Robert exhaled deeply to calm down and hastily gripped the handle of his axe. The weight of the weapon helped a lot, slowing down messy thoughts. Clearing his mind, he tried to put the helmet on before stopping himself, and seeing others.
Backpack, dumbass! Gather yourself, Rob! It is not your first battle… just slightly different.
Throwing his belongings to the ground without carrying them, he shoved his arm into the shield’s handle, fixing it properly. The helmet on his head already habitually obscured some part of his vision on sides and on top, but in exchange gave additional confidence.
Breathe and keep calm, Rob. Your heart and head are covered by metal, so you can survive almost any wound. It is like training, just with blood. Maybe yours, but it’s not lethal… I hope.
Robert looked around only to see others with visible uncertainty in their eyes. They were in the middle of the column, while sounds of the battle were coming from both sides. The sergeant, who was tired from Wolf’s constant grumbling about their ungiven salary, distanced himself from them a few days ago. Moreover, no one gave them any instructions on how to act in case of an attack. It had to be the knight’s task, but they skipped that part, solely focusing on rushing forward to please the Baron with the speed of delivery.
With peripheral vision, Robert noticed how one of the knights stood up on the cart with a longsword in one hand. Pointing its blade into the darkening sky, a tall, armored figure looked intimidating. Towering above everything, it immediately captured attention itself, radiating a domineering and dangerous aura. Metal fully covered its body, making it look like an animated silver statue of an ancient conqueror. Lights were reflecting on the surface of its armor, additionally, strengthen by a strange glow, that seemed to be coming from the inside.
Is that mana imbuing of a fully pledged knight?
“To arms, soldiers! For the Highmoon barony! We must…,” his words were interrupted by a supersonic explosion of the firing bolt, which directly pierced the armor on his neck. Still, mana-infused metal managed to hold the projectile from going through. However, the force from the impact didn’t disappear at all – the heavy body of the knight was thrown away from the cart as it weighed nothing.
What the fuck?
Robert's mind stopped for a second, trying to gauge what had happened. He knew about the forbidden usage of bows in wars. He knew about special crossbows, used to stop the knights. But he never assumed it had such power, easily comparable to some kind of antitank rifle or even a canon.
However, he couldn’t stay in a stupor, thinking over the situation around him. From the trees, groups of soldiers were already running to them. They consisted of five armored warriors similar to Rob’s own equipment, only armed with swords instead of axes. Moreover, each of them had a green circle with five pointing upward red arrows on a white mountain background painted on the wooden shields. The exact same image as Robert saw in the burned village. He couldn’t tell if were they the very same bastard that massacred everyone, but they definitely belonged to the same force.
“First squad, gather around me!” The sergeant’s command sounded from afar, surprisingly managing to outvoice the noise of starting the battle. However, they didn’t have time to follow it as enemies were already near.
“Side by side!” shouted William, stepping forward. Both Paul and Lawrence took just a moment to gather around him, but Robert wasn’t so fast. He was further from Aspen and such an experience from a first-person perspective was new to him. His fight versus bears or suicide self-burning in the village wasn’t enough to make him a cold-blooded warrior with lightning reflexes. Then everything narrowed down to his opponent, who was rushing forward toward him.
The enemy was big, even massive. Not like Aspen or Monk big with huge muscles, which were hidden by the armor. No, brigantine – leather armor with metal plates underneath – couldn’t hide his fat belly. However, it didn’t slow down him in the slightest, making him look like a raging bull going for the red rag. His shield covered his face, exposing only black eyes with a death sentence in them. All that was caught by Robert in a mere moment, before he started to act.
Pretending to throw an axe right before the impact, he forced his enemy to instinctively raise his shield, obscuring his vision for a second. That second Rob immediately used to fullness – hastily stepping to the side, he almost squatted to the ground, covering himself with a shield and literally turning himself into some kind of rock. The rock, over which his enemy tripped. The impact of the heavy body was strong, and Robert barely managed to keep himself in the place. Warrior’s edge of the shield even managed to hit his own top of the helmet tangentially, almost pulling it off. Bell ringing resounded in his ears, stunning and stopping him from further action.
Keep fucking moving, Rob!
Screaming internally, he turned around to see the fallen body of the enemy, who was already trying to stand up. Seeing that he had no time for a lethal hit, Robert aimed his axe directly on the other side of the knee. Having similar armor led to known weakness as the back of their thighs were not covered at all. The blade went deep enough to make the enemy scream in pain, but Robert didn’t plan to stop there. Feeling the rush of adrenaline, he tried to hit again. However, the warrior threw his shield into Rob’s face. Acting on instinct, he managed to cover himself in time, but it still hit him hard. Before Robert stood up, his enemy was already on his feet. His leg wasn’t bending and was bleeding, but the sword in his hand was as dangerous as before.
Reading himself against a massive and definitely more experienced warrior, Robert made a first step forward. The next moment he had to use all his speed to deflect a lightning-fast thrust, aimed at his neck. An attempt to counterattack failed as a new slash emerged, going for his arm. He barely managed to avoid this one as new appeared, and another after that. Rob felt he followed the flow, not having the strength or skill to break free. The availability of the shield helped a lot but wasn’t an absolute guarantee versus such an opponent. And that was despite obviously limited movement and weak strikes of the latter.
Repulsing the attack on his knee, Rob only saw a huge fist coming into his face at the very last moment. He instinctively ducked down and by the same instinct head-butted the enemy’s chest. His helmet couldn’t do anything to armor, but the force behind the hit was enough to push the massive warrior backward. His injured knee couldn’t hold his weight and he went down. However, his hand managed to grab Rob, taking him along with himself.
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They fell on the ground together. Rob’s left arm still holding the shield went on top of the enemy’s sword. The one with the axe was free, but the warrior was hugging him so tightly that Robert couldn’t even breathe properly, not speaking about having the ability to strike. Still, he was much smaller than the huge enemy, so he went for a single possible window of opportunity in such a situation – for man’s bells. His knee couldn’t make a hit. Fortunately, he didn’t need to. He just leaned on it with all its weight, creating a shrill cry of pure pain from beneath. Grabbing hand weakened its grip, and Robert pushed himself up. The next moment the axe crushed the face of the enemy, slightly bending the metal on the nose protection of the helmet. Without any pause, Rob made a few more hits just to be sure before deeply breathing out and looking up.
He was met by an image of a slashing sword right on the level of his eyes. Robert instinctively fell down, barely avoiding the blade from beheading him. He somehow managed to push his shield up, stopping the next strike. The third one was so strong that a few wood chips flew all over the place, and his shield crushed into his chest. The new enemy stepped on it in an attempt to immobilize Robert, but the latter, despite being shocked, managed to gather his thoughts. His bloodied axe stroked the enemy’s second boot, crashing its foot. The attacker shook, trying to keep his balance. However, another axe came from behind, decisively ending his life.
“Stick, are you good?” Wolf’s face emerged. He smiled with bloodied teeth after seeing Rob’s nod before continuing, “Get up then! We need to gather around the sergeant.”
Trying to calm down his fast-beating heart, Robert quickly stood up, finally looking around. All five enemies from the attacking group were already dead, and, fortunately, Aspen and Monk were not hurt. Although, that could be said about his other allies. From a quick glance, Rob caught at least two dozen dead from both sides with a bigger count on his own side. Still, the battle hadn’t ended, and he silently followed Lawrence.
William and Paul were already fighting versus three opponents from the next group. The first one quite skillfully deflected the sword, almost immediately turning it into a shield bash. Throwing one enemy off balance, William sidestepped the slash from another one before pushing his axe in lightning-fast thrust. The hit was so strong that Robert from afar managed to see the result of blinding the enemy. Before he could catch up, Wolf joined others and ended the fight.
“Forward!” commanded William, leading everyone. The scenery around the next ten carts was quite terrifying. Bodies with crushed skulls. Blood all over the place. Robert even saw a couple severed limbs. Especially gruesome was the fate of a few coachmen because of the lack of armor. Attackers didn’t have any willingness to spare them.
They almost got to the gathering row of defenders when another wave of enemies emerged from behind. This time there were eight of them and few had halberds instead of swords. One of the latter immediately tried to hit Robert. He braced for a stronger impact but still underestimated its strength. The force almost made him squat under it. The second one broke through the shield, getting stuck in the wood. On pure instinct, Robert twisted his shield, almost pulling out the halberd from the enemy’s hands. His other arm was already doing the swing with the axe. The enemy tried to deflect it by using the wooden shaft, but poor position only led to placing his own fingers under the blade. The digits were immediately cut off, creating a hollowing scream from the owner. However, Rob couldn’t follow up with a new attack as another halberd crashed into his ribs.
The wave of pain and the sound of cracking bones went in the background, while he was focused on deflecting the following swing from the enemy. He had to drop his shield just in a futile attempt to avoid it. The halberd managed to pierce the leather on his thigh, only stopping by a metal plate underneath. Despite being the protective gear, the pure force had bent thin steel, drawing blood and clouding Robert’s vision. Halberdier tried to make a kill hit, but his own colleague without fingers tripped over the fallen shield, taking his mate with himself.
Seeing this opportunity, Robert steeled himself, before going for a chain of strikes, using all his might. He managed to hit around five times this ball of two halberdiers. Not aiming, just trying to hit as strong as possible, he definitely added them few wounds, but soon was pushed away by another warrior. Having lost his shield and being wounded, he felt as if all his chances were disappearing with each passing second. Moreover, he saw a new figure coming from behind the enemy’s ranks with the same logo of a green circle and five red arrows.
He couldn’t take a proper look at his friends. He felt they were fighting on the distance of stretched hand but didn’t have an opportunity even to communicate. Wolf, being on the right of him, tried to lessen his burden, periodically attacking Rob’s opponent. Still, Robert had to change something, or it would be a matter of time for him to die. Therefore, he clenched his teeth, and made an angry roar, before going into a berserk-style attack. His enemy shielded himself from several chaotic hits, before repelling Rob’s axe and going for a long thrust. Robert, as was waiting for it, immediately twisted his torso, intentionally exposing his shoulder for an attack. A pointy edge pierced through the leather, losing some momentum and stopping for a moment. And, despite horrible pain, Rob didn’t waste it.
The enemy’s arm, being stretched in thrust and stuck in the flesh, was a perfect target for his axe. His blade went through the unprotected part of the inner part of the arm on the side of the elbow, almost severing it in a single motion. Before the enemy managed to scream, Robert hit one more time, aiming at the head. The axe smashed into the helmet near the jaw, stopping only by the metallic inner sides. Another swing came from Wolf, this time lethal. However, Robert wasn’t happy at all as new enemies were coming.
His strategy to trade wounds for killing blows might not work even on the next opponent, as his body was already failing to stand still. He was out of breath and in pain. His shoulder and thigh were soaked in blood. His mind was clouded, despite all his brain enchantment. The main reason was his tunnel vision from the moment of the fight breaking. Still, he gripped the handle of the axe tighter as there was no other way.
I will survive despite all odds!
“Give the way!” the sergeant’s shout from behind broke his concentration. He didn’t turn around, being afraid to miss the enemy’s movement. He didn’t step aside, as he didn’t feel he could waste any energy. However, that wasn’t needed.
The silver-armored figure rushed from the side directly into the enemy’s ranks. The huge sword, almost as tall as Robert, felt like a feather in a knight’s hand. Rob almost missed the swing that fast it was, but it took him a few seconds to process what happened. The glowing blade cut through a few bodies of warriors as they were made from butter. There was no resistance, no slowing down, nothing. There was no difference between shield, armor, or flesh – the sword cut everything in a single motion. The few opponents tried to attack, but their weapons almost bounced off the shining armor, not leaving a scratch. Just after a mere minute, all the enemy’s reinforcements looked like the result of the butcher’s work. The untrained and psychopath butcher, whose solo goal was to create a bloody mess, which in his broken brain he could compare with art. Some even were still alive, screaming from pain or moaning on their last breath. Robert couldn’t hold himself from vomiting after seeing such a picture. The solo thought, which sounded again and again in his stunned mind was “Fuck”.