Count Boles stood beneath the command banner at the center of the army, his face cast in iron, though the hand clenched around his reins had begun to tremble, veins twisting across its back. His gaze repeatedly weighed the balance of the battlefield.
On the left flank, where that patch of silver armor stood, lay the point under the greatest pressure and in the greatest danger. Charlotte's figure was like a stubborn little boat battling amid raging waves, struggling fiercely within the enemy's black tide. Her silver armor was already smeared with blood and scored with scratches. Every swing of her sword, every block, every evasion tugged at Boles's heartstrings.
He was still waiting. He had to wait. Wait for Gustav to throw in those last "elites" who posed any real threat—clad in mismatched armor and armed with sharp blades—as though placing a gambler's final chips upon this flesh-and-blood grinding mill.
Only once they were thoroughly mired in a deadlock with his infantry, with all their attention, strength, and fighting spirit firmly sucked into the frontline's brutal war of attrition, could the iron hammer he had hidden beyond the hills—Sir Friedrich's heavily armored cavalry—launch a fatal charge from the flank and rear at the perfect moment, with thunderous force, smashing and crushing the core of this festering tumor in one stroke!
Bandits, especially Bandits like these, swept up with countless desperadoes and opportunists, could not simply be driven back. Like locusts, they scattered only to gather again. Only by exploiting their arrogance and impatience here, by wiping out every one of their backbone elites, could Hevenham gain true peace.
Yet the cost of waiting was dreadful.
Although he had prepared for the worst in advance and spread his formation as wide as possible to prevent encirclement, the enemy's nearly endless