A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1555 - 1555: Protector of the West - Part 4

"I cannot force on them weapons that are ill suited to them," Oliver said. "Nor do I particularly enjoy gathering up the spear-wielding men together, and forcing them to fight as a unit, for they each wield the spear differently. The discipline that it takes to forge a cohesive spear unit, of the sort that the Serving Class aspire towards, that is beyond them, in our time limit. Aggression, Volguard, is our only true tactic. We wish for the melee continually. In the melee, when we allow our men to fight as individuals, they are the more barbarous, the most brutish."

"…Sensible," Volguard said. "Yes, yes, that makes use of their wildness. The specimens that you have collected, in the giant size of those ex-slaves and peasants, I imagine, when they are given the opportunity to fight in the melee, they are worth as much as two or three men… However, this new batch you have, they are not physically the mightiest. They are average men. Will their individualism still be so overwhelming?"

"We can only hope that it will be," Oliver said. "Sieging our walls, it is difficult to form rank. If we have men that are comfortable fighting alone, then we hold the advantage. Our opponents are used to uniformity. We can seize advantage in the chaos."

"Then, if that is the strategy that you intend to employ, then it seems likely that we can make use of more devious methods than normal," Volguard said. "We can make up for a lack of numbers in limiting the enemy's ability to group together. Whatever means we can gather that might split them up, whether it be oil fires atop our own wall, or diversionary barricades that alter their movement, without making it worthwhile for them to directly dismantle them. Yes, we have a few options available to us."

"…But as you say, such an army composition is always likely to be much weaker defensively than it is on the attack," Volguard finished, with some degree of regret.

Oliver nodded his agreement. On the attack, if they were allowed a single charge, he didn't fancy that his peasant force would be quite so weak. When they were the ones forced to stand and take a charge, however, it would be a different story. He supposed they at least had the city walls in the way of their enemy, preventing them from taking that entirely.

He stroked his chin, considering the matter of the training. That too had been a sad affair, as sad as the city that he stood in. The Patrick forces had stood, five hundred strong, with their cavalry, and their footmen, in front of the thousand new recruits that they had been offered. Even the newest of the trainees exuded an aura that seemed godly compared to the cringing peasants that faced off against them. They wore the Patrick sigil of the beast proudly, brandishing their mismatched weapons, from axes, to short swords, to daggers, all the way to the pointed-gauntlets that Kaya used. They almost seemed Yarmdon in their appearance.

"Before the month is out, you will stand as matches for the men that stand before you," Oliver had told them, and, with a thrashing of his voice that was cruller than any whip could be, he dove them straight into the harshest of training.

He knew himself to be cruel. Nila had stayed behind him with him – she had stated, rather strongly, that there was no way her honour could make her forsake their homeland ahead of him – and he'd known that she had watched the display with some degree of disapproval.

These men had come to fight under him, out of respect for him. He had cast the scent of glory into the air, just so their noses could pick it up, and now that they had come trotting, with no escape in sight, it was cruelness that meant them, crueller than any slave master was likely to be. But Oliver knew no better option.

On that very first day, he made them terrified of all things that were Patrick. With golden eyes, he marched along the ranks of them, as they performed their drills under the watchful gazes of Jorah, Verdant, and Firyr. They were as cruel as he, but Oliver was even cruller, for by Ingolsol's eyes, he followed the traces of fear, and he arrived in front of every individual that bore it the most strongly.

They would flinch, knowing that he was coming, and knowing that his sword would be there, waiting for them, just as it had been for any other. "Your arm," he said to one man, indicating how easily he would have lost the limb. "Your leg," he said, moving as fast as he would against Gar, even though it was unnecessary. "Your head," he said finally. "You have died a thousand different ways, in a handful of seconds."

He did not degrade them beyond that, he merely pointed out their flaws, but it was cruelness all the same. To have the mighty General Patrick right in front of them, with all the presence of Ingolsol. To have fear wormed all the way into their heart, like some sort of poison, and to have the stake driven even deeper. It was a form of torture, they were sure of it.

It wasn't only the individual who was targeted that was affected by it. By the overwhelming presence of fear, all near them pick up the quiver. Their hands shook. They were made to swing their practice swords down, and down again, until they sweat profusely despite the cold, and every muscle ached, but it was fear that they could think against.

Oliver sparred Gar half a dozen times as well. He took the young man before his army, and satisfied his want for combat, again and again. They duelled as viciously as if they intended to kill each other. It was another ingredient in the stirring soup of fright that Oliver cooked up for his army. The fear was beginning to reach even his own trained men, sapping away at their hearts, and at their morale.

He and Gar sparred harshly, but again and again, Oliver beat him down. Every time he did so, he seemed more overwhelming. After every victory, his gaze would fall upon his army, and they would flinch, unified, like a single terrified dog, all tied together with the same fearful rope.