A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 804: Cracks in the Defense - Part 4

They continued on. Now they needed no words, for they were a whirlwind of activity. That group of three posed so much carnage as to leave even their allies awestruck. The pressure that had been on Skullic's men was eradicated in an instant. The tide was reversed, and the horses were forced back, fear beginning to build up in the air, a fear that Ingolsol delighted in.

Man after man, Oliver brought down, dragging another from his saddle, as he threw up his hands to defend himself. Oliver showed him no mercy. His sword ran through his eye, leaving him to redden the snow, as he moved on to the next man.

With so many bodies, the forest began to feel claustrophobic, but still, there were more men that needed to join the fight. Ever diligent, Jorah could not stand by and simply watch his Lord do all the work for him. He recalled the task he'd been given – attack from the right – and he led Karesh and Kaya to do just that.

He sent Karesh charging in first, intent on causing a stir, knowing that Oliver had sent him to cause as much pandemonium as possible, to make his own job easier. Karesh, unlike Verdant, simply struck at what was easiest for him. The confined horsemen made easy targets, now that their speed was gone. Amongst these trees, their mobility was restricted, and they were all but pinned in place.

Karesh's greatsword carved deep into the side of one of the horses, shattering through several ribs and scraping at organs, before severing through the rider's leg at the end of the strike.

The man screamed, as did the horse. The noise wound its way into Kaya's ear, as though to attack his heart. Jorah had expected this to come – Oliver had warned him it would, before they even departed from battle. That was another task bestowed upon him, to look after his friends, and allow them to overcome the shock of killing, even whilst dealing with that shock for himself.

"Karesh! Forward! Keep swinging! They're just lumps of meat!" Jorah said. It was a simple enough thing to say. It wasn't poetic, or philosophical.

It wasn't an answer to the problem at hand. But, it was an answer that Karesh understood – and one that Jorah knew he would understand. Karesh nodded, fighting the shock, defeating it with movement. He took another step forward, and took another swing, fighting a man down.

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"Kaya!" Jorah shouted, turning to his other friend. He'd gone white from the chaos, seeing so much blood. Jorah himself was fighting that same urge, though his sympathy for his friend outweighed that instinct. Mounted opponents made poor opposition for someone with as close-range an attack as Kaya. He needed to get into touching distance before he could deal any damage to an enemy.

But, luckily, Oliver had created those conditions. He herded the horsemen as though they were sheep, not allowing them to make use of their speed. "Dive in where it's tightest! Take down those that Karesh drives to the middle!"

Kaya gulped, but he nodded. Many dismissed Kaya as being weak of heart, but Jorah knew differently. He didn't stand out, in much that he did, but Jorah thought that there was something special about his friend. Something that sat behind his eye, at times, when he was serious enough to allow it to bubble to the surface. Just recently, Oliver Patrick had managed to access some of that.

Jorah hoped that he could try to do the same.

Trusting his friends, Jorah brought up the final point of their triangle, keeping an eye on both of them, and whetting his spear on the nearest man. His hands shook as he saw the pain twist the enemy's face – a Stormfront man, just like himself – but he cast the feeling off. His strength was in the need to be strong.

He couldn't afford to waste time on shock, when it was his duty to lead his friends, and ensure their safety.

He saw Kaya reach for a mounted man's leg, stabbing it through with his blade gauntlets. Then, with those stupidly strong hands that he had, he dragged the giant man down from the floor, and fell on top of him, punching him with blade blow after bladed blow, coating his face in blood. Five strikes he landed – the enemy had died on the first hit, but he didn't seem to have realized.

It was an awfully brutal way to kill your first man, and the trembling of Kaya's lips made it evident that he thought the same.

Jorah locked eyes with him across the battlefield. The two shared a nod. Kaya was too clever for Jorah to say the same thing to him as he'd said to Karesh. They'd all known they'd experience battleshock. With Jorah there, Kaya found the strength to cast it off, and go searching for the next man.

Once more Kaya inflicted a brutal kill, ducking a sword sent for his neck, and jabbing his blade through the man's leg, once more dragging him from his saddle and finishing him on the ground. The lengths that Kaya had to go to in order to finish those men were far greater than those around him, but that didn't allow him to slack.

Suddenly, there were more men rushing past Jorah. He looked around in alarm, thinking that he'd been flanked, for the state of those men looked nothing like allies. They all seemed vaguely haunting in their appearance. Shaved heads and vacant eyes, with awful equipment. But what they wore was unmistakably the red surcoats of the Patrick House.

He breathed a sigh of relief, surprised to see that the front line had gone further forward, with Skullic's men pushing with their spears. Seeing the momentum so in their favour, the slaves must have finally gotten the courage they needed to go to work.

They dove in destructively. They were physical specimens, each and every one of them, but they were undisciplined and untrained. They caused chaos as they rushed through the ranks, both for allies, and for enemies.