A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1137 The Next Patrol - Part 8

1137: The Next Patrol – Part 8

1137: The Next Patrol – Part 8

In the centre, Khan had been left with sixty thousand of his own to do what he willed with, which was why he hadn’t hesitated to send ten thousand to the rear, knowing that such numbers were still a mere drop in the bucket for him.

The weaknesses seemed to lay to the left and the right, given their lacking numbers, and so even though General Blackwell had nodded his approval, seeing Karstly arrive as he had to dull the tide of General Khan’s attack alone, he had hoped that he would begin on the flanks, for the other castles were not in quite so bad a position as his own.

“Though I suppose that is why he came running…” General Blackwell murmured to himself.

He had to acknowledge that his castle looked terrible from the outside.

It looked as if it would hardly make it until the end of the day.

Still, he would have hoped that Karstly would have had the courage to leave him alone regardless – he’d pegged Karstly as that sort of man.

“But it seems that I was mistaken… Nevertheless, he is doing enough, for now.”

Karstly kept his men riding and moving, with a wide smile on his face.

One would never have thought that he was so close to men that were dying to see his blood spilt.

He moved his forces as if it were a mere training exercise, and as if he was deaf to all the noises of war that were going on around him.

“ORDDDERRRR!” He shouted all of a sudden, as he swung his men back around, and started going along the line of soldiers once more.

He laughed at the reaction of the Verna men.

They’d all stiffened at once, the terror evident on their faces.

Even his own men had stiffened, expecting it to be a shout replete with instructions.

“ORDDDERRR!

ORDDDERRR!

ORDDERRRR I SAY!

LOOK AT THESE FOOLS!

THEY CAN’T UNDERSTAND A WORD!”

He pointed his hand with a furious expression straight at those men, making them stiffen, as though he really were going to deliver an order.

And then his face broke out into a bright smile, and he gave a laugh.

His retainers laughed along with him, as if they knew that was what was expected of them.

The rest of them even began to laugh at that, some of them forcing it, thinking it to be expected of them, just as Karstly’s retainers had, but other men laughed much more honestly.

Firyr and the Patrick soldiers were amongst them.

“Haha!

Fuckin’ idiots.

Look at them jumping up at the slightest sound.

We’re just going out for an afternoon jog, you fuckin’ dumb bastards.

Don’t mind us, we’re just bloomin’ passing through!” Firyr said.

With him, his men laughed, throwing the same taunts.

Listening to them, Karstly found himself nodding his approval, fighting to hold a more honest smile back.

“I suppose we can count on the Patrick men when it comes to being interesting,” he said to himself, before launching in to his next round of taunts.

“PRETEND TO CHARGE!

PRETEND TO CHARGE I SAY!” Karstly bellowed “HA!

LOOK HOW THEY QUIVER!”

His men did what he asked of them, following through on the strange order as best they could.

They took a few threatening steps, and moved their shoulders as if to feign something more honest, and they provoked a mighty reaction from the men in front of them.

The heavy shields of the Verna men protecting the siege weapons came clanking together, and they pointed their spear points out, fully expecting that charge to come.

Again, though, Karstly merely began to laugh.

He wandered further down the line, nearing the end of the rows of siege weapons, doing much the same thing, threatening them, and then walking away.

It was not a manner of strategy that any of his men could possibly have been trained in.

And so it was the men with less training that seemed to adapt better to it.

The Blackthorn men were stiff in their approach, they found themselves having to think too much for their liking, and they ended up beign rather unconvincing.

However, the Patrick men, without any true formal training, took to the orders as if it were a game.

One would have thought that they were impervious to fear.

Yorick’s soldiers tried their best to copy them, almost enviously, but they found themselves struggling to enjoy the game quite as much as the rest were.

General Khan was forced to pay them the barest amount of attention from up in his tower.

Karstly seemed to be demanding a response, but Khan knew that was exactly what the Stormfront General would have wished for.

As soon as Khan sent out men of his own to chase them away, Karstly would run, and he’d isolate them.

He might even turn to deal with them by himself – he was a strong enough man to do that, even outnumbered, given that he was of the Fourth Boundary.

The Verna General knew that his best chances lay in continuing his attack against the central castle.

That was his main objective, to see its doors caved in and General Blackwell dragged out.

Everything else was a mere distraction when compared to that.

So Karstly continued his jeering, and his taunting until the Verna men stopped reacting.

Then, he stopped smiling.

He seemed to be tiring of the game.

Seeing the smiles lessen, and the laughter lessen with it, the Verna men were allowed a victory of their own – they were at least able to dismantle the game that the Stormfront intruders had come up with for themselves.

“Patrick,” Karstly said.

When the true order came, it came quietly enough, as the most casual line of conversation.

“Let us see just how well healed that hand is of yours.

This final siege unit – take your men, and deal with it.

We don’t have Lombard to see you out of danger this time, so you had better well cover your own escapes.”

He said that last part with some degree of amusement, but those words were already washing over Oliver’s head.

He heard the order to attack, and already, his fighting spirit was stirring. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

He pinpointed the target that Karstly had mentioned instantly, and he saw that his window of opportunity was as narrow as could be offered.

He had all of ten seconds before they passed it.