A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1153 Equal Scales - Part 8
1153: Equal Scales – Part 8
1153: Equal Scales – Part 8
It was Jorah, who came last, who asked the question that was on all of their minds.
His helmet kept his blonde hair pinned to the sweat of his forehead, but despite the steaming sweat – which nearly all the Stormfront men wore – the young Commander was barely out of breath.
He asked his question with the utmost calm.
“Do we have another target, Captain?” He said.
“We do,” Oliver replied, not wasting a moment.
“We will take the heads of those two Rogue Commandants, and then we will make our leave.”
“Very well,” Jorah responded.
“An interesting proposition,” Verdant agreed.
“…That seems… possible,” Yorick said, biting back whatever he had been about to say, in order to offer agreement with the rest.
“I welcome the opportunity,” Blackthorn said, seeming positively delighted with the tiniest of smiles sitting on her lips.
“The usual formation,” Oliver said.
“What about me?” FIryr said, only just arriving.
“The unusual formation,” Oliver said again.
“You will follow Jorah, Firyr.
Yorick and I will take the back, with Blackthorn and her men in the centre.”
“Ohhh,” Firyr said.
He’d missed half of what they’d discussed, and only now did he seem to be putting the pieces together, now that they were all eyeing the same gathering of men in the centre of the encampment.
“Oh, aye.
I’m in, Captain.
I’m bloody in.
I’ll snatch you at least two Violet heads here, mark my words.”
“Not words, Firyr, movement,” Oliver said.
“Begin.”
He rushed them, knowing that time was of the essence.
He could hear the churning of hundreds of chariot wheels approaching them in the distance.
Those blades that were twirling in the wheel’s centre sprang to mind.
They’d cut a man up just by driving by.
The chariot drivers didn’t even have to use the javelins that they were tossing from the back of their carts.
He was more than eager to beat them.
Away Jorah went, with Karesh and Kaya behind him.
They did their usual ploy that they’d already used against the Verna once.
They had Karesh lead to pull attention towards him, before Kaya went in himself, and pulled a shield out of a man’s hands.
It proceeded as smoothly as they had expected it to.
Before they knew it, Kaya was amongst the shield wall, tearing apart the man with his bladed gauntlets, boxing them into bloody submission.
Then Karesh was wading in amongst him, widening the gap, and making room for Firyr’s inevitable arrival.
“””URAHHHH!””” When Firyr came, he bellowed, and his cry was echoed by the rest of the Patrick men.
They could not help feeling their battle spirits rise.
Instincts were in a man’s heart that allowed him to note dominance when it was there, staring him in the face.
They were so thoroughly attuned to this manner of battling, that as they plunged themselves through the shield wall, despite there being thousands of men around them, the majority felt nothing but overwhelming superiority.
From the edge of the formation, a Karstly that had already departed turned to look back.
“…They’ve disobeyed your orders, my Lord,” noted one of his retainers.
“Did they?” Karstly said.
“I had thought that they were already engaged in such battling before I had even begun to look.”
The retainer glanced at his Lord.
With Karstly, it was always hard to tell whether he was joking or not.
His face was completely straight, so even after looking him up and down, the retainer was no closer to the truth.
The General didn’t seem about to elaborate any further.
Lombard was looking in much the same direction as well.
He was close to the perimeter himself, leading his three hundred men to safety.
He caught sight of the Patrick charge, and he had to admit to himself the ferocity of it – but then he had never doubted the strength of the Patricks.
What he doubted was their ability to escape.
And what he doubted was the unsound reasoning that led to their disobeying of the orders.
More reinforcements were beginning to gather with those Verna men as well.
It wasn’t only outside the encampment that they had threats to look forward to.
Inside of it, there were enough soldiers to cause trouble.
Those ranks of three thousand men began to swell as far as five thousand.
“Damn it all…” Lombard cursed.
He could watch no longer.
“ABOUT TURN!
WE’RE CHARGING!”
He gave the call to his men, and he was more irritated in the eagerness of their reaction than he was in himself for giving the order.
“””URAHHH!””” They bellowed, as if echoing the Patrick cry from earlier.
They’d fought alongside the Patrick men more than once now, and they seemed to be eager to do so again.
Before long, there were seven hundred Stormfront men committed to the assault that Oliver had selected.
Lombard’s reinforcements ended up coming just where Oliver needed them – though it wasn’t as if the Captain handed over the reins of the attack entirely to Oliver.
As Oliver waited for the opportunity to dedicate himself entirely to the attack with Yorick and Verdant, he saw Lombard and Blackthorn plunge forward, almost synchronised with each other.
Blackthorn targeted the gap that Jorah and Firyr had already created, and she plunged several ranks deeper through it, her blade looking for plumed heads, and finding a Violet one, easily dispatching the man with a thrust under his armpit. ƒrēenovelkiss.com
Lombard targeted the flanks of the Verna formation instead, opening up an entirely different assault of his own.
It looked less like teamwork, and more like different men fighting over the same goal, and taking different paths in order to achieve it.
Watching the attack, Karstly’s eyebrow finally twitched.
“He’s stolen seven hundred of my men…” He said.
It was impossible to tell whether he was pleased by that fact or not, for there were the oddest of smiles on his face, so contradictory to the frown lines that had settled into his forehead.
