A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1172 The Ability to Overwhelm - Part 5

1172: The Ability to Overwhelm – Part 5

1172: The Ability to Overwhelm – Part 5

One by one, those ladders landed.

More men rose to the top, unwilling to back down.

They were punctured by Stormfront spears, almost bullied, but for all the damage that they did, it was the Stormfront men that went back.

Oliver watched, enraptured, trying to understand the strangeness of flow that had led to the position that they were in.

He desperately searched for some sort of principle that he could employ in his own battlings, so that he might stand on the same stage as these mighty men, but he saw only chaos.

He didn’t understand a lick of it.

He didn’t understand why those men still stood, despite his own experience with Command.

Nor did he understand why the Stormfront men didn’t rally, or why General Rainwater didn’t counter with an order of his own.

That General remained passive, watching, a hand on his beard.

It was as if he was as much of an observer as Oliver was.

He didn’t seem likely to do anything.

Black blood, blindly swung swords, and the merciless intention to go forward, all to a chorus of Stormfront demands, asking for the same, as the Sergeants tried to find the courage that they needed to face the infallible foe.

It was a tide that didn’t seem likely to stop.

Commanders spoke up.

Their words fell on deaf ears.

Swords neared them.

Leaders seemed just as likely to fall as average troops.

Captains joined in.

One man shouted louder than the rest.

“FORRRRWARDD!” He bellowed, loud enough that one would have thought that he meant it.

He took steps to make his words seem more a reality.

Heavy, purposeful steps, that echoed out on the stone beneath him.

There was fire in his eyes, and a degree of fury.

He threw aside the spear that kept the enemy at length, and he went for his sword.

He engaged those zombies in close quarters, ahead of his own men, putting himself into danger without there seeming to be any sort of reward for it.

He must have been a Second Boundary man, Oliver assumed, but with so many foes gathering atop the wall, and with them having such a strange quality to them, even he was likely to fall.

No, far more than likely – with the rate that they were spreading, and how deep the man waded in, it seemed almost certain that he would break, hypnotized into his own death.

It seemed as if he had gone mad, either out of embarrassment, or out of impatience.

Other Commanders and Captains called to him, warning him back.

They couldn’t support him as he was.

There wasn’t enough room to maneuver, and there were too many men atop the wall.

Besides, his wasn’t the only ladder that he had to defend against.

He was on his own.

He was a Captain.

He ought to have been making use of his men to push his way forward, rather than seeking to do so himself.

Yet he went.

Boldly, he went, his steps certain, so different to the drunken swaying that the Verna had been reduced to.

They were bleeding all over, and he had not the slightest shred of injury.

There was a certain immunity to an already injured man, for they knew the pain was not liable to get worse – Oliver knew as much, for he’d felt the same sensation himself.

A willingness to endure further cuts, knowing that they would hardly bother him as much as the last.

This was man was as clean as if he had just taken a bath, and polished his armour.

His helmet was down low, its guard running the length of his nose.

It didn’t have a spot of blood or mud on it – not until he added to it himself.

“FOR THE KING!” He declared, opening up the lead runner’s stomach with his sword.

“IF THEY FEEL NOT FEAR, THEN I WILL CUT AWAY THE LEGS THAT ENABLE THEM TO STAND!”

He did just that.

Along with the entrails that he had spilled, he hacked the man below the waste, cleaving one leg away from him, and then the other.

They weren’t the most elegant of swings.

They were more like an axeman chopping down a tree, than a swordsman finishing a foe, but he achieved what he said he would, and he brought the man low.

Blood drenched him all over now – but this was an enemy’s blood.

It was not his own.

He was a different sort of creature to those valiant Verna men.

His blood implied strength, rather than simple resilience.

His men watched.

They eyed the Verna man ever so carefully.

He had arrows sticking from his shoulder, and his chest, and more spear wounds than one could count, and still he had not fallen.

Even with his stomach sliced open, and his guts laid bare, some of them found themselves doubting that he would remain still.

Even with his legs taken from him, they still expected him to stand up and walk some more.

To the man’s credit, he almost did.

He shuddered.

His hands twitched.

He seemed to be fighting against the chains of death itself, but he could do no more than that.

His blood was leaving him too quickly.

There was nothing to carry his will.

The tiny amount of light still left in his eyes vanished, and he finally fell to the floor, dead.

The Captain continued onwards, right into the heart of the fray.

The half-moon swords came for him.

They swung with reckless abandon… But that only made them easier to dodge.

It was one thing that those Verna men were still on their feet, and worthy of respect, but it was left to that Captain to point out the weakness that had been caused as a result of their injuries.

They lacked their usual speed, and he made that all the more evident.

Another man he cut down, severing an arm, then a leg.

He seemed to be as good as his word when it came to that.

Removing the limbs would prevent even the most stalwart of men from going forwards, for no matter what appearances might have been, they were still human in the end.