Oliver had already hacked down more than a dozen men, even leaving as many for the peasants behind him as he was. The initial adrenaline of battle began to die down into something that was more settled. When he looked behind him, he could see the peasants breathing heavily, for how frantically they had begun. He did his best to set an example in that regard, and see them calmed.
"STEADY NOW!" He shouted. "STEADILY SEE THE WHEAT CUT DOWN!"
It was grim language for the battlefield, but it was a language that those peasants understood. One could not cut through a harvest of wheat all in one go. One had to exert themselves measuredly, bit by bit, and see the job carefully done, lest they exhaust themselves in an instant. Those men, slowly but surely, began to do the same. They trimmed the men in front of them as they had once trimmed wheat, and they made themselves a reliable force.
