A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1583 - 1583: War at the Gates - Part 7

"We'll gather the troops by the walls, and we'll command from above," Fritzer said, finding his seriousness again quickly enough. "We will not allow a single gap for them to get through. Not even the smallest drop of water."

Hendrick nodded slowly. "Indeed. We will play this as carefully as we can."

They could have marched upon the Black Mountains themselves and victory would have seemed like a less intimidating prospect.

From a distance, it was the vastness of the Red Emerson army that they had to contend with. It was enough beyond comprehension, that a man could almost lie to himself, and protest that, in being unable to define it, it surely was not quite as bad as it looked.

Up close, there was no such defence. They could make out individual soldiers, the individual bricks in the mighty wall that they were to overcome. The camps had been vacated long before they had arrived, and what awaited them was an army, twenty thousand strong, entirely ready for battle, with arrows already on bow strings, threatening to be launched.

And they could see too, by the torchlight, as clear as day, that every man of significant position stood inside Solgrim. The prince Hendrick, and the two Generals that they had spied when they'd initially spotted the army on the march.

Oliver had to say that it was the most terrifying sight that he had ever witnessed. If he looked at it head on, and tried to contain it, in the usual way that he might, through sheer strength of will, and Ingolsol's overwhelm, he felt it would have crushed him. It was too dangerous a beast. To want to win against it, to merely have those thoughts in his mind, that was enough for the Red Dragon to sniff him out, and find out what he was, and crush him, before he could even attempt to do anything.

He could see the men atop the wall, and he might have judged them in times past, but now, though his eyes looked, they barely saw. He glanced across those rows of enemies, and they too, he barely saw. He could not look at the Red Dragon head on. It fed on his will, and as soon as it was displayed, it would find him.

As if to prove that to himself, he cleared his throat, with a sudden flash of fire.

"MEN OF THE PATRICK ARMY!" He bellowed, Command circling around him, just the barest hint of it. "GIVE THEM HELL!"

He spoke those words loud enough for it to reach the ears of the enemy, for it they truly are who it was intended for. And then he could feel the fire of the dragon, breathed past his shoulder, and he retreated inside himself once more.

That flash of overwhelming hostility, that incredible sense of danger. The feeling that the slightest misstep would see them all crushed entirely. It was both illusory, and the more real that anything could ever be.

"MEN OF THE EMERSON ARMY!" General Fritzer shouted in response. "TELL THEM YOUR INTENTIONS!"

"""AWOOOOOOOOOO!"""

Twenty thousand men responded together, raising their weapons up towards the sky. A mighty spear thrust in the morale of the Patrick men. Something invited by Oliver's own words, and also, briefly defended by it.

He had the feeling that, though meekness might stop the dragon's immediate assault, he knew he could not dwell in meekness entirely, for true defeat lay there as well. All paths seemed to lead to it, and there was no one perfect approach, only the approach that stayed alive, and barely dodged the Red Dragon's assaults, attack by attack.

"My Lord?" Verdant asked.

"Continue as you were," Oliver replied.

"Very well," Verdant responded, relaying the order to Volguard. It was he that would be once more in charge of their strategy going forward. The surprise attack that they'd hoped for, and the head hunting strategy, seemed doomed to fail. Inside Solgrim's gates, there were a good few thousand men protecting them, and on the outside, there were more than fifteen thousand, ready to crush them before they even attempted to begin going forward.

The best strategist in all the kingdom would have struggled against such odds, and such watertight positioning, and Volguard, naturally, was no different.

He played it as if he were on the Battle board again. Like Oliver, he found that he could not look at the enemy head on. He had to reassure himself that these were only pieces that they were playing with, and the odds were not quite as severe as they seemed.

He sent his archers to the front – the only archers they truly had came from the Yoreholders, though with Nila amongst them, there could be said to be a fine Patrick contribution.

Naturally, as was to be expected, the very instant that the enemy saw those archers marching to the front, they responded in kind, with archers of their own, more than ten times their number, like a giant shadow, spreading out across the land.

Immediately, Volguard was forced to think of retreat. He could not even string a volley off. He couldn't afford to lose any men recklessly.

Before the order could be given, however, Oliver had his heels to his horse, and was galloping forward, his sword drawn.

Fritzer noticed it in an instant, and gave the order long before General Tussle could. His reaction came violently, and strongly, as, like the rest of them, he saw that which they had been waiting for – that which Oliver Patrick by now was famed for. Those single, violent assaults, so full of fire that they could not be ignored.

He felt the fire, all the way from his position on the wall. Golden eyes glared at him, full of anger, willing him to be subordinated. His own anger came flashing in response. "How dare he!" He raged, and gave the command for all those bowmen to shoot Oliver's way.