A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1167 A Youth’s Command - Part 6
1167: A Youth’s Command – Part 6
1167: A Youth’s Command – Part 6
“Damn it all—!” Oliver cursed.
He was half tempted to go forwards, but there were more bowmen waiting for him.
They had seemed like heavy shield wielders earlier on, but now it was unmistakably bows that they bore in their hands.
The men wielded both weapons as some sort of trick.
It was more like a village magician’s playful bit of pretend magic than it was any sort of true military tactic.
Still, Oliver was made to yield to it.
He cut right, not going any deeper, and he raised his hand up in the air for the men to follow him.
The weak part of General Zilan’s formation that he had been goaded into targeting now reeked of nothing more than a trap.
And he could hear the click, click of those heavy turning chariot wheels, as they set themselves forward to chase after him.
It was not a trap that he could escape so easily.
“A drink, my Lord?” General Zilan’s attendant asked of him.
“In this chill, you fool?
Are you intending to give me a fever?” Zilan snapped back in his irritation.
The man dipped his head, realizing that he had said the wrong thing.
General Zilan had asked him for a drink at a similar time the previous day, but the attendant thought it to be better not to mention that.
General Zilan was not a man that it was wise to answer back to.
With Oliver’s turning, the snaking procession of a thousand men continued.
Down the invisible line that Oliver had been hesitant to cross earlier, once more, he left beyond it, for its relative safety, pulling his men through with him.
CLICK!
CLICK!
CLICK!
The wheels of the chariots were spinning, however.
The horses tugged on their harnesses with evident strain.
The whips landed hard on their back.
The harnesses grew tauter and tauter, until the wheels began to spin even faster – and now it was the flank of the fleeing line of men that was entirely exposed to it.
“Damn it…” Oliver said.
“Verdant!
Continue to draw the men back towards safety.
I’ll go forward, and see what I can do about defending the flank!”
With a resolute nod, Verdant took the order.
His spear hand twitched, in what looked to be a degree of eagerness, but he turned Casper in the right direction nonetheless, and the fleeing men sped after him, whilst Oliver went back over on himself, to reinforce the army where it was weakest.
It was a blunder, that was how Oliver saw it.
There was something about this battlefield that still felt beyond him.
He tested the waters, attempting to create tension, but when he moved as recklessly as Karstly did, he’d only run head first straight into a trap.
He could hardly even make Zilan look his way.
And now he needed to move forward and save his men from their fate, lest they begin to lose hundreds of their already preciously few soldiers.
The Verna chariots were deadly enough to achieve that – and they could do so easily.
He beat the sandy ground with Walter’s hooves, rounding back in a long looping, looking for an angle of opening in which he could assist the footsoldiers.
Their speed wasn’t enough.
They looked over their shoulders, and their eyes were wide.
Their ears couldn’t block out the clicking of those wagon wheels, nor the sounds of whips striking the horse’s backs, and those Verna soldiers shouting.
They knew that doom was nearing.
Reckless – that was all Oliver saw as his solution.
In strategy, he’d yet to find an opening that could make Zilan uncomfortable, though it was only early hours, so he supposed he could be forgiven for that.
After all, he had a card that few others in his position could play.
He had the overwhelming strength of a sword.
Alone, he chose his timing.
Just when the wagons were beginning to get ahead of him.
Just when it looked as if they would begin nipping at the heels of his retreating men, he put his heels to Walter’s sides, and raised his sword high, rushing forward.
“GURESH!” Came the Verna shout, as a man pointed left, spotting Oliver immediately.
Even in spotting him, however, there was little they could yet do to stop him.
The chariots behind him attempted a quick maneuver to cut him off, but a horse was far more agile when it came to sideways motion and changes of a direction than a chariot.
With his trusted steed beneath him, Oliver kept his calm, and Walter did as well.
They weaved between the chariots at the side of their formation, and blasted their way towards the centre.
Against those clicking knives that extended from the wheels hubs, any animal would have been forgiven.
The nearer they came to the chariots, the closer they came to death, even without the Verna soldiers attempting to cut them off.
Oliver moved as carefully as he was able.
He used the fullness of Ingolsol’s vision to pick his path through the troops, and to avoid the danger offered by their equipment as he did so.
Soon enough, he was at the rear of one of the chariots, beyond the wheels, and nearing the riders from the back.
“URESHO!” Another Verna man shouted.
The chariot rider with the reins looked over his shoulder, but that was all he could do.
It was left to the other occupants of the cart to begin throwing their javelins, and they did not hesitant.
Oliver shifted his head to dodge the first, and then he shifted Walter to dodge the second, all the while looking for a target that he might strike.
The range of his sword was beginning to feel awfully narrow.
If only he had a means of attacking the other side…
And then Blackthorn was there, as alone as Oliver had been, exactly where he needed her, fearlessly riding behind the blades of the chariot wheels.
Her sword was raised, and it was ready.
The hooves of her horse kicked up the same rhythm through the dirt that Oliver’s had.
She refused to cower, despite the danger.
When the javelins came for her too, she dodged them – though it was different from how Oliver had.
She didn’t go side to side.
She ran straight at them, flicking them away with the lightest touch of her rapier.
She didn’t make herself deal with their weight, she only gave them the most gentle of nudgings, and then they were flying past her.
