A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1189 The Revenge Strike - Part 4
1189: The Revenge Strike – Part 4
1189: The Revenge Strike – Part 4
Before he could rush in to begin his attack, however, a horse flashing in front of him forced him to give his reins a sharp pull.
‘Bastard!’ Oliver wanted to shout, but he screamed it internally instead.
There were a number of soldiers that would panic once the chaos of the battlefield fully set in.
It was only once he had a moment to recover that he recognized the man who’d almost managed to dismount him.
There was Yoran, with twenty of his own men galloping behind him, making a sharp cut across the battlefield.
He’d forsaken the line that Oliver had wished to see set up.
Of course, it wasn’t something Oliver could dispute directly, given that he’d instructed his men to merely pursue whatever they saw fit… He’d thought it could be left unsaid, as far as the officers went, where they were most ideally placed.
Yoran was completely taken over by the bloodlust.
He didn’t even look in Oliver’s direction as he ran.
Oliver was quite sure that he didn’t even realize that it had been him that he’d stopped.
He was eyeing a target, and in tracing his gaze, it didn’t take Oliver long to find out where.
It was right at the cart that Blackthorn herself was targeting, with another Violet Commandant set in her sights.
She’d hammered back the remaining defenders.
She’d swooped in, again and again, and their swords had failed to catch her.
Even with a man of the Second Boundary in the centre, against Blackthorn’s agility, when they were robbed of such movements themselves, there was little that they could do to counter.
She was both patient, as swift.
She didn’t push for more than she was allowed.
It was charge after charge, but it wasn’t the speed of the charge that she relied on, so much as its angle.
She was quite content to resume the attack after merely turning, without gathering up speed again.
Already, she’d managed to pull her claws across the man’s torso.
There were two thin lines there, leaking blood.
It was a thrust that Blackthorn would have preferred, given her weapon, but the damage of a slash mounted up just as much.
The ever-slowing movements of the man went as proof of that.
With her heels, she flapped her wings, and guided her warhorse round for another attack.
This one would be the fatal thrust, Oliver was sure of it.
“YAHHH!”
Before she could deliver it, however, Yoran ran straight through, gliding past her, and chopping the man’s head off in one smooth motion, spilling blood.
“URAHHH!” He cheered himself, pointing his sword skyward in exultation.
A more thorough stealing of glory, it would have been hard to imagine, but to Blackthorn’s credit, she made herself seem a well-fed beast.
She only stared at Yoran for half a second, before she was gliding towards her next opponent.
The Colonel tittered as he left, unable to hold in his giggles.
His mouth was wide open, and there was a stream of saliva leaving his chin and running through his beard that he didn’t seem to care about.
“Next… Next!
Damn it, who’s next?” He said, turning around.
His eyes fell upon Verdant.
He leaned down towards the neck of his horse, his eyes shining with greed.
No doubt that was his next target.
Before he could even begin his charge, however, Verdant dealt the killing blow.
The Violet Commandant he’d been fighting showed a flash of impatience.
He stepped forward aggressively, almost toppling from the end of the cart, trying to challenge Verdant with an attack, rather than repeated defence.
Some swordsmen held – mistakenly, in this case – that a strong attacker was rarely a good defender.
The contemptuousness of Verdant’s strike seemed to put a swift end to that line of reasoning.
He struck the man so hard that he was thrown straight against the back of the driver once more, and this time, this new driver didn’t have the means to control the force.
He fell, dragging the reins with him, and the chariot exploded sideways, smashing into another cart as it went.
“Mm,” Yoran sniffed, directing his attention elsewhere.
The infantry were sprinting along from behind, but they wouldn’t make it to the back of the speedy chariots for a long while.
There was no way for Yoran to profit off their attacks, nor even Verdant’s.
Instead, his gaze settled on Yorick, and the slow methodical way that he picked off the foes, cart by cart.
Carefully, he eyed the man’s progress, drawing nearer as he did so.
He waited until Yorick had thinned down all the men around the Violet Commandant, and then with a sudden burst of speed, he gave a bellow, and swooped in to take the head again.
It would have been easy to condemn him, but Oliver could not deny that his beheading stroke was a fine one.
It was a manner of battling that did not eye their overall victory, but rather individual triumph, and still it was strangely admirable in an animalistic scavenger sort of way.
When that cart was brought low, and its driver was slain after it, leaving the horses with no one to guide their reins, naturally, it veered off to the side, as many others had before it.
Those others had exploded in chunks of wood and blood remains, but the Verna chariot in its path this time seemed to be operated by a more cunning man.
Before it could collide, he brought his cart to a sudden halt.
It was basically suicide to do that, for it brought him right into the heart of enemy formation.
Nevertheless, the Violet Commandant had made his choice, and he drew for his sword as he did so, slashing at the nearest cavalry detachment that sped past him, which just so happened to be Yoran.
‘Another easy kill,’ Oliver supposed, seeing it.
The chariot was nearly stationary.
A few passes by on horseback, and it would have been finished entirely.
