A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1003 - The Counterattack - Part 2

1003: The Counterattack – Part 2

1003: The Counterattack – Part 2

“Break through!” General Karstly had demanded of them.

“For the likes of the famed Blackthorn troops, this ought be nothing!”

The General had ceded the frontlines to them, and he’d drawn back himself, with the last thousand of their five thousand-strong army, leaving the Blackthorn troops to pave their way forward.

The second that Lord Blackthorn’s name had been invoked, the troops had transformed, as had their Colonels.

The battlefield was transformed into something that was exclusively theirs.

There were no chains binding them anymore, nor even was there a General – not when Karstly had positioned himself so far towards the rear.

Colonel Gordry sat in the centre of their army’s formation, as their impromptu General.

The other two Colonels had ceded the position to him wordlessly.

He was their elder, and they respected him enough to allow him the honour that they gave.

It was a flat line of shield wielders that greeted them, and it was mainly infantry that they pressed forward with.

It was that same simple strategy that had been employed to slow them, and now it was the Blackthorns that had been assigned to deal with that very problem.

The infantry flattened the shield wielders with ease.

They only needed to slow for the barest step as they dealt with them.

The tight formations and the physical might of the Blackthorn men made fitting solutions to the problem of a heavy shield wall.

Gordry was quite sure they were making good progress.

At least, he felt they were.

The men’s morale was high.

They were determined to show their abilities.

Like all Blackthorn troops, they were proud.

They knew that theirs was an army with harsh training and harsh discipline.

They knew that to survive as even infantrymen amongst that number, one had to be a particular calibre of soldier, and pride ensued with that fact.

They trampled the single line of shield wielders, the third of them since they had started, and they continued onwards.

It looked like good progress, and it felt like good progress – so why did it seem so much like they weren’t really getting anywhere at all?

As soon as Colonel Gordry took his eyes from his troops and the immediate fighting, and he looked further forward, it seemed as if the distance they had to cover was even further away.

General Khan continued to stretch and stretch his units, and all the while the leftmost side of his formation was a whirl of noise, with their formations changing continually.

It was hard to tell quite how the formations were changing with the dust clouds that were beginning to rise up, but Colonel Gordry had an ominous feeling.

He’d felt a hot flush when he’d seen the young Patrick Captain dive in ahead of their Generals’ orders, and he’d felt an even hotter flush when Captain Lombard was ordered to rescue him.

He’d been stewing on their lack of progress, wondering at General Karstly’s competence – wondering at the competence of their entire army.

And now that he was thrust into such a position himself – a position that he’d readily accepted, determined to prove just how superior the Blackthorn men were – he found that he was stumped.

He hardly knew what was happening.

It was as if there was some invisible current binding them in place.

No matter how much they marched forward, or how many enemies they fell, the reward seemed empty.

They were simply being drained of energy continuously, and being made to tire.

He looked over his shoulder with gritted teeth, fighting off a feeling of helplessness.

He thought a glance at General Karstly’s face might have given him a clue as to what he needed to do, but instead, he found himself looking beyond the man, towards where men were approaching from the rear.

Those were the Patrick men, Gordry realized, and the Lombard men that had saved them.

They looked haggard enough, and bloody, though he had to admit, a surprising number of them remained.

Soon enough, they were pulling up behind General Karstly, and the man himself was turning around in his saddle to speak to them, a calm smile plastered on his face.

“Just what in the world are they…?” Gordry didn’t finish his sentence.

Sweat coated his forehead, and shouts from the front drew his attention again.

“Damn it all.

I’ll force this open.

I’ll push harder.

Just you watch, you Verna bastards.

There’s no wall that the Blackthorn forces cannot climb.”

He put his foot on his horse, determined to lead the charge himself this time.

He decided that he couldn’t allow his men to slow at a single one of the obstacles.

He would make the roadblocks ineffective.

‘Let the General be left to his conversations.

I’ll leave a mark worthy of the Blackthorns on this battlefield!’

“I think I might be wearing on Colonel Gordry’s patience,” General Karstly noted, seeing the particularly frustrated way that the Colonel had ridden away.

“I think that to be more than likely,” his attendant Samuel replied dryly, barely refraining from mentioning the fact that the General was likely to leave another two of his Captains irritated, if he continued to ignore their presence behind him.

“Have you rested, Captain Lombard?” General Karstly asked.

“We have not been tested enough to need rest, General,” Lombard replied.

“You have managed us well.

We still have the energy to be of use to you, should you need it.”

“That is a good answer,” Karstly replied amiably.

“And what of the young wolf next to you?

Has he had his fill of flesh?”

“…Apologies, General.

I was unable to strike at the foe’s head,” Oliver replied.

He couldn’t help hanging his head a little shamefully.

He’d acted to see the lives of his men saved, but he still couldn’t help lamenting that he’d managed to get snared in such a trap in the first place.

“It was unavoidable,” Karstly said, seeming a little caught off guard by the apology.

“He’d had that box set up long in advance.

A mere three hundred men wasn’t going to be able to break through alone.

The fact that he was forced to use it was good enough for our intentions.”

He spoke as freely as if they were at a tea party.

He seemed not to hear the screams of dying men up ahead, nor feel the pressure of the shield-bearing soldiers glaring them down endlessly from to their right.