A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1586 - 1586: War at the Gates - Part 10

"It seemed humiliating enough to me," Hendrick offered. "As far as I can tell, they stole those two soldiers away from us, with no price to pay in the process."

"…As Tussle has said, they've revealed their hand," Fitzer said, fighting to regain his calm. He was a naturally rather easy to anger man, so though he feigned his calm, he could not remove the throbbing vein from his forehead.

"Allow Tussle command for a time, you support him," Hendrick said, noticing the anger. "I cannot have you lose us men because of your inability to control your rage."

"I have led men for two decades, Prince! My rage is not an issue!" Fitzer shouted.

Hendrick stared down at him calmly, his blue eyes seeing straight through him. "Yet you are easily enough angered that you would raise your voice to me, despite the risk it poses to your head and neck."

"…I shall do as you say," Fitzer said, defeated, doing his best to ignore a chortling Tussle.

"Now, now, General. I'm sure you'll calm down soon enough. And when you do, I shall only be too happy to lend you an ear," Tussle said.

"General," Hendrick said icily. "Do not play around. I mislike the dangerous scent in the air. You will deal with this foe properly, as if their numbers were equal to our own. Don't allow the risk of a trap."

"Indeed, my Prince, indeed. This is not a battle that I will allow us to make a mess of," Tussle said, as seriously as he was able, bobbing his head, and all the false-curls that he'd had put in along with it.

Volguard studied the result. Command, briefly, had been snatched from him, though indirectly. Nothing was truly said, and nothing, it seemed, was truly done, but it was a relief nonetheless. He'd been burdened by his position, and he was determined to meet it with the fullest strength of his honour and skill. Yet it did serve as a pleasant reminder, to see Oliver move, and to see Yoreholder and Verdant move with him. 'I'm not the only one that has a hand in our strategy,' Volguard had to remind himself. 'It's a pool of men. My input is merely one of them.'

It ought to have been something that he should have quite well realized from the start, and two other men, it likely would not have meant so much, but Volguard, for as great a strategist as he was, still had his self-confessed weaknesses. He didn't have the confidence to apply his supposed skill directly to the lives of men. Now that there seemed almost a veil between himself and the enemy, and relative safety measures in place, he was able to secure a much needed deep breath.

By the time that breath was released, he saw their next move. As strange as Oliver's actions had been, he began to notice patterns in them, just as he noticed patterns in the enemy. He acknowledged the same thing that Oliver had – that chaos, always, would find a way to coalesce. It could not continue forever.

Even so, through that chaos, he spied their next move, and gave his orders. Oliver had mirrored – or at least half-mirrored – their enemy's last two actions, and Volguard did the same. The Patrick army only had a mere two hundred cavalrymen, with Yorick in command of them, but Volguard had the flags raised, and the orders given for them to depart nonetheless. He sent one towards the left flank, and another towards the right, matching the two enemy forces, in their thousands, that did approach from there.

"Adorably cute," Tussle said, seeing the difference in their numbers. "It's like a toddler trying to imitate the actions of his father. I say, my boy would be getting to around—"

"Concentrate," Hendrick snapped.

"Right you are, my Prince," Tussle said. "They seek a stalemate, and so suppose they can stall us. Well, it was Fitzer they were fighting rather than me… and I have always wondered how I might fight our dear General Fitzer, should the opportunity arise."

Oliver could feel the dragon stirring in its anger. Standing near it as long as he had, he'd revealed far too much. He felt as if he were sitting in a hot spring that was growing increasingly warm, to the point that, if he opened his eyes now, he could be convinced that he was sitting in a bed of lava. The pressure increased along with it, and the wounds to the heart. He could feel defeat right there, waiting to snatch at him. And despite it all, he kept his heart rigid, and firm, and did not move, for even though the dragon already scorched his flesh, and threatened to torment him even more, it still had not outright killed him.

"And look, ever so simple," Tussle said. He gave his order, and held his hands in the air, to illustrate the motion, sweeping through with one, as if it were a sword.

On the battlefield, the cavalry on the left most flank went charging along with it. The General seemed to have perfectly timed the motion with the exact instant when he supposed the command to be relayed. It would have seemed an impressive feat, if he had not turned to Prince Hendrick, clearly delighted by the fact, and beamed at him, as if to say 'did you see that?'.

Hendrick had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the acute awareness that the battlefield was changing. 'Tussle spotted the tactic…' Hendrick realized for himself. Fitzer had been too angry to see it for himself, but the tactic was present nonetheless. The fifteen hundred cavalrymen went streaming against the hundred cavalrymen that were set in the way, whilst the other cavalry force remained motionless.

It seemed a move with no escapes. If they ran towards the right flank, the right cavalry force that had remained stationary would begin to move on them, and come crashing down. If they retreated straight back, then their infantry would quickly be overwhelmed by the cavalry that came in pursuit of them, and whilst they were fighting, the bowmen would advance, as would the remaining cavalry unit. If they simply sat in place, then the cavalry unit that Volguard had set against them would be crushed.