Chương 4: Once More Unto the Breach

"Ha ha! Isn't this glorious?" Lord Finley screamed as he fought. Fought was a strong word to describe standing behind two lines of soldiers, waving around a sword like he was trying to poke holes in the sky, but Asgar knew that trying to temper the man's ego would be foolish. Emmanuel was in the thick of the fighting, and he was loving every second of it.' The glory, the romance!

'Asgar could almost hear the man gush inside his head.' Capital!' Perhaps ingratiating himself with a gold-cloak wasn't the difficult part of his plan after all. Not stabbing the lordling was taking a surprising amount of willpower. To save himself from his treasonous urges, Asgar surveyed the battle.

They might be snugly hidden behind the shield-bearers and pikemen as they trudged beside carts bearing the famed magiocraft of their dwarven allies, but Asgar knew intimately how little safety that thin line of soldiers truly guaranteed. They were under assault by another greenskin horde, though this warband was smaller and less organised than the last.

So far, the ranks of professional soldiers were doing remarkably well keeping their formation, and so long as there were no breaches in the wall, they could march forwards implacably like a death-dealing harvest machine. Asgar had finally discovered, after much gushing by Lord Finley earlier, that this march was more about training the soldiers for what was to come than protecting the dwarven weapons of war.

Lady Valentia was the power that actually guaranteed the safety of the siege equipment, and it was the draft horses doing the transporting, so the soldiers were merely tagging along to gain experience. It sickened Asgar to think about how many dozens they'd already left in the mud in the name of such experience, but he was no war-time commander so he kept his head down and tried his best to learn. Lord Finley kept bleating nonsense, and Asgar kept an eye on the ebb and flow of the battle.

More of a skirmish, really. The orcs would rush in, trying to batter their way through the shield wall with brute strength and ferocity. All they received for their troubles was steel, then they would retreat again, their warband thinner and weaker. Listening to the roars of the sergeants, Asgar started to get an idea of where the lines were weak, where problems would soon crop up. Over the next fifteen minutes, he learned the ways of war.

Not comprehensively, of course, but he could feel his thinking growing beyond just the swing and the bloodsong. It was hard to be so close to the violence without that haze descending once more. The bonfire in his chest flared periodically, trying to drag him under its influence again, but no matter how it strained, Asgar kept it on a tight leash. Now was a time of learning, not violence. He would grow soon enough, but for now— There! He caught the telltale buckle of the line that preceded a breach.

The group of soldiers taking a step back rather than forwards, the bending of the flank as a particularly big brute of an orc slammed a heavy club into the shield before it. Asgar gripped his weapon, torn by indecision. Stay and protect his charge—the objectively correct move that served his interests—or run to reinforce the breach and risk his life for nothing… But he saw the massive orc swing, saw the soldier's helm crumple inward, and he knew what was to come.

There were plenty of soldiers around to reinforce that section of their moving flank, but many would die in the chaos. Asgar could stop that death himself. He thought of Lady Valentia standing cooly on the ridge as soldiers died beneath her indifferent gaze. How they must have wished for help in their final moments. He thought of his own village, remembered his own pleas for intervention. Only Avarron had answered. He broke and ran, drawing his mace and hefting his kite shield.

Behind him, Lord Finley shouted in surprise while a nearby sergeant ordered his men towards the impending breach, but Asgar was faster. He hit the line just as the brained soldier fell and the big orc leapt over his corpse. Asgar's shield took it in the chest, mace smashing into the creature's skull a heartbeat later.

The soldiers to either side of Asgar staggered backwards, pushed over by the excitement of the orcs behind their leader, but when Asgar sent the biggest of their number flying back into their midst without a head, they hesitated.

"Come on!" he roared, finally letting the leash free on his anger once again. His eternal rage boiled up inside him, spilling from his mouth in a torrent of senseless cries, filling his limbs with ponderous, deadly power, and blunting whatever fear he might feel to stare down a dozen ferocious monsters. An orc charged at him. It was almost as big as the last, with fetishes of twisted purple horsehair woven into its primitive armour.

Asgar deflected its spear with his shield, crushed the creature's knee with a single swing of his mace, then stepped forwards to kick it in the chest.

"Is that it?" he bellowed. He didn't recognise his own voice. It was so loud, so impossibly harsh, like a saw catching on wood. He hacked out a laugh as he pulped limbs and crushed skulls, roaring and spitting and cursing the whole while. Soldiers soon filled the buckled line beside him, though they gave him a wide berth. That was fine. More room for the slaughter. Orcs threw themselves at him, and he threw them back, drained of blood and life all the stuff that filled their bodies.

Lord Finley was right—battle was glorious. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. There was just so much of it! So much blood, so many screams; such tastes and sounds and textures. The squelch of pulped skin bursting apart, the slap of meat hitting the mud, the acrid stink of fear as the greenskins shied away from him. Where were they going? He wasn't yet done!

He was so-fucking-far from done— A hand clapped down on his shoulder, pulling him insistently backwards. Asgar shrugged it off and lurched forwards—back to the blood and the mud and all the good stuff—but he was pulled back yet again. Annoyed, he wrenched himself round and came face to face with a startled soldier who flinched back from his raised arm. That shocked Asgar from his trance and he faltered. Lowering his arm, he let himself be led away by the man, who pressed cool fingers into his head.

Asgar's helm came free and the fresh air on his sweat-soaked brow doused what lingered of his delirium.

"You with me now?" the soldier asked, handing Asgar his helm and peering up at him in concern. Asgar blinked, spat to one side, turned back.

"Good," he rasped.

"Good, thank you."

"I should be thanking you!" The grey-haired soldier said with a laugh.

"Saved a few of my men with that stunt of yours." Asgar looked him up and down, noting the sergeant's stripes on his shoulder—a single red line painted over his right pauldron. He nodded, spitting once again. How his saliva had gotten so thick in only two or three minutes was a mystery, but he felt like a hound watching his master wave around a bone before his face. Drooling all over the place. Embarrassing. The sergeant seemed in awe if anything though.

"Stood in the breach like Avarron himself! Good God, man! That mace of yours will need some looking-at though, hey?" Asgar inspected the weapon, noting some of the flanges had bent at their tips. Not much, mind, but if it wasn't addressed it would only get worse. A good excuse to see Strix again later.

He made some vague comment about his company needing him, and the sergeant clapped him on the shoulder before letting him go, dragging out a promise from him to visit their section of the camp for a game of knucklebones soon. Avarron approves of your slaughter. You have gained a level. Level 7 achieved. Asgar grinned tiredly. He might be weaker than a day-old foal right now, might want to curl into a little ball and be swaddled by blankets, but he knew he'd feel the new power soon.

Each level brought a slow onset of strength over the course of a few hours, a creeping mastery over his own body that made him ever more lethal. He trudged over towards where Lord Finley was still playing pretend heroes whilst safely ensconced within the ranks of his company's soldiers. More marching today, but probably no more fighting. Tomorrow, no doubt, would bring both in abundance. Back to it, then.

"Get him out of here!" Asgar cried, pushing a terrified Lord Finley back towards the sergeant that was desperately fighting his way through the crush towards them. The annoying noble had tripped over his own golden cloak and nearly been crushed to death under the tramping feet of the melee, but Asgar had got to him before any permanent damage was done.

Now, he kicked and pushed his fellow soldiers, keeping a small perimeter free where the gangly officer could stumble his way back towards the sergeant in charge of keeping him alive. God help the man. Asgar turned back to the front, fighting his way through the sea of soldiers until he could view the problem. Greenskins—of course it was greenskins—roared and gibbered, trying to kill the men of the Golden Lance's 2 nd regiment.

That would have been manageable if it wasn't for the little goblins hidden within the forest to the east taking potshots at them. Asgar pushed his way back through the press. There was no chance of the line buckling, and given the crush of men and orcs on either side, if the line did fall, there'd be nothing a single soldier could do to stop it. This was an industrial-scale game of tug-of-war now. Having seen first-hand the ferocity and strength of the orcs, Asgar didn't much like their chances.

He returned to his company to find Lord Finley in argument with a grizzled sergeant—Orson presumably. Asgar caught the tale-end of their conversation as he arrived.

"…Can't just 'sally forth' from the lines like some fucking—""Asgar!" Emmanuel called in evident delight at his arrival.

"My good man! Come, come. Sergeant Orson here was just telling me how we could turn the tide of battle!" Asgar raised an eyebrow at the sergeant who returned a look so long-suffering it had clearly spent time in the dungeons below Caer Andel.

"The archers, I assume?" Asgar asked.

"Exactly! You get it, man!" Lord Finley turned to the harried-looking sergeant.

"He gets it!"

"Yes, milord," Orson replied with evident difficulty.

"But as I've just explained—""Yes yes, I've heard your prattling. I'm much more interested in what a man of mettle has to say about it. What do you think, Asgar? Could we hit the gobbos while their pants are down?" Asgar glanced back at the horrific meatgrinder that the frontline was becoming, knowing that many good men and women would die if nothing was done. He turned his gaze to the woods nearby, where little green heads peaked out, squealing with glee as they loosed arrows into the swirling ranks below them.

Then he turned back to Lord Finley. His golden ticket. His hope for reaching Duskendale and the Pits beyond, for gaining an audience with the Golden Lance. For fulfilling his oath of blood. The man jumped from foot to foot excitedly, as if the battle was a game to play rather than a horror to be endured. Sergeant Orson watched him with concern, no doubt seeing him run the same calculations the veteran had.

Some might survive outside the shield wall, but they wouldn't be returning to safety until the battle was over, and the woods would be deadly with the goblins scurrying about. Not to mention, if they were successful and the soldiers could push forwards properly, routing the orcs, then whoever was hiding in those trees would have to survive the orcs fleeing past them afterwards.

"The melee is vicious, milord," Asgar began, "and the men need to see their leaders. You're doing more good in here, giving them hope, than you would out there."

"But men are dying," Lord Finley whispered. Asgar almost reconsidered his opinion of the man.

"And think of the glory to be had!" he continued in a much more excitable tone. Almost. Asgar looked to the sergeant.

"Give me a dozen men and create a distraction further up to let us get to treeline. We'll stop the goblins." The sergeant narrowed his eyes. He was an intense man, and smarter than he looked, Asgar decided.

"You think that'll be enough?"

"We don't have to kill every single one of them—just make them wary. Keep them hesitant long enough for the soldiers up front to do the real work. Once they get moving again and the orcs are broken, the goblins will flee, too."

"You led men before?" Asgar shook his head.

"No. And I'm not volunteering now. I'll be out there killing, you just send some in my wake to clear up the mess." Sergeant Orson held his gaze, looking for something within. Asgar let slip the leash a little, that ever-burning rage simmering closer to the surface, filling his chest with warmth. He held to his purpose, thought of the coming confrontation with the most fabled knight of the land, the strength he'd soon need and the blessed slaughter it would take to get there. Orson nodded.

"You're a brave man, Asgar. Try not to die."