A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

986: The Battle Strategies of the Verna – Part 3 986: The Battle Strategies of the Verna – Part 3 “It seems we’ve our answer of whether red is higher than purple then my Lord,” Verdant said.

“They wouldn’t be sending the lesser men to deal with you now.” There was that, and there was also the fact that a handful of purple helms were riding along behind the man at the front.

“You lot know the drill,” Oliver said.

His Commanders were close enough that he could speak levelly to them.

“They’re too many men for us to chunk through all at once.

The biggest blow we can deal them is to rid them of their Commanders.

I expect to see you claim a red helm each.” “Consider it done, Captain!” Firyr shouted back, as he kicked a man flat in the chest, and then ran after him with his spear.

He was ever confident.

“We will attempt it,” Jorah intoned.

Jorah and Karesh inevitably ended up getting dragged into Jorah’s responsibility there.

The two worked as a three, even if it was Jorah with all his talents that currently held command.

“No problem,” Blackthorn said, her tone as flat as ever.

Her pretty hair was already a mess with matted blood, but she could have not looked happier – though that too was hard to tell.

“Don’t slow, then,” Oliver said.

“FORWARD!

BY THE STRENGTH OF ALL THE VICTORIES WE HAVE UNTIL NOW!

GROUND THIS FOE TO DUST!” He levelled his sword point right at the approaching enemy in front of him, and he allowed a snarl to rise to his lips.

He could sense power from the man, but he knew not how powerful he would be.

“That bastard,” Inka growled, seeing the youth point his sword at him.

“OUT OF THE WAY,” he said, swatting at the ranks of men still in front of him with his leg.

His men were just as aggressive as they forced their way past.

They’d thought their chance for glory would come later on, when they arrived to siege the captured castles, but here he’d found himself a worthy foe, and General Khan Narook had allowed him the pleasure of savouring it.

He was young, Inka was.

At the very least, he was young for a Rogue Commandant.

At twenty-five, his youth still very much wormed its way into his decisions and his emotions, as it did now, as he felt the beating of bloodthirsty excitement.

There could be no better arena for a man like him.

“Whose their leader?” One of his officers dared to ask.

It was a foolish enough question that it made Inka round on him.

“Are you a fool?

Who would it be, if not for that youngling that rides in the front?” Inka said.

“B-but, it’s hard to tell,” the man said defensively.

“They don’t wear colours on their helms.

How am I to know?” “Tsch,” Inka tutted.

His fingers were twitching.

“If another foolish word comes falling out of your mouth, I’m going to have to cut your head clean off.” His anger stirred to a sudden furry, and he set upon the men in front of him again.

“OUT OF THE WAY!

OUT THE WAY!

YOU’RE SLOWING THE ORDERS OF THE GENERAL!” With aggressive boots to the men in front of him, he moved their steel plates and shields away from him.

With each rank closer that they made their way to their enemy, their flags were hefted higher.

They did not bear sigils like the Stormfront did, but they bore runes instead.

Runes that they might have been given, or runes that they might have earned.

The only thing of primary importance was that those runes accurately represented the man that bore them.

Inka’s rune might have seemed like a poorly drawn tooth to the likes of the Stormfront, but to the Verna it was a rune of great profundity.

They would see it, and see Inka, and nod, believing the General to have named him accurately.

He bore the rune of youthful wrath.

“FORWARD!

FORWARD!” Oliver said.

He was making an effort to stir his men into greater speed.

It seemed a foolish thing to wish for more speed when they were already so deep into the enemy ranks, but with a whip of his Command, the moving of his words, he urged them nonetheless.

They needed as much momentum as they could possibly gather before they met with the likes of the enemy in front of them.

The Verna General had sent them for a reason, after all – he believed that they could comfortably quell whatever Oliver had built up on the left side.

They could not be taken lightly in that.

With General Khan’s formation slowing the Stormfront advance into something that was a near standstill, the two sides rightly determined that it would be the left side where the trouble was likely to lie, if there was any at all.

Oliver was pleased with the state of his men.

He kept an eye out open to all of them, as a Captain should.

They’d had a degree of nervousness before the combat, but now they’d settled into it.

Even surrounded by men on all sides, they did not panic.

They carried with them the full weight of all the victories they won.

Every time they swung a sword or an axe or a spear, another man fell, just as easily as they normally did.

Their strength was the same here as it always was.

They took more than comfort from that.

That power bordered on ecstasy.

A sudden arrow was fired his way.

It came hurtled towards him from the side.

If not for Ingolsol’s senses, Oliver would never have dodged it, but by that point, he’d dealt with far too many Bell Birds to be caught unawares when his attention was cast all around him.

He deflected the arrow off the side with his blade, and he picked the archer out from amongst the infantry.

The man was moving already, galloping back to the army that he’d come from – that section of a thousand, belonging to Inka.