A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 996 - General Khan’s Head - Part 2

996: General Khan’s Head – Part 2

996: General Khan’s Head – Part 2

“One more wave, Verdant,” Oliver warned the man, as they drew back in preparation for another charge.

Though it looked as if his only intention was to stand his ground, Oliver had not forgotten that his objective was to see the enemy General’s head struck from his shoulders.

“Yes, my Lord!” Verdant responded, just as he swung a blow of his spear, sending the enemies that sought to grapple with them flying backwards, and allowing the nearby men the opportunity they needed to draw back once more.

‘The men are slowing,’ Oliver noted.

The speed of their retreat was dampening.

They began to rely on the rhythm that they’d established, as their weary bodies looked to conserve energy.

No longer were they quite as alert as before.

They were looking for the opportunity that they needed to wake up again.

“PUT A STEP INTO IT!” Verdant shouted, on behalf of Oliver.

“THE SPEED OF THIS CHARGE WILL BE WHAT WE FIGHT ON!

FIND YOUR FEET, AND LEND YOURSELF SPEED AND STRENGTH!”

The men grunted in response, barely waking.

A glimmer of alertness returned to their eyes, as they realized that the stability that they’d managed to establish was once more about to be shattered, as they aimed to thrust themselves deeper into the enemy ranks.

But even as the Patrick soldiers began to ready themselves, the Verna army too began to do the same.

The left side that had relied so heavily on numbers until then began to show signs of change.

The men that were yet to be on the front line began to shift, tossing up clouds of dust with their movement.

Orders were shouted in the strange Verna tongue, and thousands of men’s feet were set to stomping in response.

A feeling of foreboding washed over Oliver.

Of course, he’d known that the enemy would be entitled to their response.

He’d expected they would shift their strategy.

But he’d hoped that it would be strength that they would meet them with, just as they had before.

They had the superior numbers – Oliver had hoped that they’d simply try to send more at him, so that he once again could use the might of his men to overcome the obstacle.

That didn’t seem to be the case, however.

The left side was transforming, just as the right side had.

“Congratulations, Stormfront Commandant,” General Khan said.

“You have made me move my men.”

The space changed between them, and shield infantry began to appear just behind the first line of men, amongst the corpses that the Patrick army had left.

They shifted the bodies out of the way, and moved any man without a shield behind them.

Then, those heavy Verna shields were slammed into the ground, creating a wall where there had once been the soft flesh of opportunity.

The Patrick men were already beginning their charge, but in the span of a short few moments, the situation had drastically changed.

Even with the fullest of their might, destroying that shield wall would take everything they had.

That was not the worst part of it either.

The men were still shifting.

Another shield wall began to form up behind the first, tight to it.

Again, they put their heavy shields down into the ground, as immovable as the very mountains that surrounded them.

Then there came a third rank.

It was a show of respect.

Oliver could do nought but take it that way.

Even General Karstly had difficulty making it past a single line of shield-wielding men, for the likes of the four-hundred-strong Patrick army, to aim to blast through three ranks of them, that was virtual suicide.

“STEADY, VERDANT!” Oliver called.

“Hold the men in position!”

Still, the Khan army continued to transform.

Right behind that final row of shield-bearing men, there came a whole rank of spear wielders.

And after them, nothing – it was empty space once more, of the same sort that had been employed against Karstly.

It was a simple void.

A pit of nothingness designed to slow their space.

And after that emptiness, there was another block of three-rank deep shield wielders.

The pattern repeated, all the way to the base of the General’s tower.

Those were walls that were impossible to overcome.

It didn’t matter how mighty a man was, if he ran head-first through several brick walls, he would be asking for injury. freewёbnoνel.com

Oliver grit his teeth.

There were too many of them.

Khan had too many pieces at his disposal, and he was clearly far from being an incompetent strategist.

He’d felt out his enemy, and now he thought he had a handle on them.

He’d been unable to crush them as easily as he expected to, and now he applied the maximum amount of caution.

He gave them a problem that was impossible to solve.

“…Is there really no opportunity?” Oliver said, looking around.

They’d built up so much.

They’d squashed so many of their foes, and left dozens of purple-plumed heads lying in the soil.

So too had they put a Rogue Commandant in the dirt.

Was there nothing that they could glean from that?

Were they still just as trapped as they were before?

Right in front of them, the men began to shift as well.

The way to the left, and towards the General was unbreachable – and now it was the way forward, out of the passageway, that Khan softened.

He pulled back the denseness of his men, now that he was of the opinion that sheer numbers would not be sufficient to overwhelm the Patrick forces.

And there, right beside the shield wall, General Khan presented a lump of deliciously tender flesh, ripe for the eyes of any swordsman looking for prey.

It was a whole line of archers, going three ranks deep, just as the shield wielders were.

It was a gift and no man could look at it without feeling overwhelmed by temptation.

The Patrick charges had smashed the general infantry – against archers, it would be as easy as running through empty air.

The bows were being drawn back, however.

General Khan trapped them, and he gave them their offer of escape, but he did not do so without hounding them towards a choice.

Now that he’d cleared the space of his men, he could use his arrows at will.

“FIRE!” A Rogue Commandant shouted in the Verna tongue, and a flagbearer began to wave a flag of green.

The arrows were in the air before the Patrick army had even begun to move.

They went pinning straight towards their flank.

“Gods be damned…” Oliver said.

There was hardly a choice.

It was to join Karstly and the main arrowhead by retreating back to the right, or it was wheeling their army around, and charging straight towards the archers head-on.

But that could be nothing if not a trap.

General Khan was purposely leading him in that direction.

He wouldn’t be doing so if it wasn’t somehow advantageous for him.

“TURN, AND CHARGE FORWARD!” Oliver shouted.

Time was of the essence, and it was all the choice he could make.