Chapter Eighty-Five Hastings! Dare You Fight?

With a thunderous crash, the shield in Xia's hands shattered at once into dozens of pieces. Shards of iron flew outward, even severing the heads of several Byzantine soldiers on either side.

Xia fell from the sky and slammed heavily into the ground. The muscles in both his arms burst open in several places. When he sprang back to his feet, he spat blood, shook his head hard, and then a ruthless glint suddenly lit his eyes. He shoved aside Sleyt, who had rushed to support him, snatched up a spear, leaped onto the raised platform, and cast his gaze into the distance.

As though by some fated design, he saw that tiny black figure at the very rear of the Odin formation. He saw that man standing alone, while the Odin soldiers around him kept their distance.

Xia's eyes turned scarlet. He stepped back several paces, then used the momentum of his run-up to hurl the spear with a roar.

Hastin stood there, watching a gray blur burst from behind the camp gate and streak through the sky toward him. He did not move an inch.

With a deafening blast, the spear landed more than ten paces away from Hastin. Two Odin warriors raised their shields, yet in the roar they were pierced through. The spear struck the ground and exploded into more than a dozen fragments.

Hastin casually wiped away a droplet of blood that had splashed onto his face.

"Not bad strength... hm. The aim, though, was a little off."

A trace of heat appeared in Hastin's narrow, feminine eyes. "A fine one. Very strong indeed. Hah... ha ha ha..."

Though this Odin god of war was smiling, his gaze grew colder and colder. Yet that thread of madness in the coldness only stirred a faint fear in the hearts of the guards beside him.

Hastin picked up another spear and took a breath, just about to throw again, when he suddenly heard several strange sounds.

The mechanisms of a few catapults. Several huge stones were launched and came hurtling down toward the place where Hastin stood.

Boom! Boom! When the stones fell into the crowd, cries of agony rose at once. More than ten Odins were smashed into pulp on the spot, and the impact of the stones as they hit the ground knocked dozens more nearby flat.

Xia stood within the camp, looking toward the place where the stones had landed. He panted heavily. "Damn it... you think I'm comparing aim with you? I was only testing the catapults for range and landing point..."

After about an hour, the first Odin assault finally ended. Behind the camp palisade, bodies were piled in several places into slopes of corpses. It was easy to imagine that when the Odins attacked again, in some spots they would not even need ladders; they could simply climb the bodies and rush over the wall.

"We... may not be able to hold through a second attack," Sleyt said with a bitter smile.

The first assault had left nearly a thousand Odin corpses behind, as if the attack had finally been repelled. Yet both Xia and Sleyt were weighed down by dread.

Their own losses were not small. At least five hundred warriors were dead, and dozens of severely wounded had already lost their fighting strength and been carried to the rear. Their combat power had been thin to begin with; the camp could field only about two thousand men. Now, in one stroke, a third of them was nearly gone.

More importantly, the dead and wounded from that first round had been battle troops. Of those remaining, half were auxiliaries who had only just taken up arms: transport men, craftsmen, grooms, drivers, and even cooks.

Seeing Sleyt's bitter smile, Xia said nothing, only lowered his head in thought.

At that moment, another horn sounded from the Odin side.

Sleyt's brows jumped. "That's their muster horn! When the horn stops, the formation will be assembled... and then the second assault begins!"

Xia rested for a while, his arms wrapped in white cloth, though the strips had already been stained red with blood. He grinned through the pain, sucking in cold breaths, and a look of utter resolve flashed through his eyes. "Maybe... I have a way to buy us a little time."

He glanced into the distance, then suddenly smiled. "Do you remember General Rabbit Ruhl?"

He stood up and placed a hand on Sleyt's shoulder. "Whatever happens, even a single moment of delay is worth something now. Maybe the next moment... the general and the others will charge back!"

He picked up a spear and slowly walked onto the platform.

A red gleam flashed in his eyes. With a sharp cry, the spear tore through the sky and shot forth like lightning, landing with a boom in the middle of the battlefield.

That thunderous impact instantly drew the attention of many eyes from both the Byzantine soldiers behind the palisade and the Odin ranks.

The spear planted itself in the earth, breaking into several pieces, and the blast kicked up a cloud of dust.

A loud, booming voice rolled across the entire battlefield:

"Hastin! Dare you fight me!"

That ringing challenge stunned the entire field.

On the Byzantine side, soldiers atop the palisade turned in unison to look at Xia and Sleyt standing beneath the camp gate.

Sleyt's eyes widened. He stared at Xia in astonishment and grabbed at him. "Have you lost your mind..."

Xia shook off his grasp and waved lightly.

Sleyt bit his lip. "You're going to your death! I know you want to buy time by challenging Hastin to single combat, but that man is Hastin! The Odin god of war! He could even be called the strongest man in the Odin army. You... this is suicide!"

Xia snorted and walked to the camp gate. Facing the distance, he raised his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Hastin! Dare you fight me fairly! Are you a coward? Can't you even answer!"

The Odin formation fell silent. At last, a hoarse voice drifted from afar.

That voice was not especially loud, yet it carried across the entire battlefield, clear to everyone.

"A duel on the battlefield?"

Hastin spoke Byzantine with remarkable fluency, his tone cold. "I accept your challenge, Byzantine."

Xia laughed aloud and drew in a deep breath before bellowing, "Good! Then I'll wait and see just how formidable your Odin god of war is! I have eaten my fill of battle fare... let me prepare a little... yes! We'll wait until after noon! At midday, I'll be waiting for you on the battlefield! I'll come out alone! And if you're afraid, you may bring more of your men!"

Beside him, Sleyt sighed inwardly. Who said this fellow was a brute? He even knows how to use provocation.

Sure enough, Hastin's voice seemed to give a cold laugh. "Rest assured, we shall duel fairly. I also want to see what kind of man in the Byzantine army would dare challenge me."

Sleyt sighed again. Brave, certainly brave, but far too forced... Even General Adrick would be powerless to challenge Hastin, wouldn't he...

"State your name, Byzantine warrior!" Hastin's voice carried a note of pride.

Xia grinned, straightened his back, drew a deep breath, and roared out in the most heroic, most magnificent, most fervent voice he could muster:

"I am not afraid to tell you! I am First-Rank Knight Bonfret of the Byzantine Empire! On the battlefield, I will personally cut off your head, Hastin!"

At those words, Sleyt's first reaction was a sudden darkness before his eyes.

His second reaction was: Damn it! This brat is shameless beyond belief!

Xia jumped down from the platform and sat heavily beside Sleyt. Sleyt gaped at him, eyes wide, lips moving, yet facing this utterly shameless boy he found himself unable to say a single word.

Only after Xia sat down, took up a waterskin, and drank a few mouthfuls did Sleyt finally speak with a mixture of laughter and tears. "You... you... ah, you really are..."

Xia glared back, then said with complete righteousness, "Me? What about me? That man is the Odin god of war, the number one fighter in the Odin army! Am I really supposed to duel him? That would mean my brain had rotted away and I'd be throwing my life out for nothing. I haven't lived long enough for that yet!"

"But... but you issued the challenge publicly. Once noon passes and Hastin comes out to fight, what then?" Sleyt asked.

Xia chuckled, stroking his chin. "Isn't that simple? We'll drag out that pretty-boy knight of ours, open the gate, and give him a kick out the door! As for whether Hastin kills him or not, that has nothing to do with me... Besides, he's the Inspector-General! The supreme commander here! If he doesn't fight, who does? If it really comes to single combat with Hastin, and we line up according to rank from the top down, even you would be ahead of me. How could it possibly fall to a little soldier like me first?"

With that, Xia lay down on the ground, stretched himself out, and rested to recover his strength. "Whatever the case, I've bought us almost half a day, haven't I? That guy Hastin wants to show off his great bearing. Before noon, he won't attack us..."

"And you?" Sleyt could not help asking. "Don't you have any bearing at all?"

Xia pointed at his own nose. "Me? Look at me from head to toe. Where exactly do I look like a strong man? Right now I'm just a little soldier! Even if I want to be a great hero someday, I at least have to survive this ordeal first. Otherwise, before I become a hero, I'll already have become a ghost."

Sleyt stared at him, took a breath, and finally gave a strange smile. "I suddenly realize... you really are shameless."

Lying there, Xia slapped him once. "Fine! I'll take that as praise."

Then he closed his eyes.

Looking at this rustic fellow, Sleyt suddenly felt he could not quite see through him.

Then he heard Xia mutter to himself in a strangely feverish tone:

"I won't die. I absolutely won't die. And if I am going to die... it won't be here, and not now."