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Chapter 422: The Hammer

Leon glanced around at his unit as he rejoined it. It had been about ten minutes since he had left to bring Baron Gellius’ troops back under control, and in that time, the rest of the Barons and leading knights had gotten the rest of the unit back into a rough formation. It was time for them to push east, acting as the hammer that would crush the rest of the Octavian troops that were crashing against Roland and August’s anvil.

“Get back into line,” Leon ordered Gellius, who was walking right beside him. The Baron glared at him but grudgingly began to shout for his knights and men-at-arms to rejoin the line. Leon was quietly grateful that it wouldn’t require any more persuasion on his part, for the sounds of battle he could hear in the distance spoke to just how little time they had. Even now, Augustine knights and soldiers were likely dying, so Leon’s people couldn’t afford to waste time on petty distractions.

“He’s still an ass,” Alix whispered as the Baron walked away, her voice just loud enough for Leon and Valeria to hear her, but not for Gellius.

“At least he fell into line,” Valeria said.

“Doesn’t make him any less of an ass,” Alix responded.

“I don’t think you’ll find any disagreement here,” Valeria replied.

“Let’s go,” Leon said before the conversation could continue. “This day is far from over.”

The three returned to their previous positions on the right flank, and the giants that had accompanied them rejoined their fellows in the same place. As Leon returned to position, the rest of the Barons and knights of the unit’s leadership made their way over to him to give their reports.

Leon was actually a bit surprised in their actions. First of all, he didn’t think they had the discipline necessary to get a good headcount of their people in the short time he’d been gone, and secondly, he didn’t think they were going to offer up that information without him asking for it. Fortunately, they took the initiative to speak with him.

Their casualties were surprisingly light, more so than even the short time they were in contact with the enemy would imply. Only about a hundred of their troops had fallen, while about four hundred were injured—and of those injured, only about a quarter were debilitatingly so, leaving Leon’s unit with two thousand eight hundred still in fighting condition. Leon could also see that he hadn’t lost a single giant, though more than a few were sporting some new cracks in their rocky shells.

Once the brief reports were over, Leon quickly ordered them to get moving again. The hill had been taken, and now they had to push east into the flatlands on the border of the Southern and Eastern Territories. They didn’t have far to go, though, only about a quarter of a mile through some relatively sparse forest.

The terrain was a bit drier than it was on their initial approach, but it was still relatively hot and humid enough that Leon could see some of the weaker mages in his unit were starting to slow down. Even he was feeling fairly terrible—he was built for the cold and the dry, and all this heat and humidity didn’t sit well with him. Fortunately, it didn’t slow him down as it did for the weaker levies in his unit, but it still made him deeply uncomfortable.

But they didn’t have to go far before such concerns were put out of their minds. A quarter of a mile later, they reached the point they had been marching toward, a place where the trees gave way to a large open field. Upon this field, August’s troops were locked in battle with thousands of their counterparts in Octavius’ army. Leon’s unit had emerged from the forest just south of their position, perfectly placed to hit the Octavian forces in their exposed rear.

However, the armies that Octavius had given Duronius were quite large, and as Leon’s unit started making their way out onto the battlefield and shifting from a marching formation into a battle formation, the back ranks of the Octavian forces had enough people to swing around to face the new threat behind them without taking away from the front ranks too much.

But that still left them surrounded, even if Leon’s flanking unit was small in comparison—both the Augustine and Octavian forces were large enough that they extended well off into the distance, disappearing beyond rolling hills and thin forests.

Leon didn’t hesitate; as soon as his people were in back in formation, he thundered, “CHARGE!!!”

There were no tactics this time. He’d learned that the nobles under his command were impatient and it was best to begin the fight immediately, but he could also see that giving the Octavian troops time to get ready wasn’t in his interests. Best to hit them now while they were still under pressure from August and hadn’t fully adapted to his appearance behind them.

His troops began to advance, and the Octavian knights opposite them began to march to meet them. The ground shook beneath their feet, and Leon could see their lines ripple a bit as more knights and men-at-arms were diverted to face him specifically. He might’ve been a bit flattered, but he doubted it was for him; rather, it was probably to face the giants with him.

“Be careful!” he called out for those around him to hear, but mostly for the benefit of the giants, Alix, and Valeria. “It looks like these guys are more disciplined and experienced than those we just faced!”

“Got it!” Alix eagerly replied as she prepared herself for the oncoming fight.

“I’ve got your back!” Valeria responded to them both.

“Stick together, don’t take needless risks!” Leon shouted back. He could see what was being prepared across the field, and many powerful knights were gathering to counter the giants—and him, by extension, since he was so close to them.

He could hear Alix stifle a laugh, then say, “Sure thing, Sir!”

He glanced back at her. A smile played at his lips, but since they were still concealed behind his helmet, he gave her a quick head waggle to show that he was more than aware of how comical what he just said was coming from him.

The two sides closed with each other much as they did with the previous fight. This time, however, Leon knew it was going to be different. He had no archers, so the moment arrows started raining down on his marching people, his heart almost skipped a beat.

“MOVE FASTER!” he shouted as his people started dropping. “CHARGE!!!”

The Barons were only too eager to comply. The unit’s quick march soon turned into a full-on run as they desperately tried to close with their enemy and use them as cover against further arrows. Many of their comrades were left behind, some dead but most merely wounded, but Leon’s unit crashed into the Octavian army reasonably intact.

The battlefield was already loud with the sounds of battle and death, but when Leon’s unit made contact with their opponents, they did so with a thunderous roar. Part of that was the actual thunder that accompanied Leon’s opening salvo of lightning bolts along with all the other magics that were slung by his side, but another part was the giants tearing into the Octavian ranks. Each giant bore down upon the enemy lines, earth magic skewering their foes in droves, their massive limbs crushing dozens more who didn’t move fast enough, all attacks that fell upon their stony bodies leaving little more than superficial damage.

Further to Leon’s left, his unit fought ferociously, so much so that it was easy to forget this was a civil war. These people were fighting their countrymen, technically speaking, but there was no sign of the same hesitance that led the 2nd Legion to refuse to charge months ago during August’s crossing of the Naga.

Leon himself fought savagely. Anzu darted around, ripping, rending, and tearing with beak and claw so much that while Leon couldn’t use his sword too much in the fight, it also freed him up to use his magics a bit more liberally than he otherwise might. Lightning and fire poured out of him in equal turns, frying and cooking those on either side of his griffin and ensuring Anzu only had to focus on those enemies directly in front of him. Together, they carved a bloody path through the Octavian ranks.

They were only halted when a sixth-tier Octavian knight finally made an appearance before Leon by conjuring a large wave of water to sweep the two of them back into the light cavalry that had followed the hole Leon made in Octavius’ army. However, the water was quickly diverted by some quick actions from Lapis, who brought a stone wall up just in time to protect Leon, Anzu, and all those behind them. Leon noticed the stone giant take a couple of hits from its own opponent for its trouble, another sixth-tier knight wielding a large war hammer, but it hardly seemed fazed by the numerous cracks that had appeared in its legs.

Leon couldn’t very well let that kind of sacrifice go to waste, though, no matter if Lapis seemed to care about it or not. “Let’s go!” he urged Anzu forward, up and over the chest-high wall that Lapis had created, and back into the fray from which they had momentarily been separated.

The water mage that Leon was facing off against noticed and sent a handful of ice spikes to meet Anzu’s movement, but they met an intense burst of fire from Leon, vaporizing before causing any damage to the griffin.

But that still thoroughly infuriated Leon. Those ice spikes had been aimed at Anzu, not at him. That was enough to earn the water mage an impending meeting with death.

In his fury, Leon leaped off Anzu’s back, taking the water mage by surprise. The squaring off of two sixth-tier mages had created something of a gap in the lines as the weaker mages made room for them to fight, and Leon filled that space with as much lightning as he could muster. The moment his feet hit the ground, dozens of small arcs of lightning erupted from his legs, most of it directed toward the water mage but with quite a few weaker Octavian mages around them taking damage.

And the water mage barely even blinked. Leon’s lightning magic surged through him and half a dozen of those at his side, but he stood strong and took it. And once Leon let up a moment later, he launched himself at Leon in the hopes of closing the distance between them. However, his speed wasn’t even close to Leon’s, and when he swung his blade and launched a water blade at Leon, it moved practically in slow motion to Leon’s eyes despite the attack’s incredible speed.

Leon, in a split-second decision, held up his hand and let loose with a great eruption of fire. He could’ve dodged the water blade, of course, but Anzu, Alix, Valeria, and numerous others that had followed him into battle stood behind him, and he couldn’t let the jet of water hit them.

His fire almost wasn’t enough. The water sliced through so much of it that it almost grazed his gauntlet and created a dense cloud of steam between Leon and the water mage, but in the end, Leon remained untouched. Without waiting to lay eyes upon the water mage again, he immediately followed this up by conjuring a lightning bolt in his left hand and slamming it into the ground, creating another explosion of lightning surging through the steam cloud.

A sharp cry from closer to Leon than he’d thought showed that he was correct not to hesitate with his next attack. The steam cloud quickly dissipated, revealing the water mage had fallen to one knee about twenty feet in front of Leon, one leg smoking from lightning burns.

But that sight engendered no sense of pity in Leon. He could sense the water mage’s killing intent still towering and his aura still raging; Leon could tell he was preparing another attack despite his injuries. The water mage’s grit was admirable, but Leon held up his left hand anyway and let loose with a gout of fire that completely enveloped the water mage.

A moment later, the ball of fire exploded with steam, throwing Leon back and causing everyone who was still fighting around them to back up even further or else be scalded. When the steam cleared, the water mage was revealed, though his scale armor had been completely blackened from Leon’s fire and his exposed face was covered in burns.

More importantly, his aura was starting to flag, showing more than anything just how much damage he’d taken. In fact, he had almost fallen back to his knees in pain, and he was clearly struggling to stay on his feet. So injured was he that Leon felt confident enough to glance around him to check in on the rest of the battle.

Just like their last engagement, Leon’s unit had been somewhat stalled in most places. They simply weren’t a force that was special enough to crush their enemies everywhere.

The giants, however, were another matter entirely. They broke clean through the Octavian lines, causing a chain reaction down the rest of the line as Leon’s people exploited the holes that the giants had made. Octavius’ army was crumbling as the giants rampaged through their lines, closely followed by those in Leon’s unit. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed entirely. Once it did, Leon’s unit could link back up with August’s forces and push further east, hopefully driving Octavius’ army from the field.

Leon’s eyes flickered back to the water mage as the man struggled to stand back up. He ripped his open-face helmet off, as it seemed to still be painfully heated from Leon’s fire, and it almost seemed like he was about to continue his resistance.

But the reality of his situation wasn’t lost on him. Even if he hadn’t been able to project his magic senses, it was obvious enough that his people were being pushed back and killed in droves. Even the sixth-tier mage that had managed to injure Lapis had been crushed beneath the giants’ massive feet.

The knight spat on the ground, glared at Leon, and then began to run. Leon almost gave chase until Valeria and Anzu came running up from behind him. Both were covered in blood—Anzu, in particular, had his snow-white fur and feathers almost dyed red from his ribs forward—but neither, fortunately, seemed injured.

“Leon! They’re breaking!” Valeria shouted, and Anzu chirped happily as Leon jumped back onto his back.

“Good!” Leon replied. “But that’s no reason to let the pressure drop! It’s time to end this!”