Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.77 (192) (Patreon)

“Alright you lot, listen up! I need any of you who were part of combat units to head over here, gear up, and form up on me. I mean RIGHT NOW!” yelled the sergeant in charge of the support unit Mike was currently attached to.

Happy that he was done shoveling dirt, he slammed the head of his shovel into the ground and stretched his back with a sigh. Glancing around the hole, he saw several other men and women doing the same. ‘What a shame. How will they ever finish this without us?’ he thought sarcastically.

He climbed out of the massive grave he and the others had been digging and saw the sergeant already sending replacements. One thing Dorchester never lacked was criminals.

‘At least I won’t have to be here when they fill the hole with whatever is left of the kobalds after processing,’ he thought with relief.

He’d seen what was left after they were stripped, skinned, deboned, and dumped into tubs. The memory alone made his stomach churn. Although he’d known about the many uses of kobalds, seeing sentient beings stripped for their parts was nothing short of disturbing. ‘Although, most necessary things are,’ he thought as he recalled his time in his father’s butcher shop.

Forcefully banishing the ‘pit of despair’ behind him to the furthest reaches of his mind, he focused on the fact that he was returning to the battle… most likely to create more work for the processing teams.

He jogged over to the wagon and grabbed a workable sword belt, complete with its pre-sheathed weapon. Next, he went looking for a solid shield. He’d learned his lesson about dual-wielding against kobalds. It simply wasn’t worth it. Fighting the little bastards wasn’t a test of skill, it was one of endurance.

After strapping on his gear, he looked around to see if he could replace any of the armor he’d been forced to part with when joining the support teams. Unfortunately, there apparently wasn’t enough time for anything more than the basics as he heard a mounted sergeant start shouting out orders for them to form up.

Rushing over to join the poorly assembled formation, he noticed the other sergeant who’d been leading the support team shaking his head in pity before turning away and returning to his work.

‘Well, this is surely going to be good news I bet,’ he told himself sarcastically.

“My name is Sergeant Conner. You’re being assembled to perform an envelopment maneuver in approximately 30 minutes. If you want to get credit toward your service debt, you must sign in to the battle-hub under Temporary Division A003. If you do NOT sign in, then you will not be considered an active participant. If you do NOT know what an envelopment maneuver is, ask someone next to you while we form up. You WILL stay in formation, follow orders, and kill the enemy. There will be no questions. Now follow me,” he ordered, before harshly yanking his horse’s reigns and riding off.

The man’s pace required them all to jog in order to keep up with him. But, that didn’t stop several panicked voices from discussing what an envelopment maneuver was. Listening to them all spout ridiculous theories and guesses, he could only assume none of them had any formal training… or even bothered to read a damn book.

Fed up with the nonsense he was hearing, he condescending shouted, “An envelopment maneuver is where you let the enemy in, surround them, and kill them. For the sake of all the heavens, it’s not planar shifting you morons!”

Receiving nothing but grumbling in response to his ‘help’, he ignored them and focused on getting mentally ready to return to the battle. He’d learned that fighting a war was drastically different than hunting. It required keeping his head down, his mind clear from any distractions, and stubbornness… lots of stubbornness. ‘In war, it’s not about killing, it’s about survival,’ he reminded himself.

Before long, he found himself grouped up with other pseudo-soldiers who he assumed were other members of the penal forces. Their poor equipment and uniform weapons made it clear that they weren’t the army’s finest. He took his place in the line alongside them, only two paces from the first man in the formation. ‘Oh great, I get to be near the front,’ he congratulated himself sourly.

As the seconds ticked by, more and more penal soldiers arranged themselves behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see them all formed up in lines 10 or twelve deep, and he could only hope his new ‘combat unit’ wasn’t the bait for the envelopment maneuver they were performing.

More time passed and he watched the defenses develop into a massively large rectangle just waiting to be filled with kobalds. When he saw the horde finally slam into the front lines, the realization that he wasn’t going to be sacrificed as an incentive filled his heart with gratitude. The tide of kobalds broke against the poor bastards like a sledgehammer and he could only watch with pity as they tried to organize a retreat. ‘Hopefully, command at least had the decency to let the poor bastards know to retreat when the kobalds charge in force. Otherwise, they don’t stand a chance,’ he thought grimly.

A minute or two later, he saw support being sent in to save them. Mounted cavalry rushed in to blunt the kobald assault and allow for whoever was left to possibly survive. The awe-inspiring sight was almost enough to rekindle his dwindling faith in Dorchester’s nobility.

Suddenly, his attention was pulled by an idiot raising himself onto a constructed pillar in order to get a better view of the battle. While he could appreciate the sentiment, he wondered what kind of dumbass would impair the integrity of the line with a 5-unit tall pile of mud, just so they could watch good men die for a tactical advantage. Narrowing his eyes at whoever was on top of the pillar, he couldn’t help but feel like they were someone he should recognize. They looked very familiar, but he just couldn’t place them.

Hearing the sounds of the battle change, he looked back over to the front line to see what was happening. His jaw dropped in shock as most of the cavalry pulled back and retreated, leaving the struggling soldiers on the ground to die. It was honestly the most callous, calculated thing he’d ever seen. ‘Well, if whoever is running this war wants the kobalds to think they’re winning, that ought to do it,’ he thought to himself.

Looking between the retreating horses, he could see that at least some of the cavalry had ignored their orders and stayed to fight. ‘Only commoners have the luxury of nobility. The nobles are too busy with their schemes to bother with it,’ he reminded himself, quoting something his father once told him.

He could feel the men and women around him shuffle their feet and squirm in discomfort as they were forced to watch those brave soldiers die. No one said a thing, yet everyone knew what they were witnessing… It was a sacrifice just as evil as what the kobalds had been doing since the war began.

The uncomfortable silence was shattered by a young but powerful voice shouting, “What the fuck are you assholes doing! Are you just going to leave them to die you fucking cowards!”

Mike’s face paled in fear as his head whipped around to stare at the young lord on the pillar. He recognized that voice. That’s the Little Lord Walker! The Smiling Death! The target he never should have dared to face! The man who’d stuck him to a tree with his sword and ripped his life apart! The hells be damned nightmare was standing right there.

Not knowing how to react, he froze in fear and just stared at him. The most terrifying young noble he’d ever met suddenly looked nothing like the idiot on the pillar he had thought he was just minutes before.

The very skies themselves opened up to bathe Lord Walker in shafts of sunlight, and the shields above his head shimmered in appreciation of the warrior they had the honor of protecting. Like an avatar of humanity’s might, he stood tall with his hands on his hips, looking every bit the manifestation of righteousness while glaring imperiously at the traitors to humanity’s civility below him. The sense of condemnation and resolve seemed to roll off him in waves, and Mike was positive that he was not the only one affected.

Mike’s heart started to race, and he didn’t know whether to cheer or pray to all the heavens above for salvation as he knew for a fact that things were about to get crazy.

—--

Nero was righteously pissed. This whole thing stunk of politics. Assholes in power sent good men and women off to die ‘for the greater good’ while they sat in their air-conditioned offices and accepted praise from other assholes who screwed over different people in their own imaginative ways. It was everything he hated about humanity on display for all to see.

But, what could he do about it? Hundreds of men and women were about to die, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it. Even if he ordered his wackos into the fray, what hope did his small group have compared to the thousands of kobalds running roughshod over what remained of the front line? Those bodies were lost, and every second that passed saw more souls being lost to the higher planes. He didn’t have a chance in hell of saving them, right?

Something in Nero’s gut bubbled up like acid reflux. It was a fire he hadn’t felt since before he decided to join the noble war. It was exactly like the moment when he saw those mercenaries smack around Lord Cosgrave’s daughter. The inhumane cruelty was not something he could just stand by and watch. He had to act. He NEEDED to do something.

Furious, he looked around for options. To his left and right, he saw scores of soldiers lined up, just waiting for the kobalds to come into the trap. They were all staring at him for some reason. Hundreds of people were looking up at him with shock. The fact that he had their attention suddenly gave him an idea. He could pull a ‘Spartacus’, or whatever it was called.

Turning around fully to address the soldiers, he raised his hands out to the side and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Men and women of Dorchester, hear me! I don’t know what plans the nobles have that require those soldiers to die, but I will not stand for it. We are not pieces on the board to be sacrificed for their vanity and greed. We are citizens of Oglivarch, and we stand united in purpose. Together we stand against the terrors of the wilds, and the forces of chaos that do all they can to tear us down. But, like our walls, we are unbreakable! Are we just going to stand here and watch our brothers and sisters die? I say, NO! We are going to fight and claw our way through those bastards and recover who we can. Not a single human life will be sacrificed in the pursuit of this war. If we are going to die, then it won’t be because we abandoned each other. We do NOT leave our men and women behind. We stand together! Follow me, brave soldiers of Dorchester, and let’s remind those cowards running this war what honor and integrity look like!”

Like a madman, Nero ripped his sword out of his sheath and held it up like a torch. With every ounce of his will, he tried to channel every single movie cliche he could think of while shouting, “For Dorchester! For Oglivarch!”

He was nearly blasted off his feet at the response he heard. As one, everyone around him raised their weapons and shouted at him with all of their might, “FOR DORCHESTER! FOR OGLIVARCH!”

The ether around him roiled in anticipation of what they were about to unleash, and Nero couldn’t stop himself from shaking. His mind was just as turbulent, and he felt like he was riding the moment rather than controlling it. Without thinking, he felt himself turn and dismiss the pillar he was standing on. The resulting drop was enough to cause his knees to creak. It was enough to almost bring him to his knees. But, somehow he kept his balance and quickly stepped out in front of the lines to take his place at the head of the army.

In the distance, he could see the front lines failing, as more and more men and women were being brought down by the kobald horde.

Gritting his teeth at the savagery, he raised his sword and screamed, “For Dorchester! For Oglivarch!”

Once again, the response was massive, and the soldiers behind him roared “FOR DORCHESTER! FOR OGLIVARCH!”

Barely recognizing that he had started running, Nero felt himself screaming out some unintelligible war cry. Behind him, he felt the soldiers matching him. He ignored some connection trying to reach out to him through his link, and for a brief moment, he wondered what command must be thinking about his gambit. Their charge must have looked like the stands emptying at the end of a football game upset. It was exhilarating and nothing short of the adrenaline rush he’d been chasing.

The distance between the fighting shrank quickly, and suddenly Nero found himself jumping into the fray like a madman. He quite literally JUMPED into the fray. Like an idiot, he leaped at a 7-foot-tall kobald and speared him in the chest with his sword, dragging the bastard down while screaming incomprehensibly.

All around him, he felt the soldiers slamming into the kobalds like rocks against a glass house. Despite there being some of the larger kobalds among the assault, most of them were just the little guys. They didn’t stand a chance against a full-sized human coming at them at a run. It was a bloodbath… Literally.

Nero felt doused in blood and gore as the kobalds around him were ripped apart. The humans were just as capable as kobalds when it came to savagery, and they were introducing the kobalds to their darker impulses… in excruciating detail.

Climbing off the dead kobald below him, he hacked and slashed whatever lizard he could find. It was no controlled melee, or organized assault, that was for sure. Yet, he could see that any human body found was being passed back through the lines and protected by those around him. Even in the middle of their insanity, the soldiers had enough humanity to remember why they were here.

Nero’s attention was brought back to the battle by an errant slash cutting into his side. The pain was enough to shock him out of his madness, and he looked down at the kobald who’d injured him in shock. Although a quick backhand strike to its neck was enough to put it down, it wasn’t enough to regain his sense of invincibility, or lack of self-awareness. ‘What the fuck am I doing!?!’ he yelled at himself.

He mentally cast a healing spell while he kept fighting, having gotten very good at combat healing while under Cathleen’s tender training. The sights and sounds of the melee going on around him caused his head to swim. ‘This was a stupidly bad idea,’ he chided himself.

But, he had to admit… they were winning. Somehow, they’d pushed forward enough to collect some of the human bodies. While they were torn apart, they might not be beyond saving. Now, the only question was how to get these dumbasses to organize a retreat and lead the kobalds into the trap?

He wasn’t on their command channel, and he’d muted his link. He couldn’t just ‘order’ them to retreat, could he? Nobody would hear him.

Part of his mind worked on the problem while most of his attention stayed on the kobalds in front of him. Slash, parry, stab… he worked like a machine. It was like he was back in the ring with Cathleen. No shield, just technique and determination. ‘Why the fuck don’t I have my shield out?’ he screamed at himself, before pulling one out from his personal space.

‘Why am I fighting like an idiot?’ he wondered.

Trying to take deep breaths, he maintained his combat awareness. He began fighting smarter, his mind slowly adapting to the situation and calming down. It took a minute, but his senses finally began clearing up. He could feel himself disconnecting from the weird mob mentality that was being supercharged by the overlapping essence fields around him. ‘The sense of community being a real thing here is fucking dangerous,’ he reminded himself.

Deciding that it was time to regain some control over these morons who’d followed him into battle, he let himself fall back into the crowd of soldiers behind him. He was quickly replaced at the front of the fighting, and he found himself surrounded by tall soldiers forcing their way forward. He was small enough to be ignored, and all he could see was shoulders and backs.

Now, having a moment to think, he focused on the problem. I have to get these idiots to retreat, or whatever plan was in place is going to be ruined.

Figuring he didn’t have a better idea, he focused hard and spread out his essence field like a scoop. He needed his mage armor, and he needed it not to suck for once. While closing his eyes and letting the mass of humanity bounce him around like a pinball wasn’t ideal, it was necessary.

He felt the essence compress against his skin and clothes. He could even feel that he’d collected potential from all the death going on around him. It was a heady feeling that he struggled to keep under control. Nevertheless, he eventually corralled the essence into what he wanted. He reached out with his center and connected to it. With his ironclad will he forced it to become what he needed. ‘Protect. Defend. Secure. Shelter,’ he repeated over and over again in his mind.

He felt the shield manifest and he let his awareness retreat while keeping part of his mind attached like a cord to the shield. ‘OK. I get why they call it an essence shield now,’ he thought, annoyed at how his brain chose to conceptualize what he was doing.

Opening his eyes, he felt his awareness return to the present. He found himself still surrounded by soldiers, being carried along by the wave of humanity he’d unleashed.

With a sigh, he decided that it was time. He cast his pillar spell and rose himself up into the air, the soldiers around him having to adapt to the sudden earthen pillar thrusting itself up out of the ground. He immediately felt several people faceplanting into it, stumbling to a stop in shock around it. The spell was surprisingly difficult to cast with how many essence fields were interfering with it.

He looked over the battlefield, quickly determining that they had indeed made it back to the lines, and paused the kobald’s assault. He could only hope that they had collected the bodies and were getting them resuscitated like he’d planned. Thinking back, he barely recalled what his speech had actually entailed, and he wasn’t sure he even mentioned collecting the bodies. ‘Whatever… it doesn’t matter,’ he told himself. ‘It’s still time to get the hell out of here.’

Now that he was raised up like a target, he saw the kobalds in the middle of their horde taking notice of him. He immediately raised his shield to hide behind while the enemy spears began slamming into it.

Shouting as loudly as he could, he called out, “Alright! We got what we came for! Everyone pass along orders for an organized retreat! Fall back!”

He didn’t get a response, and he had no idea if anyone was even paying attention to him with all the chaos going on all around them.

Right as he was about to try again, he felt a spell flying toward him and he peeked out from behind his shield to see a kobald 20 feet away pointing at him with hate in his beady little eyes. The line of fire heading his way burned through his essence field like a knife through butter, and he felt it coming for him like an arrow. ‘Well… shit,’ he thought, right before the spell slammed into his shield and launched him off his pillar.

He landed on top of some soldiers who were kind enough to gently lower him down from his crowd surfing. As he was a teenager, he was small enough for them to manhandle him relatively easily, and the damage to his pride was worse than what happened to his shield. He muttered a brief thanks and looked down at his warped and melted shield with a grimace. ‘That could have gone better,’ he thought.

Yet, he noticed that their forward progress had halted. In fact, it seemed like they were actually backing up. After a few moments he was positive… they were retreating. Not only that, they were doing it with some level of organization. He felt himself smiling widely at the realization that his plan had, in fact, worked. His idiotic hap-hazard plan had actually gone right for once. It was a miracle on par with the successful marketing of the iPhone.

While his thoughts raced, he kept staring at his ruined shield, letting himself be pulled along by the crowd around him. ‘How did spells affect him while everyone was in melee? Shouldn’t the overlapping essence fields make that incredibly difficult? Wasn’t that the point of the big ass shields above their heads?’ he wondered.

Suddenly, the answer came to him in a flash. He’d separated himself from the melee. More than that, he’d separated himself from that sense of community he felt with everyone around him. Big groups required big spells… he knew that. Casters stayed at a distance so they could attack essence fields without being disrupted by essence bleed-through. That’s why casters were in the back and had to attack from a distance. It was also why it required war mages and skilled casters to fight in large groups.

It all came down to a battle of wills. Mages had to keep their center controlled while being in the midst of battle. They needed to separate themselves from the melee and concentrate on casting. He had thought it had to do with maintaining their centers, but it was more than that.

He recalled the war mage, Howie, casting spells and ripping apart kobalds while staying in the center of the formation, constantly maintaining his distance. Nero realized he was keeping himself separate from the essence fields… attacking the kobalds from a distance with his own essence clear of any influences. The required distance made the overhead shields become a factor.

But, what if he kept himself mentally separate while staying near the front of the lines? Wouldn’t he bypass the kobald’s overhead protections? Granted, he’d need a hell of a lot of center to overcome THEIR overlapping essence shields… but did that matter? He had plenty of potential lying around in the ether from all their death. Why couldn’t he put it to good use? As long as he made it ‘look’ like they were normal spells, how would anyone know unless they were a mage, and they wouldn’t be out here anyway.

Grinning like an idiot, he slowly carved his ‘acid barrage’ spell form and fed it the remnants of the souls in the ether. He felt it collect the needed essence for its spell from the strands of essence around him like a sponge. He held up his hand and let loose a barrage of acid balls, arcing in a short hop over the top of the fighting.

It took a little focus, but his perception field showed him the results of his efforts. Just like he’d hoped, the packed-together kobalds were like fish in a barrel and his shots covered tens of them in acidic pain and misery. It took an enormous amount of potential to overcome their overlapping fields, but it was worth it. It was both disgusting and wonderful in equal measure.

He could still feel the subtle desire to rejoin emotionally with everyone around him, but he held himself back and continued to focus on his casting. It was surprisingly harder than he thought it would be. Between maintaining his mage armor, which he was keeping up due to how well he’d made it and the ever-present sense of community bearing down on him, it was taking all his concentration to maintain the clarity of thought required for his casting.

As the crowd carried him along, his entire focus was on keeping his center under control, maintaining his spells, and dealing death to the enemy.

Before long, he felt himself come to a stop, and through his perception field, he realized that they were back where he’d started. Some ‘way’, some ‘how’, they’d successfully retreated back to their original position. The kobalds were continuing their assault, still thinking they were somehow winning while being wiped out by the hundreds.

He couldn’t see what was going on with the other sides of the rectangular trap, but he could only assume everything was back on track and the plan was progressing as it should have. All in all, everything seemed to have worked out perfectly.

‘Now where the hell did I leave my wackos?’ he thought to himself.