Chapter 213 - Losses

When the first group of soldiers began to climb the mountain with their shields raised, Erean couldn't help but click his tongue. He already could see all those bolts killing less than fifty enemy soldiers, but despite that, he gave the order.

"Fire!" Erean shouted.

Zaos and the others made bolts rain down on the enemy soldiers. Still, just as expected, few of the projectiles were causing any real damage. The vast majority were just hitting the shields.

"We are wasting our time here, Captain," Zaos said. "We need to go there and make the enemies lose their defense and focus on us. If we carry some of the crossbows, they will be forced to choose between being hit from above or being hit by the front."

Erean hesitated for a moment. It was a bit too soon to send soldiers down the mountain, but even though they will need some time to follow the path that we once used to move the ores down the hill, it wouldn't belong. In the end, Erean could see the enemies overwhelming them with numbers… unless they use some diversion.

"All right, Drannor will command up here," Erean declared. "Half of the soldiers will come with me and annoy the enemies on the paths."

"Hey, I can help too," Drannor said.

"We will focus on slowing down the enemy. Hence I am bringing the big guys with me," Erean said. "Just focus on giving the correct orders if the situation changes."

"... All right," Drannor said.

Truth to be told, Drannor would rather be in the very front lines, but he knew that the battle wouldn't end so fast, so it wasn't a bad idea to conserve some of his energy.

Zaos, Erean, and some guards began to move down the mountain in two lines since the road was just too tight. Not to mention, the rain made their feet pretty unstable. After just a couple of minutes, they got close enough to the enemies, and then some arrows were fired toward them, but Erean repelled them with his sword. Fortunately, the archers didn't have the chance to fire many others, probably because Ameria took them down with her crossbow.

Once they reached the midway point of the mountain, Zaos finally could see the enemies in front of him, and then he dashed toward them like a mad bull. Naturally, the enemy soldiers put the shields in front of them. They moved their spears to hit Zaos by using his own charge, but with a single swing of his sword, he made their spears fly down the mountain, and then he used all his might to strike down the shields. Despite their heavy defense, two soldiers felt the arms cracking, and as if that wasn't enough. Even though Zaos didn't break their defense, he made them fall down the mountain as well. Soon after, Erean approached and then broke two of the enemy's spears before stepping forward and let one of his men attack the two enemies in front of them with a battle hammer. That was weird. Zaos didn't see anyone with a battle hammer in the group.

"Don't dash by yourself, dumbass," Erean said. "Remember, our goal here is to be a diversion."

As soon as he said that, some bolts fell right on the enemies in front of them, and then Erean's man picked the big shields and used them to block the few arrows that were about to hit them. It was hard to swing his sword with someone as big as Erean on his side, while he only had to draw the enemy's attention. Again, Zaos was sick of tired of waiting and playing smart. That didn't solve the problem until now, so it was time to try brute strength.

There was a certain type of attack that Zaos could use even in tight spaces like that, so he didn't waste time using it. Zaos assumed his Ox guard and then began to hit the enemy's shields. While his range wasn't as big as the spears, he easily dodged them by moving to the side a little bit. The blow of his attacks made the enemies stagger and then hit his allies behind. With that technique, Zaos could stop their advance completely. Still, then it happened, since he was drawing too much attention, some unseen enemies were targeting him. Three Wind Swords flew toward Zaos's head, but Erean reacted on time to block them with a shield… not before he could stagger and almost fall above Zaos.

"Thanks, Captain," Zaos said.

"How many times do I have to say this…" Erean said and then sighed. "We are here just to draw their attention, not to eliminate the entire problem ourselves."

Zaos turned around and then noticed that he was the only one who was attacking and who didn't have a shield that had been dropped by the fallen enemies. In the end, he just shrugged while looking at Erean. It wasn't like he was too prideful to use a shield. It just didn't felt right at that moment…

Little by little, Erean pulled Zaos backward, and then the enemies advanced. Zaos knew why he was doing that, but it was annoying anyway. After retreating for several minutes, Zaos finally sighed in relief when some rocks began to fall over the enemies and crush their heads. At the same time, even more, enemies were getting hit by bolts. When the enemies tried to protect their heads in front of them, they were hit by the bolts fired by Zaos's group.

"Now… this is more like it," Zaos said.

The enemies got confused, they couldn't protect themselves if the bolts came from two directions, and thanks to that, they lost time and their lives while they didn't know what to do. Dozens of enemies fell dead in the blink of an eye, but then it happened. Some of the enemies fired their crossbows, making the projectiles fall in an ark. Thanks to that, some of the soldiers in the Zaos group were caught off guard. One of them got heavily wounded, and two of them lost their lives.

"Shit…" Zaos clenched his teeth in annoyance since every single soldier of their size was just too valuable.