With the killing of that man, that Yarmdon commander, there had been such a swell of ecstasy that he'd hardly been able to contain himself. Panic hovered where that emotion arose, for Beam knew it did not belong to him. Ingolsol once more arose to the surface, and delighted.
"Despair..." He heard that word over and over as a whisper. He'd shouted it the moment Beam had claimed Kursak's life. The sweet shock that had been in the young man's eyes. The regret, and those faded dreams. Ingolsol had drunk them in greedily. He'd ached in irritation as they were forced to wait.
And now that same urging pushed him towards the other side of the battlefield, where the roars of an angry giant bellowed out once after the other.
"KURSAKKKK! YON VIG! KURSAAAAAAAAAAK!"
They came again and again, like the repeated gusts of a storming wind. Beam did not understand the language, but he read a challenge from it. There was a mighty man over there – he wanted to test his sword against him.
But as his feet moved in that direction, Beam felt a hand on his shoulder. His sword was already moving, even before his head turned back.
"Tolsey..." He realized, his blade stopping before the man's neck.
"Hold the position, boy," Tolsey said. "We will collapse on this side without you. They still have another commander in reserve. He's likely to join the fray now."
Before he could make out the meaning in Tolsey's words, Beam felt the same emotion that he'd been feeling all day. That dreadful emotion of uncertainty. It beat an irregular rhythm on a deep drum, one that purposefully was out of sync with his heart. All the regrets of the day that he'd failed to reconcile assaulted him. It was all he could do to keep from falling over.
"NOVA!" Came the reply from Jok, but what he really meant was "about bloody time."
He began to give his orders immediately.
"FALL BACK!" He shouted. The men that had been hanging around without purpose near the edge of the trench fell back only too willingly, leaving the bodies of the dead behind. Even from a distance, Jok had seen Kursak fall. Even now, he could see where his body lay.
The scene had struck a bitterness in him. It was enough to wipe the smile off his face, the smile that usually came with the battle thrill. His eyes were on that boy that had appeared from nowhere. The boy that the enemy commander had evidently been trying to hide.
"To be able to kill Kursak in just one swing..." Jok found himself muttering. Even if was a surprise attack... No. Surprise attacks could not overcome an overwhelming difference in strength. If that boy had done the same attack on Gorm, then he would have been split in two before he could even begin to swing his sword.
Besides, Jok had felt it. He'd felt the boy's aura. It was a complicated thing, unveiled for even a moment. He wondered if the enemy felt it – if they knew its dark and twisted depths. If they did, he wondered why they were fighting alongside him.
Whatever the reason, Jok knew they were in trouble.
Gorm was locked in battle with that Stormfront commander, but he didn't look as though he was going to make his way past him anytime soon.
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It was clear to Jok that Gorm was evidently the stronger man, but the distance between them was not enough for the fight to be easy. The Stormfront commander was holding on with all the resilience of a weasel, Jok thought – and with a commander that favoured tricks and strategy rather than brute strength, that likely meant he was winning.