A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2094: The King’s First Foray - Part 5

The thrill that came with riding the wave of the unexpected. To doubt what their very eyes told them they were seeing. What was a unit of two thousand cavalry doing? Without banners? It was hard to believe that they could be in any danger. All knew by now that King Patrick was in checkmate. He didn’t have the resources to stage anything like a counterattack. The garrison certainly had not received orders to be on high-alert.

They lost precious few moments, trying to decide exactly what it was they were looking at. "Captain!" A lookout shouted, as a commanding officer finally came to the wall. "Two thousand cavalry approach!"

The old man squinted in the direction that he was pointing. A mismatched group of surcoats. He didn’t feel the sense of danger that he ought to have. A few more moments passed, in him making his decision. It was the brief glitter of sunlight that saved him, when it filtered through the cloudy sky, and shone off the crown on King Patrick’s head. Then he recognised what he was looking at, and then did he know to raise the alarm.

"CLOSE THE GATES!" He barked. "CLOSE THE GATES! KING PATRICK LEADS AN ARMY OF TWO THOUSAND!"

Horns were blown. Oliver and his men could well hear them. A frantic scramble towards defence. They were near enough now that they were well within arrow range, had the archers been prepared to deal with them.

The gates, finally, began to groan to a close. Edward’s heart fluttered. ’Just short,’ he realized. A half a minute longer, and they would have been able to make it.

"Gar," came King Patrick’s command. "Lady Blackthorn."

He called to his two closest, most reliable soldiers, and then to the horse that he rode, when he pressed his heels harder to its side. A true gallop now, like a roar of thunder. That a beast Nelson’s size could move at the swiftness he did seemed an impossibility. With quick bounds, the three of them pulled sharply away from the rest of their army.

"Shit," the Captain gulped, watching the gates close down below him, and realizing, all of a sudden, that they had lost.

A spearline of ten men formed up, protecting the last little gap, as the gates strained to close. Gar dove ahead of Oliver and Blackthorn, recklessly drawing all their spear points. The two horses came shattering after him, bearing through the gap that was just big enough for the three of them, and crashing into the line of men without resistance.

Nelson shouldered the men in front of him aside, knocking them to the floor, and Oliver’s sword finished the job off with swift slashes. He and Blackthorn wordlessly shifted their targets after they broke through, ignoring the men pouring down the stairs, and through the main road from the centre of the city, and aiming instead for those men that were still trying to drive their horses to see the gates closed.

Swift slashes once more, ending men as they reached for their swords, and cutting through the harnesses that allowed the horses to pull their gates open.

The Captain was forced to watch helplessly from atop the wall, as the rest of the Patrick army, with Edward in their front line, came bursting through.

’Gods have mercy upon us,’ he said quietly to himself, before hardening his heart, and using the last of his courage to assume command.

"ARCHERS!" He shouted, but Gar was already dashing up the stairs atop the wall. Other men of the Winged Unit were dismounting with a swiftness to join them. Oliver Patrick stood coolly, watching them, before offering direction with his sword.

"YOU HUNDRED! THE WALL!" He said. "BLACKTHORN! TAKE THREE HUNDRED AND SECURE THE REST OF THE CITY!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!" She shouted back, drawing a selection of three hundred men from those that had entered the city with her sword. They went galloping after her, deeper into city, threading through houses.

Edward found himself embroiled with the spearmen at the gate. A garrison of a few hundred had managed to arrive, but it was far too late. The gates were wide open, and the entirety of the Patrick army was pouring through, with King Patrick himself in the very heart of combat.

The shouts of the Captain in charge of the walls had stopped, and the arrow fire that he had ordered never came. Edward could only assume that Gar and the hundred men with him had done something about that.

Spearmen, one after the other, tried to see Edward thrown from his horse. They targeted the beast’s side, or his legs, whatever it might take to see him dismounted. Sweat rose to his forehead, as he parried attacks in all directions. His heart beat with an erraticness, but there was a strange excitement there too. A feeling of invincibility, or at least overwhelming might, as if he was walking a tightrope that had just been given to him, and as long as he continued to walk it, the world would be full of more magic than he had ever seen.

The other mounted men with him dispersed in all directions, breaking the formation of the garrison before they could even properly establish it. It seemed to be King Patrick that was taking care of that. Anytime that was even the slightest semblance of order or unity, his sword would be there to crush it.

He caught Edward’s eye as he fought, seeing the danger he was in. He evaluated it for a second, and then looked away, galloping in another direction, to bring death to another group of men.

Edward gritted his teeth. He took that to be an unspoken mark of respect – a sign that he was fine, despite barely hanging on. He was unused to fighting on horseback. His battles were always done on foot. He found he could rely on his mount far more than he had expected. The beast’s instincts made it twitch, and shuffle in the exact direction where Edward’s sword needed to be. But he couldn’t go on being defensive, expecting to make it through without harm.

A spearpoint finally made it through, nicking Edward’s horse on the shoulder, shallowly, but enough to cause the animal to rear. As it reared, Edward’s longsword slashed, its sharp edge finally opening up the man’s neck. Just a brief opening, a brief bit of indecision, and the encirclement of spearmen began to fall apart.