A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 269: The Darkest of Nights - Part 6

"Oh, aye," Grom agreed. "But that is why we are here, no?" He gave a rotten smile, flashing his decaying teeth. "Easy pluckings. And, in the same fell swoop, we can deal with one of their armies. Genius, ain't I?"

"Maybe if you weren't following your 'nose' all the time," his second lieutenant muttered. Unlike his leader, and unlike his fellow lieutenant, he was a little more brains than he was brawn. He would have preferred to approach things more strategically – but amongst the Yarmdon, the strategic approach was the frowned upon approach. It was instinct that drove the tide of battle.

"Aye, but look what the scent led us to!" Grom proclaimed. He could smell it even from here. There was that encampment right to the front of them, where he wagered nearly a hundred soldiers were stationed, but beyond that, there were rich pickings. There was another food-rich village to be raided.

There would be women, there'd be all that dried meat and grain that they'd prepared to get them through the winter. It was just what Grom needed. Already he'd burned two villages down to satisfy his hunger, but his belly still rumbled. They hadn't been able to take many supplies with them over the mountains. The survival of their army was purely dependent on their raids.

"We have Blackwell's men only a few days' ride behind us," his serious young lieutenant reminded him. "If we falter here, we really will be in trouble."

"Jok… Jok… C'mon. Ease up. This here is what we call 'easy pickings'. This is only your second bit of ranging, aye? You've got to learn to enjoy days like this. Days of slaughter," Gorm told him, patting the young lieutenant on his head, messing him up the silky black hair that he'd combed so carefully.

"Aye! Aye! I'm all for that!" The other lieutenant joined in. He was similarly as young, but for the size of him, and his personality, he could have nearly been Gorm's clone. Both men were massive, both men were bearded, and they overwhelmed the smaller Jok in more ways than one as they shouted him down.

"Awh, c'mon Kursak, you're meant to back up Jok, aren't ya? You know what he gets like when we gang up on him. Ain't no fun to do it like that. And if he goes acting all spoiled again, he's gonna mess up our supplies," Gorm said.

It was Jok's job to handle the supplies. It was only really he that had the patience for it.

"As I've said a thousand times over, that wasn't on purpose. Some of the grain already had rot in. That's what ruined it all," Jok said, with the exhausted expression of a man that already said the same thing a million times.

"Pah, this here is a battlefield, boy, you can't be making such idle conversation on the battlefield," Gorm said, suddenly changing his tune, just as he always did. That was one of the many reasons that Jok found him so exhausting to deal with. If impulsive ever took human form, Jok figured that it would be in the form of Earl Gorm.

But his commander was right, Jok knew. They drew ever closer to that fort. It seemed a ripe piece of fruit in the middle of many vast rolling plains. It looked like a rather respectable village, even from afar.

Compared to the villages that Jok had seen to the south of his own territories, he might even have considered it rich. Though he had a strategic mind where Gorm and Kursak had impulsive ones, he could not calm the beating of his Yarmdon heart as he saw such pickings fresh for the taking.

Nothing could have excited him more. Though he chose to dress differently to his comrades – he favoured leathers, where they favoured fur – and fought differently to them – he favoured his sword, where they favoured their axes – the man was as much of a raider as any of them.

Or perhaps, he was even more of a raider than any of them. There was a reason that he'd put in charge of a hundred men at the youthful age of eighteen, after all. And it wasn't just because of his strength in battle.

A few steps more, as their army streamed casually over the snow-covered plains, and they'd be in bow range.

The first line of men stopped before it, without any orders.

"Hoh… Now ain't that something," Gorm said. "You feel that boys? Seems like we've got some competition after all."

Jok could feel it. There were at least two overwhelming auras that he could sense, and he thought he knew where they were coming from.

On the battlements, a distance away, there stood a particularly stern-looking man. He wasn't large. In fact, by Yarmdon standards, he was small indeed. His hair was leaving him, as it often did with many middle-aged men. But there was a hardness about him that spoke of an experienced man.

It was that hardness coupled with his overwhelming aura that made Jok cautious of him.

"The Goddess of War has visited him at least twice," Gorm noted. Each of the three leaders had been visited by the Goddess of War more than once. It had been twice for Jok, and twice for Kursak, and each time she visited, they could feel their thirst for battle growing, as well as their strength.

Jok wasn't sure, because Gorm had never outright confirmed it, but he had a suspicion that Gorm had been visited by the Goddess at least four times. Though brutish, and impulsive, he was strong beyond a shadow of a doubt. That was why the King chose him for their harsh-ranging mission.

No one else would be fool enough to try and cross the Black Mountains just before winter descended. Nor would any other be fool enough to try and spend the winter in enemy territory. None would make the descent so far east, only to be trapped, and descended upon by their mounted enemy.