Chapter 478: The Hammer

The Varangians are readying themselves for the upcoming battle while waiting for the troopers to slowly evacuate from the trenches to leave space for the Varangians. In a distance away the cavalries of Abraham and Khalid is still trying to breakthrough the chains of Ottoman anti cavalry defenses and try to approach the hotspot of engagement but getting stopped every time before the curtains of caltrops and Frisian horses guarded with archers. 
Fjodor sat there quietly chewing on a loaf of hardened black naval rye bread donned in a full set of plate armour with the battle club hanging by his side. One of the important element for a trooper in a combat is stamina, and it is a common practice for troopers to eat some of the readily available food to replenish their stamina before a battle in the risk of stomachache and poor digestion. 
As he is eating Fjodor cannot help himself but began wandering whether the Caesar has this false stereotype stuck in his head that all Varangians came from the Slavs in Ruthenia, for he is always assuming traditions from there to the other Varangians according to the Ruthenians like the person who is late must drink a whole cup of wine to repent his mistake, and there should not be a long interval between gulping down the first and second cup. Which is ridiculous considering that he Fjodor is not even more Ruthenia, he is from Scandinavia. 
Just as the leader of the varangian is still seating down there wandering and chewing his full of ergot bread, the last batch of infantry have retreated from the four trenches with only a hundred people left remaining in the hotspots having a standoff with the opponents. It is now the time for the Varangians to jump in.
Fjodor dismissed the messy thoughts that are stuck in his head, got his mind ready and threw the rye bread to his attendant, then hopped down into the trench shutting the metal mask on his face. The Varangians too split themselves into four different groups and started sipping towards the frontline silently. They need no before war speeches or slogans to increase their morales, all three hundred of them are professional soldiers who travelled from seas away to fight here, they know very well about the task they are up for.
Back in the hotspots the troopers are already feeling restless from holding their blade upright and countering the wave after wave of attacks by the Ottomans in this trench that can only at most allow two people to pass through at the same time. They almost had this illusion whereby the Ottomans are countless in numbers, no matter how many enemies they have slain beneath their blades since the start it just felt like more and more enemies are on the way till the point that they are pushed back all the way from their initial point further away from their demolition objectives. 

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The troopers at the front felt their hands shaking violently, they perspired heavily as they try to at least hold their blades upright with the tip pointing towards the enemies. They have been stuck here for almost twenty minutes, their brothers behind tried to use a smart way of climbing up the trenches and assault the Ottomans from the flanks only to find themselves becoming visible targets for the enemy archers, similarly for the Ottomans. The soldier wept the perspiration away from his forehead, he can almost see the grim grins from the opponent's face as they are trying to play around with him like how a predator plays around with its prey. 
But suddenly, he felt that he has been overshadowed by someone as he felt the sky suddenly becoming turning dark as he is being overshadowed by something. The soldier turned back and found a giant who is almost a giant's hand on his shoulder, it is a Varangian behind him. "Leave this to me, young man." The gentle Varangian said behind the openings in his metal mask. "Your job here has been done today." 
The soldier obeyed and squeezed to the back, only to find even more Varangians that are almost reaching the top of the trenches lining up for by one flexing the oversized weapons in their hands. One shall realise how small sized and petite he is when he come across such a group of superhuman that came all the way from the harsh north serving in a foreign battalion, and when they are standing in a relatively narrow trench it just makes the Varangian appear to be even larger in body size casting the most natural form of shock and fright into the mind of human, especially when one is facing him as an opponent. 
Fjodor narrowed his eyes from the sweat flowing down his face staring at the tiny Ottoman soldier before him that looked no higher than his chest and stepped forward. The opponent seemed to have already received the shock of their life as they stepped one step backwards. Fjodor raised the war hammer in his hands to above his head, and swept it down aiming right at the head of the enemy who tried to fend it off with the blade in his hands, only to find his fragile bronze sword getting shattered into two unable to bear the immense force that is coming right at it. 
The war club continued going in its way and clashed onto the head of the Ottoman which has no protection. Then after that the rest of the things became pretty simple, the head of the man is squashed with the reddish white mixture between brain juice and blood bursting out onto the walls of the trenches. But the man is still standing there, his body is still maintaining that posture of raising that broken blade towards the sky, showing that he needs a little more help, and Fjodor is more than willing to offer his good conscious as he gently pushed the remains making it collapse onto the ground.. The man can now close his eyes in peace, if he still has an eye to close that is.

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