A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 998 - General Khan’s Head - Part 4
998: General Khan’s Head – Part 4
998: General Khan’s Head – Part 4
“DISMOUNT!
USE THE DEAD AS SHIELDS!” Oliver shouted.
He alone kept on his horse.
He wasn’t willing to part with Walter that quickly – but he was at least confident that he could evade the storm of arrows.
For the rest of the cavalry, though, they were even better targets than the foot soldiers.
Finally, the men seemed to realize the cloud of arrows that was coming their way, and they grasped for whatever they could.
Only a handful of men chose to stay atop their horses, and nearly half of them were Oliver’s Commanders.
The arrows thudded into the ground, pattering like rain.
By the time the pattering had stopped, nearly half their horses had been slain or wounded, and already the Verna was aiming to reload.
The only silver lining in the exchange was the lack of losses to the infantry.
More specifically, to the old Patrick infantry.
They’d been mighty quick to grab a man close to them, and use him as a shield for the arrows coming in.
It was a tactic that they’d employed often before.
With a glance, Oliver couldn’t see a single of his old men yet struck, but he didn’t doubt that there were a few.
For the likes of the Blackthorns and Yorick’s men, it was a different story.
There were more than a handful there that had been caught, but the number was lower than it ought to have been.
A glance over Oliver’s shoulder confirmed that the shield wall to their rear was steadily getting closer.
They were trying to make the box smaller.
Once more, the only way out was up ahead, but Oliver had the feeling that this time, those archers wouldn’t be so easy to take.
The slight bit of movement from behind the first few ranks of archers confirmed that – he fully expected shields to be in the hands of those repositioned men.
“Cavalry, pull your horses towards the rear,” Oliver said.
He didn’t have to shout.
The battlefield had gone strangely quiet.
There was a lack of killing.
The bowmen had been finished off in their entirety.
It was only the quiet groans of injured men that interrupted their silence.
Calm, despite the situation, that was what Oliver had to display, even if his heart was thumping fast enough that it seemed ready to explode.
What was left of the mounted men under Yorick slowly plodded to the rear.
“The rest of you, find yourself a shield.
We will endure, until our timing presents itself,” Oliver said, pointing to the corpses that they had already been using.
Once more, the Patrick men had no trouble in grabbing the bloodied bodies, and hefting them up in front of them as meat shields.
The Blackthorn men did the same, but they did so wearing wrinkles of disgust, the same sort of disgust mirror in the face of the Yorick men.
“Oliver…” Lasha said.
Even she seemed to realize the strategic disadvantage that they had fallen into – to put it mildly.
That wasn’t to say that Lasha was a terribly inept woman when it came to strategy, it was more to say that she was a creature that preferred to operate on instinct.
“I can’t even see the main army anymore.
The wagons… What of Pauline and Amelia?”
“They will endure, just as we have to,” Oliver told her.
“They chose to come with you.
They knew what that meant, just as we knew it.
Face forward, Lasha.
It is us that we ought to be worried about.
We’ve fallen trapped on all sides.”
“Trapped…” Lasha murmured.
“Aye, I would agree that they’re trapped,” General Karstly said casually, turning his head to look back towards the far end of the Verna formation, where the Patrick forces were now surrounded on all sides.
“They were swimming in waters far too deep to touch the bottom.
It was only their strength keeping them afloat.
Now that the Verna have seen fit to take them seriously, even that same strength is not enough.”
“Abandoning them?” Samuel asked.
It was hardly a question of morality.
It was more a demonstration of his curiosity for their future plan.
Even though the Karstly main force had managed to drag themselves so much further ahead, it wasn’t as if they were in a good situation either.
Now that a sort of stability had been reached on the left side of the Verna formation, General Khan’s changes continued.
He was shifting his men once more, and Karstly had a feeling he knew what Khan would be sending his way.
There would be more archers than he could count, fired towards his side.
“Where’s the spark, Samuel?” Karstly said.
“We’re dying here.”
“Do not say such a thing wearing such a smile, my Lord,” his advisor Samuel said, noting the poor taste with which Karstly’s smile could easily be taken.
“Anyone would think that you delight in the position that we’ve ended up.”
“Nonsense,” General Karstly said, feigning offence.
“Why on earth would I ever delight in such a thing?
I am a man of victory.
A loyal servant.
I intend to serve Lord Blackwell’s interests, just as I swore to in front of Queen Asabel.
Why would I forsake those good intentions for the sake of my own enjoyment?”
“Why indeed…” Samuel said.
The fact remained that Karstly was far too calm for a man in his position.
It ought to have been a quick charge, but their battle had been drawn out for over an hour.
It was as though they’d entered a city, run by General Khan, and they were busy trying to navigate the roads so that they might find their way out.
Only, in this city, the roads changed by the will of its ruler, and so too did the exit.
It wasn’t nearly so simple.
Line after line of shield wielders their army had taken down.
They’d done so at a sprint.
Karstly lost count of the numbers by now.
Each obstacle was only just barely surmountable.
If it had been two ranks, or three ranks of shield wields, overcoming them would have been far more troublesome.
It would have even been likely to halt them.
But General Khan seemed to be eyeing a careful victory, and now his conditions had already been created.
