Capítulo 2026: Confrontation with the Gods – Part 2
A clang that stopped it, before the gauntlet could fall. Then an icy comnt from Lady Blackthorn. “If you dare,” she warned. She finished it there, all that needed to be said. The rapier that she pointed at him spoke the rest.
Firyr growled, but looked away. Angry enough to continue the fight there, but not foolish enough to try her. Even he was uncertain of where he stood in regards to the likes of Lady Blackthorn.
Oliver watched, acutely aware. Ever so aware. As aware of his n as he would have been at his best, right in the thick of battle, commanding them to the sorts of victories that they had co to expect from him. Only now, his awareness fed his lacking. It fed the budding image of doubt that was building up in the back of his mind. Their difficulty in dealing with the enemy in front of them – and now, they were even fighting amongst themselves.
A feeling of wrongness strong enough to make Oliver want to scratch the skin off his at and bones. His mind a whirlwind, as he tried to pinpoint the reasoning behind it all. Trying to put together the pieces that was his understanding of battle.
‘The flow is turned against us,’ he thought with iron certainty. He felt like he was sitting on the other side of the Battle Board, facing the likes of Volguard, as their battles progressed in the later stages. The feeling that, whatever move he was likely to make, would only hurry on his defeat. The feeling that perhaps it would be simpler to surrender now.
Certainty in that, then an instant pang of rage and doubt. The mind could not fathom it, logic could not decree it. They outnumbered their foe, and they had such strength in arms as General Blackthorn, Colonel Verdant, Captain Firyr and Jorah – they had n of achievent, who’s side the Gods seed to have taken more than once. An enemy they overpowered both in the number of n, and in their quality, and still they could not flatten them.
Was it genius that had made the Erson sche as effective as it was proving to be, or was it sothing else?
The scale of the spreading destruction, as flas gobbled up the ancient city that Oliver had made his stronghold – it did more than just put into doubt his own leadership, it seed to end it before it even began.
What of the supplies that they’d planned to take with them? What of the hos that the worker-citizens had been staying in? Where would they sleep, and plan, and train, when all around them was turned to ash?
Nila had vanished the second the fire had started. She was part of the effort to see the citizens brought to safety, and to see those flas controlled, but had anyone started even attempting to put out the fires yet? How could they?
Oliver saw a soldier rush past with a bucket of water spilling up and splashing the hand that held the handle. He glanced at the battle unfolding in Oliver’s direction, but ignored it. Two battles were ongoing, and none could fault him for that. Or perhaps it was more, for each fire that was spreading. Perhaps it was more like six.
It ought to have been honest enough now that Oliver could crush it in his hand. There had been a montary delight when Fitzer had pulled the blade on him. No more gas, or politics, wondering what lay behind a King’s smile. He had hoped to have the Ersons as allies, but if this was the way things were to end up, then very well, he had thought. It would all be simpler for it.
He had thought that, thinking that victory would lend to him, that it would co as naturally as it had before. Great foes he’d felled, one after the other, in the victory he’d snatched over the original Erson Army, and then in the victory they’d all gathered over Tavar, then over Emperor Tiberius. He ought to be a different creature. Had he not lanted in his room the question of why? Why it was now that the world seed to unfold so much more easily, when he had suffered so much more in the past?
Had he not arrogantly thought, on such battlefields, that there was hardly a foe in the world that could stand in his way, should all be aligned?
And now what was this? An army nearly half his size, and he could do naught against it. It was a puzzle box that he did not know how to begin solving, and his mounting frustration only pushed him towards actions that he was unsure would yield any sort of results.
Verdant began the charge of four thousand troops, looking to break apart the Erson spearwall, and get through the archers behind them, who were peppering Oliver and his n relentlessly. There was certainly enough rage there to see it done, and enough strength.
They’d already begun their charge when Oliver started to run after them. ‘Even if strategy begins to fail , my sword will not. I’ve always been that… If Verdant supposes we can overwhelm them with sheer might, then I ought to be involved in it.’
It was the logical thing to think, as he tried to tear apart the battlefield situation in his head, and make sense of them. Putting strength into his legs, he managed to catch up with them on the left flank, matching stride with Lady Blackthorn.
Great speed their charge mustered, and the due emotion of an angry group of n looking to inflict their justice was not lacking either. Verdant took the centre, and behind him, Jorah gave those small orders that he was so good at, rearranging their troops as they charged, ensuring that none of those gaps arose that usually did when n were all giving themselves to an all out sprint.
The collision was a mighty thing. In the centre, n were tossed in the air, as Verdant’s spear found them. On the right flank, Firyr tore open a great hole. Then on the left flank, Oliver and Blackthorn saw the spears of their enemies slamd into the floor, and the n behind them gutted for their arrogance in daring to stand against them.
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