63 The 300 (1/2)

I turned to the willowy framed pixie standing in front of a group of unrecognizable Darah soldiers on my left and asked, ”How many did you get, Qwipps?”

”About a hundred and five,” he answered with a scratch of his head. ”Survivors from two different hundred-man units... muds!”

I nodded appreciatively. He'd done his job despite his complaints and we now had another hundred soldiers to back us up on our foolhardy quest.

Next, I swiveled my head to the right where the massive half-ogre was standing in front of another batch of blue armored soldiers. ”And you, Edo?”

”A hundred and fifteen reinforcements. Mostly remnants of the center army's Hundred-Man Dash Kadash unit...” Edo jerked a thumb at his back. ”Their commander, Kadash the centaur, was murdered by an elf before we could rescue them. I made sure he was avenged.”

Hearing the menace in Edo's voice was enough to convince me that the elf who'd killed my fellow hundred-man commander had died very painfully.

Edo turned his thick neck around and gestured for one of the twenty centaurs in the group to step forward.

”This is Xanthor Xor. Kadash's Quartermaster and the only remaining officer in their unit,” Edo explained.

Xanthor Xor was a tall brownie-skinned young man with an athletic build from the waist up with the white coat body of a stallion from the waist down. The short curly hair on his head was the same type of pearl white as his tail hair. He had deep gray eyes, a long and aquiline nose, and pale lips which were set in a very toothy grin.

There was an audible metallic thump that came from his chest when Xanthor Xor slammed his right fist on his bronze breastplate pinky first.

”Yo, Commander Dapper!” he saluted. ”Thanks for sending your peeps over to save our hides back there...” He exhaled a long breath from his nostrils. ”Everything went crazy as soon as our leader got done in... It was intense.”

I raised an eyebrow at the word peeps but quickly let it go as I knew how fairies easily picked up slang from Mudgard. Some fairy historians even believed that the common tongue was born due to constant interaction between humans and the fay.

”You're welcome,” I returned his salute with a fist to my own chest plate. ”Listen, Xanthor, I need you to make sure your soldiers keep up with mine.”

Xanthor Xor neighed loudly. ”For sure. We got you covered, sir!”

”Right...” I did my best to keep my eyebrow from rolling my eyes at him.

I glanced over to the remaining Foolhardies next and took note of how tired most of them looked. It was clear from their haggard faces and in the wear and tear of their equipment that they'd struggled each step it took to get us to this point.

A wave of appreciation for my soldiers washed over me, and not for the first time did I think that the Foolhardies were getting stronger. Even if there were less and less of the original hundred with each passing engagement.

”Hey, Luca,” I turned to my brother and asked him the question I always hated asking. ”How many did we lose so far?”

”Um,” Luca's brow furrowed. This was a telltale sign that he was making a quick calculation in his head, and was always the reason why I constantly beat him in poker. Eventually, Luca answered with, ”Almost twenty. At least five casualties from Ashley's squad...” Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

”Mudammit,” I hissed .

Ashley's Shield squad was the linchpin of the next stage in the plan. Losing even one of them now was a blow to our chances of success. Still, at least we were able to secure about three hundred soldiers total for what came next.

”Give the order to pass out the shields we gathered to Foolhardies soldiers only... the newbies won't know what to do with them,” I ordered Luca.

He nodded. ”Yeah... sure... but... what about our dead?”

It was never easy counting our dead. With each conflict more and more of us died, and every time that happened, I felt like something had just stung me deep in the chest. How was a fifteen-year-old like me supposed to cope with the wright of that responsibility?

I sighed. ”We'll bury them later... right now... we have a job to finish.”