"Stand firm! Push against the shields!" Jack yelled as he braced for impact with his troops.
The reptilians numbers had been boosted and clashed yet again against the shields of his common troops.
'They will break through if I don't do something! It's not just trash troops we are facing now!' Jack realised this.
The reptilians had been boosted with a large number of common ranked troops.
His troops stood bravely, holding their shields against the onslaught.
"Lord they broke through on the other side of the wagon!" Cochi suddenly yelled.
'Fuck! It's too dark I can't see anything! These reptilians have a huge advantage with their clearer sight in the dark...'
Jack rushed on top of the wagon and withdrew his 'Bow of the wild'.
The scattered fires and civilians with torches, showed him a seemingly endless wave of reptilians clashing against his now fever troops.
On the side were they had broken through, a lot of his common troops lay slain.
His 100 riders he had held back tried to close the hole, but the reptilians kept rushing inside.
'It won't be long before we are overrun!' Jack took aim for the center mass and poured every bit of spirit power into the bow and arrow.
The air around the arrow began to spin and grow until a large vortex of rushing air spun before the arrow, making Jack and his bow tremble.
"Get out of the way, hurry!" He yelled.
The troops who heard him quickly moved out of the way.
Swooooosh. BOOOM!
He had released the arrow and the sheer force of it sucked the reptilians in its passing with it, and they flew many meters backwards, taking a lot of wind-damage in the process.
When the arrow had pierced a number of reptilians and hit the ground in the dark, it exploded in a forceful blast that made a crater in the earth.
"Hurry, Close the gap! They are coming back again!" Jack ordered instantly.
Rumble rumble rumble.
'Shit! There must be thousands of them! Maybe I should just escape, there is no way I'm getting captured again!'
Jack almost froze in fear of the though of being back in the cage and Sha'ri dragging him back into her hut...
But to his extreme relief he now witnessed the power of the High Horses!
Blackmane had charged directly to the blast area, continued directly into the encircling reptilians and scattered them completely from that side of the wagon.
Jack could now directly witness the high horses war contribution.
Their large heads could one-shot trash troops simply with a charging head-butt.
Their bite could tear off an arm and their kicks where so powerful that reptilians flew many meters into the air, with broken skulls or bone!
"Cochi! Get the riders to the horses!" Jack quickly whistled for Blackmane and he proudly appeared before him.
Mounting blackmane, Jack felt a rush.
"Chase them all over the rivers, paint them red with their blood!"
Jack and the riders let the high horses senses guide them as they slaughtered every reptilian in their path.
'Damn these beasts!' The one armed female reptilian snerred.
"Retreat to the outpost!" She yelled.
She realised that they no longer held the advantage. Somehow Sha'ris human had out-witted her ambush and she was furious as she ordered the attack.
She was not used to order retreats, maybe this time she would loose her other arm!
'I have no choise! We have to retreat... If we hurry, we can launch another attack in an hour! I can't let him get away!'
She watched with her night vision how those spear- and swordmen at the wagon had now created a single frontline.
The troops she had sent to the backside had all been killed.
But nothing bothered her more than seeing the horses naturally track her common troops in the dark, enabling the warriors upon them to spear them down.
Or maybe something should have bothered her more...
In the next second she saw her own body standing without a head, and Jack on Blackmane rushed past her, his sword drawn.
'Where did he come from! Bastard!' Was her last thought.
Jack continued to chase the reptilians far into the morning.
When he finally returned to the wagon, the sun had spread its light and he could clearly see his surroundings.
78 high horse riders remained.
56 common ranked spear troops and a handful of archers and swordsmen remained.
Of the civilians, most were still waiting near the wagon, at least he had managed to save almost all of them.
The grass and small hills were littered with corpses of both humans, horses and reptilians.
The water in the small rivers truly ran red, with all the blood that naturally flowed into them.
"Cochi! Send word to the garrison, and to Ben the riding instructor. I want 5000 troops and 500 horses here before noon! We came to do a job and I want you to finish it. Today!"
Jack barked this order, and Cochi immediately charged towards the garrisons and lake-town with half the riders.
'So they want to ambush me? let the skirmishes begin!' Jack thought with a crazed smile.
The herd of giant cows had left during the night, but he could still see them much further to the south, near the Bloodfall Mountains.
'I will give you this Sha'ri... I truly have been too careless. Scouting around in my territory ends today!'
Jack realised that he had been too laxed in his progress.
Yes he had done a lot of work, but this was war.
The enemy actively tracked him and tried to retake him.
And they would do so again!
And again!
Jack realised he could not afford to relax even one bit least he be captured again.
'I really thought I could take my time to build up and fortify... How naive!'
Annoyed by his own, nearly fatal mistake, he walked 50 meters away from the remaining troops and civilians near the wagon.
Here in the middle of the small rivers he created a stone platform with his ability.
50 meters wide and 50 meters long.
He then surrounded the area with wood walls and upgraded them to stone.
Then he created a stone gate and 4 wall-towers. One in each corner.
Inside he created a Garrison and three houses, which he upgraded to common rank.
Now this tiny 'castle' could support 10.000 troops and 60 civilians, and function as a southern forward base.
He intended to use this base to safeguard the area and capture all the giant cows here.
The also knew that somewhere on these southern grasslands, there should be a herd of wild horses.
He still remembered seeing them near the cows when he first appeared near the small lake.
The wagon, civilians and troops had quickly relocated inside, and Jack now watched as 5000 trash troops from the garrison marched towards him.
The vanguard of the troops, Cochi and 540 riders, made it to the outpost before the walking troops.
Jack ordered them to begin catching cows.
He had already made many holding poles for them around the area.
So they could easily bring a cow back, leave it her and quickly return to get another.
From here, Jacked watched from one of the wall-towers.
The large river in the middle of the peninsula were about 50 kilometres to the north.
The Bloodfall Mountains were about 100 kilometres to the south, and the cows roamed in the grasslands between here and there.
Even if Jack could not directly see it, he knew that the large lake in the center of the peninsula, were about 150 kilometres further ahead to the east.
'There is only about 30 kilometres back to lake-town... Sha'ris territory must be must larger than I realised from my time as a captive.'
In Jacks mind he knew that he had control of the tip of the peninsula.
The Black Mountain, the forest and the area up to the small lake.
The lands from here an to the large lake yet seemed wild, but he knew that during the time of captivity, Sha'ri could have claimed much of the vast territory to the east, bordering the paths to the mainland.
'That lord mission is truly important. I need to claim the 'Dilato fields' if I want to have a real chance!'
Even if he had a million gold coins each day, he knew that he could not summon troops faster than the summoning portal allowed.
He didn't know just how rich in resources the eastern lands were, so facing the possibility that Sha'ri could have summoned the maximum number of troops for more than 300 days...
'I could be facing an enormous army at any time' Jack suddenly felt a creeping sense of doom.