A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

A quick glance over his shoulder, and he could see men matching his pace, with a clustering of women mixed in with them.

Greeves estimated there to be two hundred men and fifty women in total. They weren't bad numbers. It was only the old that was left behind, along with those hundred or so women that knew their worth in battle hardly existed. They wanted to stay alive for the sake of their children. But even they were riddled with doubt, as they attempted to stand their crowd.

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Some even ran to join, pulled in by the will of the crowd, giving in to that overwhelming uncertainty that gnawed at them.

Ferocious though it was, and empowering, to see two hundred and fifty villagers marching with a single cause, with such determination, Greeves was under no illusions. He knew that this was no fighting band. He knew that their morale would shatter at the first rock of resistance that they felt.

But similarly, as long as momentum was on their side, they could be a great river of chaos, enough to upset the tides of battle, and shift the balance in their favour.

Those hundreds of feet crunched across the frozen ground towards battle. Nila's light feet soon took ahead of the rest, as her anxiousness took over her, and Greeves' poor fitness took over him.

The fires of the tents weren't quite as all-consuming as they seemed from a distance, that was what Nila noted as they drew closer. But nor did they ring of safety. Nearly half of the tents had caught flame, and that fire was only spreading.

"Mother…" She said quietly to herself, as they neared it.

The flames of war were spreading further. Jok watched from a distance, his smile of satisfaction tainted.

"How… How is he still not dead?" He asked himself. Amidst a sea of burning tents, that boy was still hanging on. There had been thirty men gathered around him, and somehow, no matter how many blows they landed, he seemed unwilling to fall.

There was that Captain too, on the other side of the battlefield. Gorm was still not done with him yet, but Jok could sense that the fight was already over. Yarmdon men streamed past him, and tore into the camp. The second that Gorm wished to finish him off, he would be able to. But that man wanted to break him first, it seemed.

He could not help that gnawing feeling in his chest, the feeling of offness, the feeling that he'd overlooked something. Yet what could he have overlooked? The boy battled on, but even if his flame was strong, it would still soon die out. Jok's men were wearing on him, after all, the young commander could see it.

And yet, why was there still a tension in the flow of battle? There were only two men of any significance still yet alive. Jok could see no sign of any other remaining soldiers, and yet something was off.

Beam battled in a sea of darkness, his mind quiet.

There were men to his back now, as well as to his front. They'd encircled him completely. It was significantly more difficult to deal with, even if the number of total men was equal.

They'd come streaming in from Lombard's side, and pinned themselves to his back. They'd thought it would be a quick battle, an easy victory, only for them to get caught up in yet another gruelling onslaught.

A thick gash ran down Beam's back, from where the first surprise attack had caught him. He'd managed to react, but not quite quickly enough, and he was paying the price for it. The wound hampered his movements somewhat, and the dull shocks of pain continually bled throughout his body.

A battle like this – for a warrior of Beam's proclivities – could not have been worse. It was his perception that he'd always struggled with, and now it was his perception that he had to rely on entirely to keep him alive.

And yet alive he still was. Another attack came storming from his back, an attack that he could not see, or hear. Yet his tired sword-arm crept up to parry it anyway. Then the blade flashed again, stabbing into the flesh of an exposed arm, and digging deep into the shoulder.

He could not finish the man, though. Another set of strikes was already coming his way. It was an endless wave of them. One man would attack from the back, whilst another attacked from the front, and then another attacked off to the side. It was relentless, maddening even.

It was like trying to catch all the different droplets of rain as they bounced off the roof. The Yarmdon were untrained in group combat, or at least, they were unorganized, for their training was done aplenty – it was simply carried out on the field of battle.

Rather than a group, they were more a set of individuals. They didn't move to complement each other. They simply paid the barest amount of attention to not hitting each other with their blows, and the rest was fair game. They would attack whenever they felt it was a good opportunity, and then reposition themselves in the crowd when they thought they could find a better shot.

The only saving grace was really in their size. Though Beam was surrounded by thirty men, thirty men could not attack at once. At most, it was six at a time. But then those six would flow into another six, in a relentless stream of them. It was a cycle of agony, one that had gone on for nearly five minutes by now, after Lombard's section of the wall had crumbled.

A sword followed up the last axe, aiming for his stomach. At the same time, another blade came slicing in towards his shoulder, and another towards his back.

Beam dealt with the attack to the front of him first. With the lightest of touches, he redirected it, and then ducked and spun to deal with those attacks that he'd felt at his back.

His sword once again drew blood, this time, it buried its way into a man's throat. The giant glared at Beam with widened eyes, as he looked down at the steel that had run through his neck. He tried to say something, but only blood and spittle came out. Beam withdrew his blade, and the giant fell to the earth next to him.

Jok watched in horror from a distance.

"Another one!?" He could hardly believe it. He was sure that they'd been wearing the boy down, and yet, once more, the boy had found an equilibrium, and he'd overcome it, turning the tide of his local battle.