The Foolhardies 63 The 300

"About a hundred and five," he answered with a scratch of his head. "Survivors from two different hundred-man units... muds!"

I nodded appreciatively. He'd done his job despite his complaints and we now had another hundred soldiers to back us up on our foolhardy quest.

Next, I swiveled my head to the right where the massive half-ogre was standing in front of another batch of blue armored soldiers. "And you, Edo?" 

"A hundred and fifteen reinforcements. Mostly remnants of the center army's Hundred-Man Dash Kadash unit..." Edo jerked a thumb at his back. "Their commander, Kadash the centaur, was murdered by an elf before we could rescue them. I made sure he was avenged."

Hearing the menace in Edo's voice was enough to convince me that the elf who'd killed my fellow hundred-man commander had died very painfully.

Edo turned his thick neck around and gestured for one of the twenty centaurs in the group to step forward.

"This is Xanthor Xor. Kadash's Quartermaster and the only remaining officer in their unit," Edo explained.

Xanthor Xor was a tall brownie-skinned young man with an athletic build from the waist up with the white coat body of a stallion from the waist down. The short curly hair on his head was the same type of pearl white as his tail hair. He had deep gray eyes, a long and aquiline nose, and pale lips which were set in a very toothy grin.

There was an audible metallic thump that came from his chest when Xanthor Xor slammed his right fist on his bronze breastplate pinky first.

"Yo, Commander Dapper!" he saluted. "Thanks for sending your peeps over to save our hides back there..." He exhaled a long breath from his nostrils. "Everything went crazy as soon as our leader got done in... It was intense." 

I raised an eyebrow at the word peeps but quickly let it go as I knew how fairies easily picked up slang from Mudgard. Some fairy historians even believed that the common tongue was born due to constant interaction between humans and the fay.

"You're welcome," I returned his salute with a fist to my own chest plate. "Listen, Xanthor, I need you to make sure your soldiers keep up with mine."

Xanthor Xor neighed loudly. "For sure. We got you covered, sir!"

"Right..." I did my best to keep my eyebrow from rolling my eyes at him.

I glanced over to the remaining Foolhardies next and took note of how tired most of them looked. It was clear from their haggard faces and in the wear and tear of their equipment that they'd struggled each step it took to get us to this point.

A wave of appreciation for my soldiers washed over me, and not for the first time did I think that the Foolhardies were getting stronger. Even if there were less and less of the original hundred with each passing engagement.

"Hey, Luca," I turned to my brother and asked him the question I always hated asking. "How many did we lose so far?"

"Um," Luca's brow furrowed. This was a telltale sign that he was making a quick calculation in his head, and was always the reason why I constantly beat him in poker. Eventually, Luca answered with, "Almost twenty. At least five casualties from Ashley's squad..." Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

"Mudammit," I hissed .

Ashley's Shield squad was the linchpin of the next stage in the plan. Losing even one of them now was a blow to our chances of success. Still, at least we were able to secure about three hundred soldiers total for what came next.

"Give the order to pass out the shields we gathered to Foolhardies soldiers only... the newbies won't know what to do with them," I ordered Luca.

He nodded. "Yeah... sure... but... what about our dead?"

It was never easy counting our dead. With each conflict more and more of us died, and every time that happened, I felt like something had just stung me deep in the chest. How was a fifteen-year-old like me supposed to cope with the wright of that responsibility?

I sighed. "We'll bury them later... right now... we have a job to finish."

And finish it we would. Even if I had to use every ounce of brainpower I could squeeze out of my head. My dead soldiers deserved no less.

Eventually, we'd reformed the mess of Dara soldiers into something that vaguely resembled a three-hundred strong force.

Ashley's Shield squad was positioned at the very front. They'd been supplemented by twenty halberd-wielding Foolhardies who now carried the grey shields of fallen Magesong soldiers.

I too carried a bronze shield in one hand so I could lead from the front.

Luca's Raiders and Qwipps' Talons were right behind our squad. Luca's unit, which was being led by Edo and was positioned to the left, also place shield carriers at the leftmost position. Qwipps' talons had the same shield-wielding pixies at the rightmost position of their lines.

Behind their units was the thirty-man drow squad led by Thom. They had two jobs. Support the rest of the unit as our archers, and once the opportunity presented itself, glide up to the sky so they could rain destruction down from above.

Last but not least, the two hastily constructed hundred-man squads were positioned in ordered rows at the rear. Luca led the soldiers Qwipps brought in. Varda stood beside him as his second. Aura led the group from Dash Kadash with Xanthor as her second.

In order for her to lead them effectively from the front, I had Aura ride one of the female centaurs in that unit. She didn't want to at first because she claimed the centaur might find it insulting, but after I pointed out that no matter how fleet-footed elves were she wouldn't be able to catch up, she finally relented.

As I glanced behind me, I could see Aura fidgeting on her seat. She was definitely uncomfortable. The centaur carrying her seemed equally uncomfortable. But at least she wasn't trying to buck Aura off her.

"Why do you look so amused, Dean?" Ashley, who was standing beside me, had just finished inspecting her steelbark shield for dents. She'd found none. "You realize we're about to wade into two thousand enemies, right?"

I turned my gaze toward the square formation of Magesong soldiers in front of us.

"Technically, we'll only be going up against five hundred... maybe a thousand at most," I explained.

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "Only?"

I patted her on the back. "Don't worry too much. It'll be fun."

"Fun?" Ashley's other eyebrow rose too. "You are such a strange boy, Dean Dapper."

She was right about that. I was just a boy. What business did I really have leading soldiers on a battlefield like this one? Well, it was either this or run home to Mudgard and wait to hear the news that Luca had died in some alien land.

I sighed. then turned around to gaze at the mass of soldiers behind me, most of whom were much much older than me.

"After we broke through the thousands of enemies behind us, all I could think of was how proud I was of all of you... I would rather fight beside you than any other force in the Fayne no matter how big..." My voice filled with more and more emotion after each word. "To have endured and struggled and come out of it stronger... that's what Foolhardies do."

There were no cheers because it would have been stupid to shout and grab the enemy's attention now. But all their eyes were focused on me—and in them, I saw fear and hope mixed equally.

"Before us lies the head of an enemy general," I explained. "Our chance to claim the biggest reward in tonight's battlefield!"

"What about the soldiers surrounding him, muddamit!" someone yelled from the middle of the formation. By the tone of voice, I could tell it was Qwipps.

"That's nothing to soldiers who've already faced thousands," I insisted. "We only need to kill three enemies each!"

There were a few laughs at my answer, and I could feel the tension died down. It was just like Qwipps to give me opportunities to lighten the mood even when he didn't intend to.

"It's time to show our enemies the quality of the Foolhardies," I ordered. "Let's go to war!"

Chapter end