A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1186 The Revenge Strike - Part 1
1186: The Revenge Strike – Part 1
1186: The Revenge Strike – Part 1
“Now, Kaya!” Came Jorah’s shout, different to Firyr’s.
It wasn’t a shout designed to rouse up the entire army.
Jorah wasn’t the sort of man to be inclined towards such things.
His shout needed only rouse one man, and the second it came, Kaya was set to sprinting.
With no weapons in his hands that the foe could see, he went off in front of Firyr, racing straight at the enemy.
“Eh?” Even the Commander of the infantry himself was left stupefied.
It was one thing for Kaya’s work to dismantle a heavy shield wall, but it was quite another to expect that he could dismantle a chariot with nothing but his bladed gauntlets alone.
“Commander Firyr, follow him!” Jorah said.
“Foll–?” Firyr was about to repeat exactly what Jorah had said back at him.
His confusion weighed him down, even more than his armour did, and when the flood came, it seemed all the more likely to see him drowned.
He cast it aside.
Trust took its place.
It had to.
Firyr knew he was no man of strategy – he was a man of strength.
He left the strategic matters to Oliver, and to Jorah.
If he bid that he move, then before Jorah even finished his sentence, he ought to have been moving.
The man rushed behind Kaya, straight at the chariotmen.
Just before they were due to arrive, Kaya threw himself suddenly on his hands and feet, as if prostrating himself before a greater civilization.
Even his helmeted head was leaning against the floor.
“On his–!” Jorah started to shout, but Firyr didn’t hear the end of it.
He was already running.
His spear was already tucked underneath his armpit.
The smoking sense of an instinct was burning through him, and he was not about to ignore the heat of its blaze.
The bridge had been built for him.
A predator of Firyr’s caliber would not miss it.
He jumped, using Kaya’s back as a springboard, and he launched himself towards the lead chariot, without the slightest shred of fear.
His spear was extended before him.
It pierced the rider, and he twisted it, forcing them man to lurch the reins.
He destroyed his own landing, in favour of the explosion that he now had before him.
The wheels of the chariot tried to turn too quickly.
The horses pulled it hard, forced by their driver’s command.
It lurched, and with a groan, it lost its balance entirely.
Fuelled by the speed that it had built up, it spun sideways, and went flying mere inches above the ducking Kaya’s head, barely missing a still airborne Firyr, as he twisted to avoid it.
Like that, three chariots were caught in the collateral.
Their speed made them vulnerable.
When attacked from the side, their wheels could no longer bear it.
The weight of a fellow chariot colliding with them was more than a killing blow – it was a complete and utter execution.
The Solgrim men ducked behind their spears.
The Blackthorn men that had been left with them hurried to do much the same.
A path had been opened up in the centre, and quite a distance it gave them – but it still wasn’t enough to preserve the entirety of their arrowhead.
“SIDE RANKS FORWARD!
INTO VERTICAL LINE FROM THE BACK!
MOVEEEEE!” Jorah bellowed, knowing just how impossibly small the window that they’d been given was.
It was a strange thing, to see men forcing themselves to stand still, as others hurried to move around them.
They had two directions that they could go in.
There was space at the front, for those nearer to it, where the point was at its thinnest, and there was space at the back where much the same could be achieved.
The men were trained to get into formation as quickly as they possibly could, and it was that training that saved them.
They needed no more order than ‘into vertical line’ and then they were moving, by the most efficient route that they could.
The blades came churning for them as they did so.
They were the vicious foremen of the lumber mill, sweeping through the workers, looking for fat to trim. freewёbnoνel.com
And they came mightily close.
For some men, it was too close.
They tried to dive out of the way, but the blades of those wagon wheels were without forgiveness.
They ran through one thigh, as cleanly as a man could ask for, whilst preserving the other.
The screams came, and those men fell where they stood.
From the sound of the violence, one would have thought that they were in a much worse position than they had been, and yet, when that line of chariotmen passed, the infantry found themselves to be in much the same position as the cavalrymen before them had been.
They’d only lost barely a dozen men at most.
And now the wind was racing past them, given the sound of horse’s feet.
Oliver’s sword was raised high.
His officers flanked him, bellowing their battle cries, and making clear their want for vengeance.
From the dirt, Firyr and Kaya gathered themselves, returning to the infantry to once more to part in the same charge.
Chapter 15 – The Revenge Strike
The goblet slipped from General Zilan’s hands, untouched.
He’d wore a grin of a particular sort, when he saw the cavalry abandon the infantry.
“A ruthless decision,” he said.
“But a wise one.
A wise General must know when some men are beyond saving.
On that front, I suppose, you receive passing marks.”
That smile had disappeared as suddenly as it had come, however.
Clouds replaced it.
No longer did the day feel quite as warm.
The cool wine that his attendant continued to serve him no longer had quite the same pleasant effect that it had before.
He couldn’t have imagined anything he wanted to do less than drink that.
“Unfathomable…” He spluttered.
The five hundred men that had gone off to the left were in a far more traditional position.
They’d failed to engage in their encirclement, as rightly they should.
The Verna chariotmen had spent much of their time training against that particular strategy of defence – their fanning out in perfect timing almost always dealt with it.
