Infinite Farmer-Chapter 123: Commander

“Save him!” White bellowed. “Razored Spear!”

Razored Spear’s name was accurate. It was a formation that relied on a point of three shield bearers blowing a hole in the enemy line, then being driven along by the forces behind them as the most powerful melee attacks the group could muster destroyed everything to the sides. With the crew of elites they had assembled, the formation was a scary, devastating kind of thing. It wouldn’t leave them in the best tactical position afterward, but there was no doubt it would pierce the enemy lines.

It just wouldn’t be fast enough.

“Necia. They’ll never get there in time. Make a hole.” Tulland knew Necia would come to the line where he was, and she had. “Make it now.”

Necia looked at him for a long second, shook her head, then intercepted a dirt warrior’s attack with her shield counter. It spun back hard from the line, taking the two nearest warriors down with it. Tulland followed the downed enemy with his pitchfork, letting the attack drag him forward before jumping free of the enemy battle line entirely.

By then, the dirt men had stated to rush the wizard’s location. Tulland sprung forward, dropping improved Acheflowers as he did and detonating them behind him to create a wall of toxins that the earth warriors would have to grapple with before moving forward. He sprinted towards the mage, reaching Potter several seconds before the bulk of the dirt men were able to recover.

Archer’s volleys from the human side of things came down hard on the approaching monsters, but didn’t fully stop them. There was limited time before both Tulland and Potter would be in serious trouble if they didn’t move.

“Tulland. You shouldn’t have come.” The scholar mage looked at his own unarmed hands, then towards the enemy troops. “Now we both die.”

“Not yet. Come with me.” Tulland plunged his pitchfork into the downed dirt mage, who was just starting to get its bearings back before the Farmer’s Tool blew it up into a pile of loose soil. “I have a plan.”

“A good one?”

“A plan. I meant what I said. Now come on.” Tulland grabbed the mage by the arm, which was surprisingly easy to accomplish. He really didn’t seem to have many points in his physical stats. “We need to hurry.”

“Where?”

Tulland almost threw the scholar into the high grass the dirt mage had emerged from, then scrambled forward himself.

“Turn right now,” Tulland yelled. He heard the mage shift, and scrambled forward several steps before changing direction. “Now forward again.”

“Why are we zigzagging? Ah, arrows. I see. Yes, that might keep them off of us. But where are we going, Tulland?” Potter asked.

“First, we are mostly just going away from the line. If the dirt men keep chasing you, White will take advantage of that. Hit them hard from behind and take them down. The longer we can make it before they catch us, the more they can make of that.”

“But they will catch us eventually.”

“Maybe. That’s the second thing. This is a commander versus commander battle, right?”

“Right. Which is why I was targeted, I suppose.” Potter yanked his robe clear of a thorned weed, then continued running. “If I had realized, I would have had countermeasures ready. It was foolish of me.”

“What’s done is done. I’m just trying to figure one thing out, now,” Tulland said.

“What?”

“Where’s the commander?” Tulland asked. “I’ve seen swordsmen, archers, and that mage. Killing the mage didn’t cause any disruption in their ranks. That means the commander is still out there somewhere. If we can find him, maybe we can take him down.”

“Just us? I’m not sure how I like our chances.”

“I’m a little stronger than you know about, right now. Plus, I’m guessing you have some moves you haven’t shown anyone. So get talking.”

Potter thought about it for a long time as he shuffled along in the dirt, then got to spilling the beans. It was about how Tulland had thought it would be. Everything he had seen from the scholar so far had been the kinds of things the mage could do that were most relevant to big, group fights. That didn’t mean Potter was out of other tricks, although Tulland suspected none of them would have worked very well to get him back to the right side of the human battle lines. Potter wasn’t selfish that way, at least as far as Tulland could tell. He wouldn’t have put others in danger if he had his own solutions for his own problems.

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“Nothing yet.” Potter stuck his head very slightly above the grass line. “And it looks like you were right. White is taking full advantage of the enemy forces being out of formation. How are we ever going to find the commander, though?”

“I have an idea about that. Keep your eyes on the pursuit for a minute or so, okay? Let me know if we need to move again.”

Tulland had never commanded his Chimera Sleeves from this far, or given them this complex of a command before. He hoped that something like “go and search for some guy in this general direction” wasn’t beyond them, but he wouldn’t know until they tried. He could at least feel something happen as he sent the command, some sort of magical acknowledgement of delivery.

“What’s going on?” Potter asked after a minute worth of random escaping.

“I’m having my vines search. They just got into a range where I can sort of feel where they are. They have orders to attack anything out of the ordinary, but just enough to flush it out. After that, it will be up to us.”

The vines continued searching the tall grass ahead of them until one of them suddenly stopped. Tulland had no clear confirmation that it had found something or what it was even up to until suddenly the sensation of the vine being under his control stopped entirely.

“Something got it. Over there. I’m telling my vines to crawl back to us.” Tulland pointed to their front right.

“Won’t that lead it to us?” Potter asked.

“That’s my thinking. So get to it with the magic already. Go all out.”

Potter’s hand flared with light.

“Are you sure? If I do that, we’ll only have one shot. If you miss…”

“If I miss, we’ll have to run anyway. This is our best bet.” Tulland set his Farmer’s Tool down on the ground. “Now get to it.”

“All right. Blade of Knowledge, activate.” Potter laid his hand on Tulland’s pitchfork, and the glow started to transfer from his palm to the head of the weapon. Slowly but surely, it got brighter and brighter. “This will take a few more seconds.”

“That’s fine. Just keep it up.”

“Where are your vines, by the way? They aren’t back yet?”

“No. I had them stop about ten yards in front of us and bury themselves in the soil.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“Just an idea. Let’s see if it works. How long is that pitchfork going to stay shiny?”

“A few minutes, unless you use it first.” Potter picked up the pitchfork and put it in Tulland’s hand. “Are you sure you can hit? It’s good for one strike. Only one.”

“I have a good feeling. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

Tulland and Potter sat quietly after that, just waiting for their enemy to make a move. A minute passed in silence.

“Not much time left. Are you sure this is going to work?”

“No! Of course not.” Tulland gripped his pitchfork. “He might not come at all… oh, no, there it is.”

In the distance, his Chimera Sleeves were asking for permission to strike. He told them to wait. From this close, he could sense even small changes in their position. He was waiting for them to move the slightest bit downward before he sent the next command. Once they did, he pushed everything he could into that one instruction, sending whatever magic he could with Primal Growth to give them as much power as possible.

As one, the three remaining Chimera Sleeves that had coiled themselves under the soil all burst upwards like springs, pushing towards the sky with all they were worth. Tulland sprung upwards himself, not waiting for his eyes to focus on the flash of movement he saw, before tossing the pitchfork like a javelin with all the force he could manage.

The commander tried to get out of the way. It really did. Tulland watched the big, nasty muscle-bound earth warrior twist in the air like a contortionist, doing everything it could to avoid what it probably thought was a spear. He managed to actually get out of the way of one of the tines, but the other two caught him in the belly. Tulland’s aim hadn’t been that good to begin with, but he had a feeling the pitchfork would take care of some of that problem for him. It had outdone his expectations, correcting in midair somehow and veering left to hit.

Once it did, a weird hell broke loose. From the point of contact, what looked like scrawled words started to pour out of the wounds, as red as blood and in a language Tulland had never seen before. Where they raced across the surface of the enemy, they scoured its flesh, leaving deep lines of char where they crossed before constricting inwards.

“It won’t work.” Potter looked frightened. “It’s strong, and dirt doesn’t burn well. We need to…”

The Chimera Sleeves finally finished flying through the air as Potter talked, and came down hard on the falling enemy, driving him into the dirt. Tulland ran forward, hucking every Acheflower he had left while bringing his Clubber Vines out of storage to help.

He didn’t end up needing them. The Acheflowers didn’t seem to work all that well on the commander, but he didn’t seem to know that before they hit. The moment’s distraction they provided let one of the Chimera Sleeve circle around, puff up, and close over his head before he could disengage from the other two vines or the pitchfork through his gut.

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When Tulland got to him, the combination of the spell, the stabbing, and the vines had done significant damage. With the magic fully over, Tulland was able to twist his pitchfork inside of the dirt man and pull it out in his usual ripping motion before transitioning the weapon into a hoe and coming down hard on his exposed neck. It took five shots to do the honors, but they were five shots the dirt man could do absolutely nothing about.

Tulland took a deep breath as the monster fell apart, then heard a cheer in the distance as whatever effect its death had on its forces became known.

“Let’s get back. See if we can’t pick off some stragglers before it’s all over.”

Potter nodded slowly, and they began to sprint back towards the battle proper.