The Foolhardies 61 How to Rock

Even with the racket around us, it wasn't hard to hear her as she was somewhere close behind me. In fact, I would have preferred if she kept her voice down a few notches. No sense distracting me while I concentrated on the plan.

"I think they're leaderless, too!" Varda continued.

It was a good call to assign her as a lookout for other Darah soldiers who'd gotten mixed up in this mess between both center armies first and second lines. Dwarves had extra good darkvision.

"Qwipps!" It was my turn to yell.

"What?!" Qwipps yelled back as if he wasn't just to the left of me.

"Get your squad over to the left and gather those stray soldiers. Lead them back to us," I instructed.

"Muddamit! You want us to wade into that mess?" Qwipps had his hand pointed west of us.

I turned my gaze where he was pointing and saw what he meant.

To the left of our encirclement, a jumble of blue cloaked soldiers and grey geared enemies were mixed together in what seemed like a straight forward clash. There was certainly a lot of yelling and screaming going on over there.

I gave Qwipps a raised eyebrow. "We need those men, Qwipps."

Qwipps sighed heavily before nodding his head. Then he yelled for Pike and the rest of his squad to follow him. I watched them charge into the mess of soldiers and hoped they made it back.

Don't get me wrong, I had plenty of faith in Qwipps' Talons. They were veterans of my first command, after all. Still, this was a much bigger battlefield than the ones we were used to.

"Command!" Varda yelled to grab my attention. "More soldiers on the right of us. Looks like they've got no clue what to do."

I gazed right and realized Varda's assumption was spot on. The midnight blue armored soldiers to the right of our encirclement were in danger of buckling to the pressure of the grey mass of enemies they were engaged with. Whoever was leading them was most likely dead.

"Edo!" I yelled at the half-ogre directly to the front of our encirclement who was slaying any Magesong soldier within his reach. "Take a squad and gather those soldiers on our right. Lead them toward us. My team will lead the way."

Edo glanced back at me and yelled back, "What about this side? Didn't you want me to push us forward?"

"Ashley and Luca can handle that!" I insisted. "I need you knocking heads over to the right!"

Edo hefted his glaive and cut himself a bloody path to the right with each swing of his glaive. Enemies dropped like flies to his might, ensuring Ashley's shield squad on that side had some time to breathe before the next push.

"Ashley!" My throat was starting to feel strained by all my yelling. "We need to move forward and past the enemy's third line! We should be free and clear once we're through!"

Ashley rarely responded to my calls. She didn't question. She just trusted me not to get her and her people killed, which meant I could always trust her to quickly relay my orders to her squad.

"Push forward!" Ashley commanded.

There was a collective, "Push forward," from her group, and then I saw the shield squad will themselves forward. Their shields were raised to the front and smashed into the Magesong soldiers on the other side of them. Shadowblade spears cut through padded grey uniforms and sent chilling death cries into the air.

"Dean, I brought Fila with me," Aura said from right behind me.

I turned around and saw the little sprite Fila standing on her shoulder.

"Thanks," I said. 

I raised my right-hand palm up and waited for the sprite to fly to me. Once he'd landed on top of my palm, I relayed my instructions to him.

"Find General Thors, Fila," I ordered. "Tell him that we need him to send his cavalry through the right and left sides of the center armies' battlelines so that the Magesong cavalry waiting somewhere in front of us will be drawn to attack Darah's cavalry. Draw them out and we have a chance to win the field tonight."

His was a difficult task, flying across a very volatile battlefield to relay my message to Thors somewhere behind us, but Fila didn't even hesitate when he saluted me and flew off despite the rain of projectiles filling the sky. I wished all my soldiers were that loyal.

"Even for you, this plan seems reckless," Aura's honeyed voice was full of concern. "Are you certain we have a chance?"

"That's all I can promise... a chance... I saw it when Fool's Insight was activated. The enemy positions relative to ours," I gazed into the eyes of the she-elf who'd been with me since the beginning of my journey into the Fayne. "If Edo and Qwipps are able to bring us more reinforcements. If Ashley and Luca are able to break through this third line. And if Thors is able to draw off the enemy afterward... then we've got a chance."

Aura's eyebrow was raised but there was a smile playing across her face too. "That's a lot of 'ifs', Dean."

I placed a hand on the bracelet she made me. "Trust me?"

The fingers of her left hand played with the necklace I'd given her. "Always."

I nodded. "Stick to my side and get ready to unleash firebolts until we're out of Magesong targets.... we need to break this line."

Aura nodded and raised her staff toward the front. "Ready when you are." Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

"You hear that, Luca?" I glanced down at my brother. "Aura and I are ready. What about you? Got your breath back?"

Luca, who'd been sitting cross-legged by my side this whole time, had been slowly reclaiming his breath which he'd lost due to overusing Foolish Strength earlier.

He rose to his feet and pulled out his broadsword from the ground where he'd stabbed it blade first.

"I'm ready... had to use Second Wind though... can't use it again until another long rest," Luca explained.

"That's fine... I don't need you to go berserk until later anyways," I hinted. "Just make sure you've got enough in the tank to go through the mess in front."

Luca nodded a little reluctantly. "Sure... I expected you'd give me the hardest job..."

"I trust you most of all," I answered hoping to boost his morale.

It worked. I could see the determination in the light of his eyes.

"By the way, Varda," I glanced behind me and found my Quartermaster fidgeting with the hem of her chainmail shirt. "How about some golems?"

The grin that appeared on Varda's face was the widest I'd seen it. She probably didn't want to feel left out as I'd instructed everyone else among the officers.

"Two unstoppable golems coming up, Commander," she said happily.

"Tell Donar to get ready with his flame arrows, too, would you," I said.

Varda saluted me before she ran to her magician's squad on the other side of the encirclement's inner area.

I kept my gaze to the rear of our encirclement which was facing back to the Magesong's second line. "Hey, Thom!"

Thom, who was firing arrows into the rear of our encirclement didn't even deign to look behind and acknowledge me. Was it bad that I was getting used to this insubordinate treatment?

"Clear a path for Qwipps and Edo's groups while we move forward, will you?" I instructed as I knew he was listening. "I want them following right behind us."

Thom's answer was to raise his hand and wave it around. I took this as an affirmative. I didn't have time to debate him on the chain of command.

"Aura, tell our soldiers in the third line to pick up Magesong shields while we move forward. We're going to need them later," I instructed.

"Alright," Aura said.

Immediately afterward, she rushed to the rearmost line in our encirclement and gave out my instructions to the dwarves and elves waiting on standby.

I glanced to my left. "Ready to rock, little brother?"

"Please..." Luca rolled his eyes. "I was rocking hard long before you, Dean..."

This was true. While I liked alternative rock and hip-hop more, Luca was always more into heavy metal. And not the new stuff. He was into the old stuff like Kiss and AC/DC like dad was. It was the one bond they shared that I wasn't part of.

"Lead the way then, little brother," I moved aside for him. "Show me how it's done."

Chapter end