On a small elevation near the archers, a group of cavalrymen appeared. In the middle was an old man. The division commander. His cold eyes studied the battlefield before his head turned to Lucon, 50 meters away.
The young man could swear he could see the disdain from where he stood and gulped. His attention did not remain on the commander for long. Right next to the commander was a figure that made everything else in the vicinity pale.
A man, larger than anyone he had ever seen, clad in full plate armor from head to toe jumped off his horse. His horse was almost a third bigger than all the others. When he stood next to the commander, he was even taller than a man on a horse.
He had incredibly broad shoulders and his mere presence commanded respect. He slowly fetched a sword from his horse and when Lucon saw it his eyes nearly fell out.
He had never seen such a sword. It was longer than the average spear and still only reached up to a bit over shoulder height for the man. The blade itself was flame-bladed, meaning it had dents that gave it a flame-like appearance as they appeared parallel to the blade in a zig-zag manner.
The knight's armor showed a large golden boar on his chest.
‘A royal guard! What is he doing here???’ Lucon recognized the banner of the king and only one conclusion could follow. The man before him must be a royal guard.
The strongest and most fearsome soldiers of the entire kingdom were selected for the royal guard and only after years of proving themselves on the battlefield did, they receive a permanent position.
This man, this giant, was one of the kingdom's most powerful warriors. And he would face off against a blood warrior of the legends.
When the blood knight saw the human champion, he immediately discarded any notions of joining the battle. He laughed and turned to look at the knight who was slowly walking towards him. While the two formations engaged each other the two champions faced off, standing in front of one another, barely out of range.
The knight then raised his sword in front of his head before assuming a fighting stance.
“Wretched Blood Warrior! I will claim the honor of killing you today!” the warrior announced. His stance radiated confidence and he was even half a head taller than the orc. The orc smiled.
“What are you? You surely can’t be a human… you are way too powerful… finally a worthy opponent!” he laughed and shot forward with inhumane speed, swinging his gigantic sword toward his opponent. The warrior was slower than the orc, yet still managed to parry the orc's slash with his own sword.
While parrying the Royal Guard took a step forward and thrust his right elbow into the orc's face, making it stagger backward. It held its nose and then started laughing.
“WONDERFUL! I WILL LET YOU HAVE A TASTE OF REAL POWER!” he announced, and his tattoos started shimmering. They seemed to come alive and moved over his body. The injuries he had suffered in his face were already fully recovered. He snickered.
One couldn’t see the knight’s reaction to this, but he did not appear surprised, Lucon concluded.
He answered with a strike of his own, aimed at the orcs throat, that was swiftly parried. The two giants exchanged rapid blows for what seemed like half a minute. In the meantime, the formations were entangled in a heated battle.
The humans seemed to gain the upper hand, but the larger orcs with cleavers inflicted a lot of damage on the humans despite their armor.
After a few dozen exchanges of elegant swordsmanship, the knight and blood warrior’s strikes became more and more powerful. Both began shouting with each of their blows. Each strike carried so much power it would easily tear through the ranks of ordinary soldiers like butter.
The swords clashing sounded more like a giant smithing hammer landing on an anvil than two swords meeting. After crossing swords a few more times the Royal Guards sword penetrated the stomach of the Blood Warrior.
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The orc grinned and pulled it deeper into himself. He let loose a bone-chilling laugh.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME LIKE THIS???”
As he skewered himself on the sword the knight tried to retract his sword but couldn’t. The sword disappeared into the orc and came out at the back all the way to the hilt. Then the orc grinned at the knight from not even half a meter distance before headbutting the Royal Guard with all his might.
The knight was shaken by the power despite his helmet. He staggered backward a bit, but quickly recovered and now without a weapon, grabbed his dagger and remained at a distance.
“What is it human? Did I take your plaything?” the orc asked with an evil smirk as he slowly pulled the long sword out of his body and let it fall to the floor. Lucon looked on unbelievingly and watched as the giant wound on the green stomach quickly closed up and healed.
“Time for the fun part, isn’t it?” the Blood Warrior laughed and threw away his sword, taking out his dagger.
“I will make you pay!” The Royal Guard fiercely shouted and charged forward with his dagger in his right hand. The two engaged in a ruthless melee. The orc fought wildly, completely disregarding any injuries below his head.
Meanwhile, he tried his best to attack the gaps in the knight’s armor as they wrestled first standing and then on the floor. The orc laughed maniacally almost all the way through the fight. During the dirty fighting on the ground, the orc managed to pull off the knight’s helmet.
Lucon looked on and was surprised to see a young man his age below the helmet.
‘This Royal Guard is only my age and yet so powerful!’ he marveled as the knight shouted fiercely as he mounted the orc and brought down his fists and elbows onto its face repeatedly.
When the Royal Guard was about to stab the orc, the Blood Warrior furiously grabbed onto the blonde knight’s face, trying to gauge his eyes out. The sharp nails on his right hand dug deep into the Royal Guard's face and slashed a wound from his eye to his ear.
The man screamed in pain and with a desperate thrust lodged his dagger into the orc's eye, piercing its head all the way through.
The Blood Warrior’s laughs abruptly stopped, and his body went limp. It just lay there on the ground.
The Royal Guard slowly stood up and looked down at his opponent, blood smeared all over his face. He picked up his sword, didn’t spare the Blood Warrior a second glance, and stormed towards the orc formation.
The first he did was to get rid of the orc archers that desperately tried to run, but with 2 large swings, the Royal Guard easily cut them in halves right through their thin leather armor.
When the spearmen realized what had happened it was already too late. The human champion was already running rampant in the ranks of the orcs, slaughtering them like sheep, caught between two fronts.
Soon all the remaining orcs fled head over heels into the forest. Yet nobody cheered. Not a single person. Too many had died on that battlefield. The knight fell on one knee, took a few deep breaths, and then stood back up.
He walked towards Lucon. With every step the warrior took Lucon's admiration grew. His silvery armor was coated in the red blood of countless orcs. He was like hypnotized by the fair-haired god of war walking towards him. He looked ruthless yet elegant, powerful yet calm. He came closer and Lucon's group all saluted.
They were unable to think of anything else in this commanding presence. As his blue eyes mustered the group his eyes landed on Lucon.
“Commander Lucon, right?” the bloodied warrior asked with a deep and raspy voice.
“Y-yes milord!” Lucon stammered. Then suddenly the big warrior smiled and reached out his hand.
“My name is Androcles Schenk. We have come to reinforce you.”
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Back in Caurium
“And that day Trajan… was the day I killed 40 men with my recklessness… before getting rescued by the greatest warrior I have ever known…” a much older Lucon concluded in his tent, facing Trajan.
“You should not be so hard on yourself. You were an inexperienced commander back then!” Trajan attempted to argue.
“To this day not a single night passes where I do not dream of at least one of the kids that were part of my unit back then… it always ends the same. They die.” He shook his head.
Trajan couldn’t argue. He was speechless.
“I… I didn’t know it was like this…”
Lucon smiled bitterly.
“And now Faust has died. All alone. Sacrificing himself for his group. He died honorably and courageously.”
The room was silent.
“But hell, I liked that kid.” Lucon sighs and leans back on his bed.
“Who knows, maybe he is still alive… who knows?” Trajan said, pondering.
“He may be. But it's highly unlikely. I hope you understand a bit better now why I cannot send a search party… I will never again be this reckless and send my soldiers into unknown territory when I can smell something off. And hell, this all smells like danger.” Lucon said seriously.
“I can relate to the pain you must feel at not being able to send a search party… and I now understand your reasons for it. Thank you for sharing this with me Lucon. Learning of this event… and Schenk fighting a Blood Warrior… was a special honor. I will not forget it.” Trajan bowed his head a little.
Surprised by his friend’s actions Lucon immediately shot forwards to stop the commander from bowing. He couldn’t suppress a smile.
“My dear friend. There is no need to bow. The only thing I require from you is your friendship and loyalty.”
The men smiled at each other and then Lucon put down the bottle. It was empty.
“Thank you for following me, Trajan. Talking to you helped me a lot.” He admitted and Trajan left with a smile on his face, disappearing into the night.