The Battle Of Titan's Desert

Chapter 5

The journey since the hunt was rather pleasant. The men were overwhelmed with joy over the last day. They were not far now. Some of the men with more keen eyes were even able to spot the walls.

They were somewhat slower since the hunt having to cart around their kill, they were, however, full of food and energy and were able to keep going. They were having much shorter and fewer breaks.

The men were happier than they had been all week. It felt like all that misery had finally paid off. With real food and grandiose ideas of this walled haven they were headed.

The rest of the journey had been going well, Daron took a minute to look back at his men; content, loyal and healthy.

Nearing the town and well within the safety of it's outskirts Daron believed now was the perfect time to start with some training. With previous experiences proving an attack could come at any time and with the men only just being in a trainable state now was the perfect time.

He ordered his men to stop and to make camp. The men obeyed but not without visible confusion.

"Commander, why do we stop? The town is within our sights?" Asked Bamu in his strange Andolese accent.

"I want to train for a few hours, make sure the men know to prepare for training drill." Daron replied in his assertive commander voice he sometimes puts on, on the rare occasion that he remembers he is actually the commander of an army; or at least will be.

As the halted camp were told of the training reactions were very mixed. Some men were actually happy about the news; knowing the men needed some better training. Others... They just wanted to get to the town but they still understood, there was no proper argument against Daron's decision.

The seven men formed a line for role call. 'Bald' Torin, 'young' Bamu, 'Eagle' Laqi, 'Spectre' Maku, 'Pikeman' Doma, 'Troll' Korvar and 'Guard' Palim. Daron felt like this would be the last time he would be able to refer to them as their nicknames.

The men all stood in their line very quickly and professionally, Daron was surprised. Korvar stood out amongst the rest of them. He hailed from the snowy mountains of Skjoldar. The heat was unbearable for him; he had adjusted somewhat but not enough for him not to tell everything around him about his frustrations.

Daron paired all of his men together trying to get as many Ansolese and Non Ansolese to fight as they can. He put Torin and Laqi together, Maku and Korvar and Palim and Doma. He wanted to spar with Bamu; the youngest and least experienced personally, to give his some fair one on one.

This was when Daron was able to really appreciate the variety in his little band of warriors:

Torin stood there with his hand axe and large shield as was Bamu with his two curved daggers, holding them with a unsure type of confidence. The other Ansolese; Laqi, Maku and Doma stood with much more conviction with their Sabres and Doma holding his spear on his shoulder as if he has had it since birth.

Korvar and Palim stood there as near polar opposites. Korvar towered above all brandishing his gigantic broadaxe. With his wild mane and untamed beard he really represented his home.

Palim was a different story. He was the epitome of trained, coming straight from the guardhouse to Daron's retinue. He was however, trained yet inexperienced and that could be seen in how he held his weapon; he held it at a good angle but with awful grip, as if it was a wooden training stick.

And so the training started, the men got into their pairs as they picked up their training equipment and got in stance. They were eyeing each other looking for weaknesses, waiting. Suddenly, on their commanders orders the sparring started.

The fighting was very rusty, from all of them. They hadn't trained properly yet and were all from different backgrounds of fighting. They all jelled well together, however. Korvar charged like a raging bull, his training stick raised high in the air. He brought his weapon down with all his might to realise he had hit sand. Confused he turned around to see a stick come straight for his face; it was too late. With a mighty loud crack Korvar went flying to the floor. The embarrassment filled him up, his northern blood boiled and he felt battle-fury rising. Before long his eyes stretched open, he grabbed his stick and leapt off the ground. The giant bearded man readied his weapon; eyeing his target and launched himself. 

This was a sudden shock for Laqi and before he knew it he was dodging fast heavy blows all over the place. They weren't stopping at all; constant and with full force Korvar seemed to have energy in abundance. Laqi's stamina however was wearing thin. He couldn't keep this up forever. All it took was one moment, one mere moment in time for Laqi to slip up. Getting tired Laqi did just that and wasn't able to see one of the attacks coming his way.

The tables had turned and now it was Laqi's turn to fly. And fly he did, higher than he realisticly should have. The group gathered around him to see if he was ok. He looked pretty bad with quite a large bleed on his left temple.

"Remind me never to go to the north." Laqi said jokingly as he sat up, a collective sigh of relief went around the camp. He was pulled up again and sent to rest in the tent for a few minutes. Training had stopped there and they got a little bit of lunch before they got ready for the city.

Training had gone well, Daron felt like most of his men had defnitely benefitted and were able to both really work on their technique and practise safely on an actual opponent; it gave his men a good rush.

Over the next hour after finishing their food the camp had been all packed up very quickly. The men were eager to get the the city as they wanted to be within the city walls and all sorted whilst they still have daylight. The men had heard all manner of rumours of what the desert at night can do to you if you are unprepared; they had heard worse things yet of cities in the dark hours...

Before long they were mobile again and it didn't take long for their little convoy to reach the giant sandstone gates of Ansol. The monolithic gate doors let out a mighty roar; which shook every man to his core as they slowly opened up revealing a vast busy town centre right before their eyes.

They were finally here...