, just like he’d willed them to, the heavy shields made their way to the front of the Verna formation, and archers rose up behind them with their bows at the ready, whilst the chariots were left pausing off to the side, waiting for a better moment to inflict the damage that they wished.
“Now that,” Karstly said, smiling.
“Is a most fatal miscalculation.”
He’d intended the charge just to be a bluff.
He would have been content whatever heavy reaction the enemy showed towards him, though he hadn’t expected for the enemy General to commit quite so heavily into what Karstly could only have called a blunder.
“STRAIGHT THROUGH!” Karstly said, leading by the front, raising his sword.
“THEY ARE MERE ANTS FOR US TO TRAMPLE!”
“””URAHHHH!””” Came the shout of his men.
Karstly hardly needed to say anything for his Command to affect all his men.
After Oliver Patrick’s display the previous day, they were all eager to get their own fair share of blood – especially if it was blood that seemed as easily won as Oliver’s had looked to be.
