A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1009 - The Counterattack - Part 8
1009: The Counterattack – Part 8
1009: The Counterattack – Part 8
They were strange words, especially for a common soldier.
They were too poetic for the typical man’s liking. free𝑤ebnovel.com
It ought to have been met with silence – but it wasn’t.
“””RAHHH!””” There came a thump of feet, and a raising of spears.
It wasn’t so much a cheer, as a universal grunt from the army acknowledging the statement of their leaders.
“There lies a foe!
A foe that guards the way ahead!” He said, thoroughly dramatic in his explanation.
He did not shout, but his voice carried far enough, as he stared the Verna down – what must those men have thought, to see such an animated foreigner, speaking so excitedly in his strange tongue.
“An army of immortals, it is said!
It is said – I do declare that these men are strong men.
You feel it in the air, do you not?”
“””RAHHHH!””” Another stomp of feet, another raising of spears.
Oliver looked around.
It was like the army was under a spell.
His men were raising their spears, and their axes and swords the same as the rest, an animated look and fire in their eyes.
They were bloody, and they were in the bowels of hell – it was their General that held the key to glory and the way ahead, and they seemed to accept that fact with the utmost belief.
Even Oliver felt a pulling.
It was an unbelievable charisma.
It was Command in its purest, strangest form.
It was magic.
“THEY’RE IMMORTALS!” Karstly declared, even more loudly.
“But we are mere men!
We have our weaknesses!
Our blood runs red, and our skin is so easily cut!
Yet it is we men that have made it this far.
For all our weaknesses, we have what the immortals have lost – we have the strength of our desire!
Do you desire a way forward?”
“””OORAHHH!”””
“Do you desire a path to salvation?
Do you desire glory, and gold?”
“””OORAHHH!”””
“DO YOU DESIRE VICTORY?” Karstly shouted.
“””ORAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”””
That shout and stomp came with enough force to shake the earth.
One would not have believed they were two thousand with the commotion that they caused.
“THEN TAKE IT!” Karstly said, plunging forward in the same instance.
His army came after him like an arrow, flying on the explosive tension that he’d built up.
Their desire was his desire.
They were caught up in a whirlwind of meaning more intoxicating than anything that they’d experienced in their lives.
Death was a thought long departed.
They only thought of the way ahead.
They needed that strength to carry them as they rushed forward, for they did so with the expectation that the enemy they confronted would be vicious, and they would be strong.
Karstly had told them to expect that with his words, but the way he had delivered that warning only made them stronger, rather than fearful.
It was a masterful way of speaking that Oliver could never imagine himself imitating.
“SHIELDS!” Came the shout of a Verna Rogue Commandant, as he organized his men.
It was a circular formation that they’d set up around the full perimeter of General Khan’s tower, and he just so happened to be the part that was aligned directly with the Stormfront attackers.
The men slammed their shields into their shoulders.
These were smaller shields, coupled with spears on the other hand.
It was more like a Syndran formation than a Verna one – only these Verna shields were square, whereas the Syndrans preferred smaller and rounder shields.
The Rogue Commandant prepared himself, and he bellowed his orders to the men.
Oliver too eyed the Commandant himself.
He labelled him as a target, and took note of his features, fully expecting that he would cross swords with him.
He could see grey hairs in the man’s long flowing black beard, labelling him as an aged man, but his thick build betrayed none of that weakness that ought to have come with age.
Oliver expected that his men – and the other Stormfront men charging with them – were likely doing much the same as he.
Eyeing the men in front of them, picking out enemies that they’d soon take down, guessing at their weaknesses using more instinct than thought.
Of course, that was exactly when Karstly’s unpredictability threw them for a loop.
He didn’t charge into the Verna encirclement straight ahead – that would have been far too simple for a man like Karstly.
Right before the moment of impact, he began to wheel his men off towards the right of the circle, before plunging in himself, and tossing men high into the air.
The angle of insertion seemed contradictory to Oliver.
It seemed like a charge more designed to circle out of the formation again, rather than pierce towards the centre – indeed, Karstly was already wheeling around, barely having made it a couple of ranks deeper, and soon Oliver was forced to follow him.
He thudded in next.
There were still men waiting ahead of him.
He had to lean over the side of his saddle to catch a thrust with the hilt of his sword, whilst delivering a thrust of his own at the same time, catching the man in the side of the neck.
Already, these soldiers showed their differences.
Even after Karstly had opened a crack, the formation didn’t disintegrate entirely.
Men stood alone, outside of formation, unfallen, their shields pressed to their shoulders, still mounting resistance – they were strong, without a doubt.
Even in that slaying of a single man, Oliver had felt that he’d had to walk a tightrope far thinner than what he’d had to cross with the men on the way there.
The slightest misstep would have brought him a crushing injury.
“Patrick!” Karstly shouted without turning around.
“Remember your mission!”
So he said, but the way that he’d cleared seemed to be entirely against what he’d proposed earlier.
He wasn’t nearly close enough to the tower to be going for the General’s head.
He very much looked like he was angling himself simply to retreat.
And now a Rogue Commandant was heading Karstly’s way, a long spear held in his hand, as he galloped towards the General, with the firmest intentions of taking his life.
