A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1043 Impatient Warriors - Part 3

1043: Impatient Warriors – Part 3

1043: Impatient Warriors – Part 3

“My soldiers,” Commandant Chang said.

“Give me room.”

Many of them had trained in the same temple as the Commandant had.

They knew the man, and his ways. ƒrēenovelkiss.com

Even calm as the Scribe Soldiers all aspired to be, they had their habits, and their quirks, and they had their ways of letting those below them know that they were discontent, even without letting that emotion show on their face.

When Chang asked for them to part, they did.

Two men stepped back out of the encirclement to allow room for Chang and his horse.

But that still left the Commandant in a tighter position than he would have liked.

He tended to shy away from such claustrophobic situations.

They hampered his lance work, and forced him towards unnecessary thoughts.

Those thoughts arose then, but he dismissed them.

He might have preferred a different stage, but this was the one that they were given, on the narrow mountain pass in which they stood.

“Syndran,” he noted, speaking the word in the Stormfront tongue.

He liked to know his opponent, and he thought he knew Firyr by his comparatively darker tanned skin stone than most Stormfront men, and by the manner of his spearwork.

“You fight a battle that is not yours.”

Firyr grunted in response.

He wasn’t the sort of fighter that could be drawn into extended conversation, not once he was committed to standing his ground, and giving the battle his all.

“No pleasantries?” Chang said, tilting his head.

“Where you come from, you have no need for honour?

No dignity?”

Firyr again did not respond.

He continued to deflect the spear points of the Scribe Soldiers around them, and occasionally he attempted a counterattack of his own.

There were only four of them now, with the addition of Chang.

His instincts told him that this was a situation that allowed for a bloody retaliation, whilst Chang was busy with his talking – and he soon secured it.

He feigned a shoulder charge towards a man’s shield, and the Scribe Soldier rooted his feet in a swift reaction, preparing to deal with it.

The feint cost Firyr a mere half a step, whereas the Scribe Soldier’s reaction cost him a full step.

That was more than enough for a Second Boundary man like him.

His spear snuck over the top of the shield, and nicked the side of the man’s neck.

“I see you have not an ounce of civility,” Chang said.

His eyebrow twitched just briefly, before he checked himself.

He nodded to the next man, and he stepped forward to fill the gap of the fallen.

“Very well, Syndran.

Your end shall be here.

On this rock.

Without honour.”

His lance punctuated its words.

It went flying through the space between them, towards the side of Firyr’s still-turned head.

He seemed almost resolute in his insistence that he not acknowledge his foe, but now with the pointed lance so close, his hubris was revealed for what it was.

“Dea—” Chang had just been about to begin a proclamation of the man’s death.

His point had travelled too close for it to be dodgeable.

He thought he knew the range of human movement, and how to estimate strength… yet his lance ran through nothing but air, and still Firyr hard turned to look at him.

He was still busy deflecting the spear points from the side.

Chang’s big round eyes narrowed for a second.

It took a conscious effort to suppress the heat of the anger that was rising within him, but he managed it, and he thrust his lance again, this time with more speed, and with the intention of the follow-up.

Only now after dealing with the strikes from the other Scribe Soldiers did Firyr turn to him.

He dodged the first strike of Chang with a simple movement of his head, and then the second came directly towards his chest, compelling him to move.

That, he grunted, recognizing that he couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough.

He put the steel shaft of his spear in the way instead.

It was a more precise block than any he’d had to execute, but the clang of metal on metal rang out, indicating his success – at least to a degree.

He’d managed to deflect it from his ribs, and off to the side, but it still nicked his shoulder as it came away, drawing blood.

Firyr sniffed at the wound.

“Missed,” he muttered, realizing his mistake.

He ought to have twisted his spear shaft in the moment of impact.

Even just that slight spin offered by his wrists would have been enough to send it off to the side.

Now it was another round of Scribe Soldier attacks that he had to deal with.

A strike to his blind side came first.

He chopped it down with his hand, doing his best not to turn to it.

His fist caught the shaft differently from his intentions.

He wanted to control its trajectory straight into the ground, but instead, it veered off to the side.

“Missed,” he murmured again, more a thought than something truly spoken out loud.

He recognized the error in his timing.

As alarming as the strike was, he could have waited longer to deal with it.

The other three strikes he brushed off with his spear instead, but he still felt slower than he’d wished, even though he’d avoided any further injuries.

“Missed,” he said again.

There were so many different avenues of attack open to his foe, and so many different ways they’d already struck him.

Each presented a unique problem to be solved, and each felt very much within the range of Firyr’s solving capacity.

Even as he moved on to the next strike, he was still solving the error of his previous step, trying to make it more efficient.

He’d never fought with such mindfulness in his life, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to reflect on it as strange.

Soon enough, he was facing the front again, straight off against Chang.

From horseback, Chang looked set to charge him down – but there wasn’t the space for the mount to move.