Close Quarters

"Good, their lines are faltering. Make use of this. Charge in the reserves as well." Edward ordered.

"Reserves! Move out!" Orders rang through the field. With that, dozens of men left their post approaching the fray.

As for the men that have broken through, there was almost no resistance, which stopped them. With every passing second, they were getting deeper and deeper into the ranks of the enemy positions.

Confidence extruding from them, various shouts were heard from attacking soldiers, "We can do this!" They are no match for us!"

However, not every soldier who attacked felt as confident as the rest were. Especially the seasoned fighters. They had similar thoughts as they were pushing through, 'This doesn't seem right. It is as if they put the weakest soldiers here on purpose.'

As the reserves were starting to push forward, the fear of the veterans was indeed true. The push gradually started to slow down, before coming to a halt. The line was now rather overstretched and met stiff resistance. The eyes of one of the veteran soldier shot open in shock as he shouted from his longs. "It's a trap! Get out of here! Turn back!"

However as the flow was still pushing forward, it was impossible for the group to turn around at his point. They were pinned down between the elite soldiers of the Herewealth soldier, from the front and sides. Their only exit was blocked by their allied troops, who kept on pushing forward, as they did not realize what was going on.

From a distance, the face of Edward also turned dark, as he started to observe the situation closer. The only location where the line got broken was in the middle of the enemy position. However after a moment, the progress halted. He now realized what was going on. 'No wonder that they were faltering so easy, in the middle. Why haven't I noticed this before? It is such an obvious trap, and I walked right into it.'

Grinding his teeth, Edward gave a new order with a bitter look on his face. "Tell the men to turn back gradually. As for the other lines, try to push forward and save the ones that are deep into enemy lines!"

"Sir? What do you mean? Isn't the battle going good, we need to push further!" One of the knights replied in a rather confused expression. Why would they not monopolize on such an advantageous position? And even turn back? The knight did not notice that he was actually speaking back, against his superiors.

Furious, Edward shouted out, "It is a damned trap! Don't you notice something so obvious?" What angered him, even more, was that the soldier was just standing there in confusion, instead of following his orders. He was wasting precious time, which could save a few extra men. "What are you standing there? Spread my order already!"

Snapping back to his senses, the knight turned around and started to convey the order of Edward.

Galloping closer to the side of Edward, James spoke up in a confident voice. "Sir… I will go in. If we wait any longer like this, we will lose a lot of men. I cannot allow more unnecessary deaths over something that I started."

"No! I will not allow it, you are th…" The moment he turned his head to look at James, Edward noticed that his eyes were filled with resolve. There was no point in stopping him at this moment. He would go, no matter what. What he did now was just inform him about his decision. Seeing this, the only thing Edward could do was give a nod and reply in a soft voice, "Don't do something reckless. Come back alive, we still need you in this fight."

Nodding a farewell, James turned around his horse and started to gallop towards the field where the clashes were happening.

Rushing over the location where the men pushed through, the sound of sword clashing became louder and louder. It started to resemble a busy blacksmith, who was forging several hundreds of swords. However, the only difference now was that there were occasionally also shouts in pain, or some last words being shouted out.

Blood flew through the air, as the swords were swinging back and forth, making contact and forming sparks. The battle looked gruesome. However, not striding from his goal, James rushed forward with his horse at full speed to make it to the gap, before it was too late.

As he arrived at the rear of the group. There was no easy way to continue on forward. "Make way! Make way!" he started to shout to the soldiers who were blocking the way at this moment.

As the soldiers slowly started to spread and make way, James slowly started to enter the gap, making his way towards the forefront, where the fiercest battles would take place.

…