A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 272: The Darkest of Nights - Part 9

"We'll be alright… won't we?" Nila heard one child say to her mother. Her mother could only pat the boy's head, in a weak attempt at reassurance.

Nila stood alone, like an island stranded in a vast sea of despair. She wanted to run home, to see her own mother, to see her brother. She wanted to find Stephanie, and she wanted to run. Her heart was conflicted, her fear was magnified, she felt her body trembling.

It was not a decision that she should have had to make. A mere girl, weeks away from fifteen. She'd taken up the mantle more than once now, in pursuit of peace, in pursuit of the safety of her sister. She'd pushed herself well beyond what was comfortable. Well beyond what was even normal.

She'd become a central figure in the village just for that – taking up a mantle of responsibility normally reserved for the wisest of adults.

But this… This amount of chaos. It was beyond her. She didn't know what to do. Though she couldn't see the battle, she could hear it, she could imagine it, and she could feel it. More than anything, she could feel it. That horrible mix of fear, both hot and cold, both the sun and the snow.

It made her heart beat erratically, it made her clutch at her chest and it made her breathing come heavily.

She wanted to run, but she was sure there was one person that certainly was not running. That was certainly there, right now, on the front lines, preparing to war, preparing to fight for villagers that could not even yet bring up the courage to fight for themselves.

"Mother…" She murmured, biting her lip, surrounded by that sea of uncertainty. Of all the hundreds of villagers currently near her, not a single one offered up hope, not a single one attempted to take the helm and to lead. How could they? They had no experience of battle. The very system of command that had been in place for moments like these had been shattered just hours before.

The very village Elder that should have been leading them was the same person that had betrayed them, that had committed such awful atrocities. The wound from that still ran deep. Then there was the threat of the mage to top it all off. The only logical conclusion was to run. That was all Nila's mind circled back to, as she stood anxiously frozen in thought.

But she couldn't.

Every time she pointed her feet in the direction of her home, her mind flashed with images. There was a boy, covered in blood and bruises, fighting against a monstrosity that even the Gods themselves would surely quiver before. And yet he'd stood up to – more than that, he'd even overcome it.

Just before the moment of victory, there had been an instant of absolute overwhelming terror. Of such unfairness, that it almost seemed to be a cruel joke. But even when his battle was distorted as such, the boy had still rushed forward, and he'd still won. He'd even claimed that monstrous enemy to be weaker than what he'd been fighting before.

And then he'd done it again. Nila only had the stories the boy himself had told her to go by, like his battle with the Titan, but Nila was sure that the reality was likely far worse, far more terrifying. Yet he continued to fight, even when his fight was entirely in the shadows, and no one knew of it, nor did they praise him.

She couldn't leave, and yet something still prevented her from going.

What could she even achieve if she went? She reached for the bow on her back, and unslung it off her shoulder. This was something that she could do. Surely, even on the battlefield, she could find her place with a bow.

But then, what of the villagers? Would she really be much help to Beam alone?

She wasn't sure. And that unsureness tainted her decisions.

They heard another bellow from the direction of the battlefield. "YESIGMOR, DAI NAI SE!" Came the bellow. The villagers cowered once more at the sound. Nila felt her own heart being swayed.

They could not be faulted for that either, for even the veteran soldiers of Lombard's forces found themselves quivering at the might of the enemy. They were still crouched behind their stakes, as wave after wave of arrows came. The casualties were beginning to mount up.

The only silver lining to that relentless assault of arrows was that the men seemed to be coming ever forward. They were intent on a charge, rather than an arrow-based siege.

"Loose!" Lombard said, giving the order once again. In between each wave of arrows the enemy shot their way, he would have his men rapidly fire back, to at least get in a few shots of their own.

And, such a tactic was working, to a degree. At the very least, they'd killed several men with it. Those that had bows in their hands had strapped their shields to their backs, being unable to wield them both at once. It was with a degree of fumbling that they looked to rearm themselves each time.

Others simply used the shields of their comrades that had brought no bows with them. Such a thing was far more effective, and the majority of the forces fell to doing it. But even those large round shields that the Yarmdon carried weren't big enough for two bodies of the size that they were shielding, and the occasional arrow managed to slide through, wounding the enemy.

Beam waited impatiently as the Yarmdon drew ever closer, amidst that hail of arrows.

"Their resistance is too high," Jok complained. "We're going to lose too many men if we charge in off of this."

He was being forced to march forward with the rest of them, despite fervently wishing that they'd spent more time with their bows whittling down the enemy first.

But Gorm dismissed his concerns with a mighty laugh. "I will lead at the front, youngling. They will fold like wet grass on a summer's day. An arrow storm like this is only losing us men, see?"

"Far fewer than we would be, charging straight into their defensive stronghold," Jok murmured. He was as eager to wet his blade as the rest of them. But what he saw currently was not prey – it was still an enemy with enough fight in it to do significant damage.