A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1191 The Revenge Strike - Part 6
1191: The Revenge Strike – Part 6
1191: The Revenge Strike – Part 6
Oliver held back, respecting the power of the cell that they’d formed.
With his sword, he couldn’t easily get in close without risking his horse.
He needed to wait for a better opportunity to attack.
The chariotmen eyed him like insects, extending their weapons to make the distance he had to cross even longer.
It was a hive mind that kept them as ferocious as they were.
Oliver saw that not as an insult, but as a compliment, both to them, and to their Commandant.
His Command over them was vast enough that – though there were few enough in number – he seemed to own them completely.
“My Lord,” came Verdant’s voice, loud, despite how quietly he’d uttered the words.
It was the sounding of a horn, a great trumpeting.
Just the pressure he was exerting from standing off to the side was vast.
He made those chariotmen wary.
He made the sturdy chariots jump up and down from the ground in their nervousness.
Oliver gave him the nod.
He had not the numbers of the Rogue Commandant to work with, but he needed them not.
Verdant had numbers enough already, and they clung to his shoulders, lending him extra strength.
They were the weight of the dead that he’d already sent to the afterlife.
They cowered when Verdant went forth.
They were unable not to.
That perfect triangle bowed in at the side, as one of the chariot rider’s reins slipped every so slightly from his distraction.
If one was not as close as Oliver currently was, that crack would have been unnoticeable, but now it struck Oliver as being the most obvious thing in the world – and indeed it was fatal for it.
It allowed Verdant the extra step.
The spears that jabbed at him lacked just a frack of reach.
The other chariotmen were unable to help now, as Verdant targeted the middle man of his particular side.
“TOR!
TOR!
TOR!” The Rogue Commandant bellowed in a panic.
Oliver didn’t have to know the Verna tongue to guess what that meant.
He was trying to fix his line before Verdant shattered it entirely, but it was far too late by Oliver’s estimation.
Verdant’s spear caught a man hard in the chest.
The entire cart buckled from the blow.
The driver was unable to help looking over his shoulder, as the fighting continued.
One of the men was thrown against his shoulder, and left to die there, gurgling on the blood that he was coughing up.
The next came straight after.
He rushed forward too quickly.
The Rogue Commandant’s control over him was lost, in favour of the constant jabbing of fear.
He ran at Verdant, hoping to purge the fear from himself with a quick attack.
Instead, it was Verdant that purged the fear from him, when he tore apart his heart with the tip of his spear.
By then, it was over. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
The killing of the driver afterwards was merely an execution rather than a contest.
The formation that the Rogue Commandant had so painstakingly set up in order to salvage their position had been shattered as if it was no better than a flat line.
Now Oliver had his opening.
He’d slipped in behind Verdant whilst the mighty man had held their attention.
He made Verdant’s shadow his domain, and only when the chariot buckled in front of them, opening up the path to the Rogue Commandant, did Oliver dare to step into the light again.
His eyes fell upon the man that was his enemy.
The other man looked out from underneath his helmet, still cowering.
But it wasn’t a cowardly sort of cower.
It was the sort of cower that was the nature of a creature, what it had evolved to have at its strength.
From the tightness of the man’s jaw, he most certainly hadn’t given up, even with the way his wrinkled neck bobbed, as if looking for any sign of retreat.
‘You’ll have to hold your ground,’ Oliver thought to himself.
He had an inkling that holding his ground wasn’t that Rogue Commandant’s preferred style of combat.
He seemed far more the type to move, as he was now, at the heart of a formation.
But the walls were closing in, and the tide that Verdant had already built up was coming for him.
The waves swept his men further and further away.
They had to avoid the carcass of the last chariot, and the formation grew wider for it, and the gaps in the shell grew all the more obvious.
Oliver and Walter picked their way through the wreckage.
They made the swirling depths of that high-speed battle look as negotiable as a quiet pond.
It was a manoeuvrability that those chariotmen couldn’t help but envy, now that their machines were to be used against them.
“SHEEWA!” The Rogue Commandant shouted as Oliver grew closer.
He grabbed the reins from the rider, and gave them a sudden jerk.
The wheels lurched with it, and the spinning blade came within an inch of Walter’s legs.
Oliver observed the movement with emotionless eyes.
It was within the realm of expectation.
He could feel the drippings of fear now, and with Ingolsol’s gold covering his eyes, he didn’t think there was a single thing the man could do now to surprise him.
Even as he still moved, fighting for his life, Oliver fancied that his heart had already been stolen.
With a flash of steel, Oliver’s sword found blood.
He tore open a man’s arm, almost severing it, and reaching the ribs beyond it, just by the slightest lick.
The man reacted quickly, and jumped out of the way, but even then it wasn’t nearly quickly enough.
Oliver’s sword hunted him, as eager as its wielder was.
When the man’s spear snaked up to defend himself, Oliver’s sword flew past it, and racked its claws along the man’s thigh, bringing him to his knees.
With a quick thrust after that, the deed was done.
Straight through the man’s eye, the deck of the chariot was wetted with blood, and the Rogue Commandant lost another man.
He hissed his fury.
He forced the reins back into the hands of the original driver, and he drew his half moon sword from his belt.
He seemed to realize that, if left any longer, his men would be picked off one by one.
