A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2070: A Castle to Keep - Part 1

In the distance, he could see that Fitzer had formed up his men, and was beginning to bring his archers to the front, so that he might pepper General Blackthorn’s soldiers. General Blackthorn himself looked ready to begin a charge of his own. A drop in the hill separated the two parties, making the closing of that gap between them all the more treacherous. Each side seemed most willing to play cautiously.

"Fitzer... you ought to win that battle – in the name of your King, I do command it," King Emerson muttered under his breath. It was General Blackthorn of all people, a most formidable enemy, but now the King had dire need of his most trusted General. He couldn’t afford to have him waste time on any enemy that was not the one inside his walls.

Chapter 17 – A Castle to Keep

Feet thudding against the floor, pounding their rhythm. The stride measured, and perfect, swiftness assured. No true thought in his head. A sort of whiteness in the place of it. The wound to his chest that he had received days before aching, ever so slightly, with every twist of his hips. A good ache – an ache that reminded him he was alive. An ache that built up the first pangs of bravery. It gave the body a firm example to believe in. There was pain – and now watch, it said, as Oliver Patrick overcame it, as he always did.

Steady, the loudness of it, those opening seconds of battle, sinking in through his ears, and then drowned out within the mud of his head. The shouts of the men next to him, and then the commands of the men inside King Emerson’s castle walls that were desperately trying to form up a spear line, just behind the opening in the gate.

A few seconds longer they were afforded, and that spear line marched far enough forward that their spears were plugging the gap. Extending through it, some ten of them altogether – a spear wall more compact than the ordinary sort of spear wall that Oliver was used to facing.

A natural increase in his speed. A slight bit more strength in the following step. The sword drifted off to the side. An impulse that defied the building fear that was rising up in his heart – it always came at the start of battle, but he had learned to ignore it. Now, it threatened to infect everything, to slow him down, to make his legs and arms feel leaden. As with the pain in his chest, however, Oliver Patrick, with the smallest of breaths, found a degree of comfort in it, and worked past it.

Gar attempted to keep up with him, but even he was left a few strides behind. Ten strides ahead of the charging bulk of his Patrick and Treeant army, Oliver reached the gate.

The terrible spikes of ten interlocked spears, blocking an attack from all directions – it was straight into such a thing that Oliver dove in, silver crown perched on his head. He leapt, diving, the crown not shifting. He ducked beneath the points of those spears, level as they were with a man’s chest, and before they could come crashing down on him, pinning him to the ground like the fool he was, his sword snaked out, and slashed its way across three sets of legs.

Great cries came along with the drooping of spears. It wasn’t the deepest cuts that Oliver had managed, striking so many targets at once, but they were more than enough to upset the foundation that kept the men upright. Chipped bone, and wounded muscle.

Gar was there, just in time, to make use of that gap before those wounded men could be replaced by the bulk behind them. As reckless as Oliver – he went dashing past the skidding King, as Oliver came to a halt, and quickly scrambled back to his feet just before the rest of the spear points could find him. Gar dove straight in, without a thought, without an aim, he simply trusted his instincts, and the fighting style that he had built up over so many years alone.

Into that lone gap, Gar was there, sword already swinging before his feet had even met the ground against. The spear points in that spear wall were forced to turn to deal with the new threat, even as those soldiers from behind came stomping in, crushing down over the men Oliver had injured and left splayed on the ground. It was out of necessity that they crushed them.

Still, against Gar, a disorganised group like that, in such a now tightly confined space that the usage of a spear was beginning to grow limited, they had more than a hard time snuffing the spark of the newly growing fire out.

Gar drove his sword through the stomach of a spearman as he dodged his thrust. He grabbed the man by the shoulder, sword still in his belly, and turned him off to the side, to receive three swift thrusts from his allies. A dull groan, and the light faded from the man’s eyes.

The first rhythm of the attack, that was what Gar had managed to overcome, more than he had overcome simply the men in front of him. Only a single soldier had he managed to fell in that heartbeat, but the disorganisation he’d inflicted was worth far more.

Oliver was on his feet by then, diving back in, feeling the rhythm that Gar had built up, adding to a song of his own. As the spear points that had looked for Gar before retreated, Oliver dove in after them, and slew two unprepared men with two quick slashes of his sword. The most simple of his techniques both those slashes were. That simple diagonal cut, from shoulder to hip, that he’d practised a thousand times. Yet it was the most useful note he had available to him then, the most versatile instrument in his orchestra.

Two more men removed, and there was space for Oliver and Gar to fight back to back. No longer was defence such a delicate thing. They could trust the man behind them to care for matters that their eyes could not track.

Still, spear points came for them from all angles – the opening was a difficult thing to find. The best they could do, for a small time, was simply to defend the position that they were in. To squat above those five bodies that they’d claimed for themselves, like a duo of goblins, unwilling to let any other indulge in their feast.