A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1449 - 1449: Furthering Competition - Part 9

Oliver was faced with another decision again. He hated being on the defensive, and now he'd avoided doing that entirely. But he'd paid a dear price. He was three units down, seemingly without reason. The soldiers that had once served as his pieces had given their mock cries of death, and fallen to the ground, with poor acting skills, before promptly standing up again and walking off their giant board. It wasn't as if Oliver could suddenly resurrect them.

'There ought to be opportunity somewhere around here…' Oliver thought to himself, looking. It wasn't like with Nila, where her pieces often enough were exposed, and he had his fair share of attacks. The thread that he had to look for from Bookthorne was thin, and elusive. It was a difficult thing to track down.

There was only a signal trace of vulnerability to be found, but the move to secure it was juvenile, and seemed to offer no further plans. Still, Oliver made it, with a certain amount of glee, and an overwhelming amount of stress, praying that the sacrifices that he'd made would actually lead to something, as he believed they ought to.

"Rightmost cavalry, square 67," Oliver said, sending his cavalry piece thrusting threateningly towards the flank of Bookthorne's exposed soldiers.

Naturally, the Colonel didn't seem particularly bothered by such an attempt. It was a single threat attack, and thus could be solved simply by defending with a single piece or otherwise moving the affected piece out of the way. Bookthorne chose to defend, sending more spearmen to support the rear of the afflicted unit, negating the flankside attack bonus that Oliver otherwise would have secured.

Now Oliver sent his other cavalry unit galloping forward, on the same side of the board. It didn't have enough movement in it to cover the entire distance all at once – which certainly made Oliver sweat, anytime he gave a full move of leeway to the enemy, he opened the door to be attacked himself – but it did threaten to begin something.

Now Bookthorne seemed to be acknowledging that move carefully. He had his hand on his chin for a few moments in thought, before he sighed, relented, and took off his helm, tucking it under his arm, and revealing his bald head. Then he went back to the same efforts of thinking.

As Oliver understood it, the man had two options. Ignore the threat of the incoming cavalry unit, and begin an attack on Oliver's centre that he'd already weakened, or, reinforce the area that the cavalry unit threatened to go to.

The Colonel chose the safer of those two options, based on sound fundamental strategy. He'd already secured a three-piece advantage. He no longer needed to take risks. With his numerical advantage, through simple defence, he'd soon enough be able to prove the advantage of his position.

"Finally," Oliver said, sighing with relief, as he saw something familiar crop up on the board. His strained breathing and all the tension that had come with it had managed to settle.

It had, ultimately, been a gamble. There was no guarantee that it would lead to anything. Only now, several moves later, did Oliver begin to see the faint whiff of a tactic beginning to form. A possible fork. Though the enemy still had many options in defending that two-pronged attack, Oliver knew that the sheer threat of it would begin to give him an advantage that went beyond mere piece superiority.

From the start of his Battle board training, it had always been tactics that had lured him in the most. They were far more certain than vague ideas of strategy. A tactic promised that a piece would be won, and an advantage immediately claimed.

Oliver looked up. From how calm Colonel Bookthorne was, he didn't seem to have spied the tactic quite yet. Oliver took a moment to lick his increasingly dry lips. That was one of the merits of this more ridiculous strategy. With how chaotic the play was, it was mightily difficult to predict the formation of the tactic until one was almost powerless to defend it.

With a looping move, Oliver sent his right-most cavalryman looping around from the flank that it had continually threatened, and into a dangerous pocket of enemy territory, between the mass of the advanced army, and the mass of his men that had been left in their starting position. Though, both sides were powerless to attack him in a single move. They didn't have the range to.

Once more, Bookthorne was forced to defend. He did it unhappily, but he hadn't lost his cool. Oliver had targeted the rear of Bookthorne's advanced archers, and in response, Bookthorne looped one of his spearmen back from his frontline to serve as their defender.

"Got you," Oliver said. "Or at least, I damn well hope I have…"

His heart thud in excitement now, rather than stress. He was sure that the tactic existed here, that it went far enough to be called a double attack, but he wasn't sure that he'd evaluated all the defensive resources that Bookthorne had available to him correctly.

The cavalry unit that had once been on the leftmost side of the board, behind the rear of his own army, and had made its journey, through long moves, into the right side of the board, finally came into crushing play, as it slid into the pocket where Bookthorne's spearman had once been defending, and now threatened both Bookthorne's left flank, and the archers beyond it.

The Colonel froze, and the crowd – those that understood – froze along with it. Suddenly, the three-piece advantage that the Colonel had secured was beginning to lose its effect. It didn't seem to matter quite so much anymore. For, in that position, the Colonel was forced to make cruel compromises. No matter what move he made, he'd have to concede some of his men – but the question for Oliver was whether he'd have to concede enough to make up for the pieces that he'd already sacrificed.