A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Hah… Thank the Gods," a sergeant said, mopping his brow. There were murmurs of agreement from amongst the rest of the soldiers. "You were late this morning, boy – but I won\'t complain too much. You saved us a good bit of struggle back there."

"Apologies," Beam said. The fighting had severed to work out his nerves just enough that he felt it right to apologise for the inconvenience he\'d caused, but his words were still sharp, and it was clear to all around him that he was not in a mood to be bothered.

The sergeant seemed to take note of that, for he regarded him a moment with a raised eyebrow, wondering if he had merely slept poorly – for the men on this fighting shift had not heard about the chaos of the night yet.

"We\'ll see to the corpses for you lad," the sergeant said, taking care to be friendlier than usual with his grumpy comrade. Most of the soldiers treat him with cautious gratefulness now – well aware of the load that he was lifting for them. "I wish you luck."

Beam nodded in reply this time. His eyes were already focused on the trees ahead of him. He could sense the next wave already approaching. He hardly spared the soldiers a glance as they dragged their corpses past him, back towards the line of defences.

The soldiers were still fighting in front of the stakes that they\'d made, and the shallow trench that they\'d dug – that was to ensure that building could still continue, even as they fought the waves off. So though the defences had improved, they were not making use of them quite yet.

The soldiers soon streamed away entirely. The officer in charge of the day shift relayed the movement he saw within the trees, and barked out orders.

"A party of Rare Goblins – prepare your arrows. We\'ll follow the boy\'s engagement," he said.

Those that had worked with Beam over the last couple of days soon learned that he was most unfamiliar with group fighting tactics – as would make sense, for the soldiers had to be drilled relentlessly for nearly a year before they\'d be competent enough to hold their own as part of an army.

As such, being reserve units as they were, meant exclusively to support Beam, they did not try to command him. They merely based their attacks on working around him, on distracting the enemy as Beam made his attacks, so that he might finish them off more quickly.

The horned goblins made their way from the trees – or Rare Goblins, as the army called them – glancing about nervously. They could see the blood on the floor, and the field of half-melted slushy and muddy snow that the previous night\'s battling had left.

But more than that, their focus was on the meat-scented fire that burned behind that thin wall of stakes. They cast their noses to the air and caught a wiff – the scent of monsters even stronger than they were, the scent of promised power. They began chattering in excitement.

"A hobgoblin as well!" The officer called out, causing Beam to pause, just before he\'d been about to run in.

The hobgoblins were rare enemies, especially on this forest front. Beam wasn\'t quite sure the reason for that, but it was enough to make him pause anyway. They were a little stronger than Konbreaker\'s after all, and the monster that he had the most history with.

But he only paused for a moment, before they could even fully leave the trees, Beam pounced on them.

"ARROW FIRE ON THEIR RIGHT!" The officer shouted, as much for Beam\'s benefit as for the soldiers\'. A cloud of arrows came storming in, just where the officer had said they would be.

Beam hit the party on the left, instead. He could see no archers amongst this party of horned goblins, which in itself was a rarity – but their spears were just as troubling.

Or, they would have been, had the eyes of the goblins not been continually flickering toward the cloud of dangerously approaching arrows. Just that momentary lapse in attention was more than enough for Beam now.

His sword was faster than it ever had been before. It seized on the opportunity. The goblin moved to react – it would normally have taken a combination of attacks before Beam could have overpowered it enough to land the killing blow. But with the arrows, and its delayed reaction, his sword brushed its throat on the first strike and ended it.

He saved the extra movements that he would have wasted on dealing with a single goblin and instead used them to dismantle the entire party.

Three horned goblins had been caught directly in the arrows line of fire. They were intelligent creatuers – intelligent enough to know that arrows were worthy of dodging. Perhaps they even respected the arrows too much, for their own kind used them, and were well aware of the dangers.

As such, long before the arrows could land, they were moving out of the way with almost comical vigour. But in doing so, two showed their backs to Beam – a fatal mistake. It only took a single slash each to end them both – these creatures that would have been so bothersome for the soldiers to have dealt with alone.

"I have to say… watching him go about it like that, making it look so damned easy – pretty terrifying to watch," one soldier said lightly. All he\'d done was fire a single arrow. He hadn\'t even had to move from his post.

The day shift, as such, was becoming rather fought over. Men knew that it\'d be basically a walk in the park, firing arrows all day – every single one of them was trained with the bow, as well as the spear – so they fought to make sure that their shift, if any, was the day shift.