[color=goldenrod][i][h2][center]Gerard Segremors[/center][/h2][/i][/color]

They were [i]right there[/i], reeling from the first charge. One more would break the line entirely, scattering them like the threshing winds of a storm...

A grimace, teeth baring themselves upon a tight jaw, had made its way to his face without his knowledge— revealed to him as he felt his lungs draw the chilly night air through the grate of bone. Like a starved wolf, ready to pounce upon hapless meat...

[color=goldenrod][i]And no knight.[/i][/color]

He drew in another, deeper breath, this time through his nose. More than anything, he wanted to make good on his plotted assault, to play the role he'd hammered into himself for years—

[color=goldenrod]"Phew."[/color]

And more than anything, he saw the wisdom in Fleuri's words, and knew that he was right. In the beginning of it all, this was the exact reason he ceded his action to the more tenured knight. He held the same aggression in his training, the same zeal for cutting down a wicked foe and pressing an advantage for all it could be worth— but his head was yet cooler, and his mastery of himself far more complete. That man's mind was finely tuned for knighthood even in the heat of the battlefield, in ways Gerard wondered his own ever could be. Tempering himself like this was one such.

And that made it paramount.

He cast his gaze anew to the scene before him as his fellow rode off, and saw what he hadn't before. They had reeled from the first pass, yes, but were now rallying, bringing their spears to the fore and tightening their ranks. Had he swept them up in another run then, he would have himself been caught in a net of their spears and shields. They were still within a relative near position to the treeline... and well beyond the primary objective. If their vanguard caught caught extended so far from the center, others could push in from either side and penetrate to the inner lines. They were encircled already— it'd only be a matter of time that them pushing out and detaching would weaken both resultant groups of the knights. This was how you lost a defense point.

And [i]that[/i] was what this was.

Protection, not Assault.

[i]"We don't want the Boars to separate us from her."

"Do not overextend yourselves."

[color=9e0b0f]"It's important to think, even in the face of a storm."[/color]

"Cool your [u]head[/u], Segremors, you impetuous—"

"Remember, this is first and foremost a [u]rescue[/u] mission."

[color=goldenrod]... If I cannot heed my fellows' words, what am I? A simple fighting dog, who goes mad at the scent of blood?

Every time, that has been what I do. Fight. Rage. Kill.

I chased an ideal to get here. I joined this order to embody that image.

To ignore it all now would be to have never left what I used to be.

Take [u]action[/u], you damnable fool.[/color][/i]

He gripped the reins in his left hand and tapped his horse's flank, bringing him 'round to start a canter towards the center of the clearing. From his throat ripped a call, a growl of dissatisfaction turned to more useful end. Rough and boisterous, he caught the two-toned gaze of the newbie and jerked his head in the selfsame direction, beckoning her with his jaw as they rode.

[color=goldenrod]"Runa, you heard the man!"[/color] He turned fully once he was sure she'd heard, his lungs having done a fair job of cutting through the noise. In his eyes, he felt the flames of anticipation recede and give way to the steel of determination. It wasn't important that he hadn't bothered with his usual attempts at polite speech— what mattered was far deeper set in the context of the battlefield.[color=goldenrod]"We're tightening the main line! Let's move!"[/color]

Urging a burst of speed from his horse, he thundered down the clearing and dismounted some dozen feet out, a roughly similar distance as Fleuri from Maritza's protective coils, and the Cal heiress's monolithic protector. In terms of the defense, he was certainly still on the front end of their main forces, and poised to meet their frontrunners head on—

But not [i]nearly[/i] so projected as to get himself killed, or worse still, offer the Boars the opening in the Roses' ranks they were likely waiting to exploit. It was the difference between being the advance force, the very same first waves that he had just chopped through on horseback, and the main troops proper. He realized that he'd been, subconsciously as the rush of swordplay took him, regressing right back into that old role, with no regard for its place. Falling back on simple familiarity. 

[color=goldenrod][i]For a man who supposes his greatest strength is experience, how amateur can I be before it explodes in my face?[/i][/color]

He held his longsword in both hands, setting himself in a tight [i]ochs[/i] guard near the rear echelon, opposite Haelstadt and Fleuri. Chances were that the massive knight would soon be something the Boars saw as an obstacle to avoid entirely— thus funneling themselves wherever he [i]wasn't[/i] after his butchery made itself [i]obtrusive[/i].

There, they'd run into him, and he'd put his money where his proverbial mouth was regarding their combat training. To cut them down would be no small amount of personal revenge, as he'd clashed with the Boars many a time under the banner of the Faceless, and lost his share of comrades already—

[color=goldenrod][i]But I am a Verlorene Haufen no more. I'm a Reon-damned Knight. Time to act like it.[/i][/color]