novelraw Chapter 125 - Barbarians
Chapter 125 - Barbarians
“Shields up!”
“Shields up!”
Shouts from Sergeant Darric and Sergeant Cole echoed through the clearing just after my warning.
In a few seconds, screams followed from behind, coming from near the first cart. I sensed two of the supply privates had gotten pierced by arrows, but I did not have time to look who they were or how severe their injuries were.
The whole clearing turned into chaos.
Behind me, the supply privates sitting by the carts raised their shields while cutting the horses free from the harness. Thankfully they reacted quickly. The flaming arrows had already terrified the animals. If they stayed tied to the carts, the entire supply line could overturn.
Arrows continued to fall.
One struck a horse.
The animal shrieked and bolted.
The other two followed immediately, panicked by the sudden movement and fire.
Soldiers rushed in from the other side of the carts with shields raised. Supply soldiers formed around the carts while members of the death squad and the vanguard stepped forward to meet the attackers.
I took a few steps back as my senses picked up arrows aimed toward me.
The volley did not last long.
Our vanguard archers had already responded.
Looking at the front, I saw four archers join the rear of the attacking columns charging toward us. The attackers were made up of six columns of five people each, all of them giants covered in bone armor and carrying bone weapons.
They were intimidating. All stood at least as tall as Kael and Varric, but the person at the rear was the most intimidating, the tallest of them all, maybe a head taller than Garran.
Then the giant at the rear raised his hand.
Earth wrapped around it like a living gauntlet.
He roared, a signal or war cry of some sort.
I just stared at them coming while my skill worked overtime, trying to figure out what my next step would be. This was the first time I was facing humans in combat, and I was partially frozen with indecision. If it were beasts, I would have instinctively known what to do.
“Vanguard from the center column!”
Thankfully Sergeant Cole’s voice cut through the battlefield.
“Darric, Tier-2s from your squad support the vanguard.”
Cole drew his sword. Flames burst across the blade.
“Roland, stay behind,” he ordered the second Tier-3 vanguard member.
Roland unsheathed his weapon. A green glow of mana coated its edge.
“Edward, handle the flank and the rest.”
I understood the implication immediately.
Two Tier-3 fighters were staying back.
Most likely for the giant.
I pushed that thought aside. Now that I knew the formation, I knew what orders to give and began issuing them.
“Varric, Garran, Barry, and Garran’s team take the left flank.”
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“Kael with me. Silas and Varric's team, right flank.”
“Peter, take the rear. Analyze.”
“The rest of the supply squad guard the carts from arrows.”
From their armor, weapons, and the mana in their bodies, I knew non-combat Tier-1 soldiers would be useless and would only increase confusion.
As our formation took shape, the barbarians were less than 10 feet away.
“Sergeant, be prepared. They hit heavy,” said the vanguard beside me.
And he was right.
As the front line of barbarians met us, the barbarian in front swung a bone axe with full might.
Supplying mana to my shield and expanding it, I met the axe and blocked it with my reinforced arm. The force rattled my arm, reminding me of Varric’s swing in his angry state.
But me blocking his strike surprised him as well. It looked like he was not expecting resistance from someone as short as me. I could see the carefreeness in his eyes vanish, replaced with intense seriousness. Looking into my eyes, he smiled, which then converted into a laugh followed by an even more powerful swing.
I thrust my spear forward while he was mid-swing, trying to take advantage of the absence of a shield.
I had thought that seeing my spear he would move out of the way or stop his swing, but instead he disregarded my spear. Seeing this, I increased the mana supply in my spear, hoping to finish him.
My spear struck his armor. His axe slammed into my shield. His armor was stronger than I expected and was not affected by my initial thrust. As his axe came down, I drove my spear harder into the bone armor, trying to break through, finally breaking a bone, and the tip made out of my mana tore the leather part of the armor and created a small cut on him.
He took a step back.
“Right flank!” came the shout of Peter from behind.
Standing on the right flank, I knew the barbarians from behind were targeting the right flank with greater force. To counter that, I sensed the vanguard at the back of the center column moving to the right.
“Rokan and Daren, support the vanguard,” I said to them as they were standing behind me to support the vanguard soldiers who had moved forward.
The barbarian in front of me and I exchanged a few more blows. On both my sides, a vanguard private and Kael were also fighting their opponents. While the vanguard private had some advantage over his opponent, especially because of his earth affinity, he kept breaking the rhythm of his opponent by manipulating the ground beneath his feet, making his opponent extremely angry.
Kael was able to match the blows of his opponent mostly because they were the same size. Seeing this from the corner of my eye, even in all this heat of battle, a smile surfaced on my face because I imagined my whole squad, especially Garran, Kael, and Varric. If not for their different armor and bronze skin, they would look exactly the same.
But I did not get too much time to pay attention to others because the barbarian in front of me kept coming at me, each strike harder than the last. But during his wild swings, I was finally able to devise a plan. This time I met his axe with my spear, deflecting it. I stepped forward and slammed the rim of my shield upward toward his neck, only to hit his collarbone with the rim of my shield.
“Silas, be ready,” I said in a low voice using [Battle Command].
My punch did not have much effect other than making him angry, but that was what I wanted. He shifted his axe to one hand, freeing the other hand, probably hoping to grab me the next time I attacked with my shield.
This time when he struck me, I once again countered with my spear, twisted it sideways, and caught the blow on the shaft, stopping its arc, then I slid the spear downward and thrust toward his exposed right leg, forcing him to move to the left to avoid my spear.
As he moved, a knife flashed toward his eye. I knew it was Silas’s.
He jerked his head down to avoid it, giving me the perfect opening.
Freeing my spear, I drove it upward into his neck, tearing open his throat.
He grabbed his throat and fell to his knees.
His death caught everyone by surprise. As his body fell, a sharp battle cry rose from behind the barbarian line.
I felt mana spreading across the battlefield. It pressed against us like a heavy tide. The glow of my spear and shield dimmed, while the barbarians seemed to grow even more ferocious.
They answered the cry with their own roars, stomping their feet against the ground with enough force to shake the ground.
The warrior behind the man I had killed stepped over his fallen comrade and came straight at me, swinging his hammer in a series of brutal strikes against my shield.
While I was able to stop the blows, with the effect of the mana covering my shield reduced, more force started getting transferred to my arm, which started hurting. While my power was reduced, the power of their blows had increased, and I was not the only one struggling.
Everyone on the front line was.
Then I sensed the vanguard private two positions to my left and Garran on the left flank losing their balance and taking a hit on the body.
Thankfully, the mana of the barbarians was countered by the mana from Sergeant Cole and Roland.
“DO NOT FALTER! REMEMBER WE ARE THE ROYAL ARMY!”
“We are the unconquered!”
“We do not break!”
A shout filled with mana came from the sergeant, boosting the morale of the squad.
As the mana from the barbarian leader got pushed back, my shield worked properly again and I was able to block the blows effectively. The supply squad pulled back the injured soldiers and the vanguard took their place.
With the majority of both squads committed against each other, Sergeant Cole and Roland moved from the side, targeting the giant at the rear of the column. I had expected the barbarians to support their leader, but they did not and kept their focus only on us.