A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1611 - 1611: The Witch - Part 10

And then, there was the Minister of Blades, simply in standing near him, Oliver felt the presence of a mighty man, and it made him bellow internally, "why can I not use you? Why can I not secure victory from your might?".

That was one thought too many. In the heat of combat, anger ran through his sword, and he swung at a foe in front of him far too heavily, almost dislodging himself from his saddle in his process.

There was another bit of magic there, when his eyes fell on his horse – the fact that the beast was still standing. The fact that it had been delivered to him at all. Were the Gods not on his side?

It trickled, and trickled, until Oliver could hardly fight it anymore. That will to coalesce, and make use of everything. The world was filled with the most profound meaning, everywhere he looked, there was something that demanded use of him, there was no escape.

He saw his numbers dwindle all the way past four hundred and down towards three hundred. The square of men shrank, growing tighter and tighter, so that they wouldn't be overrun in an instant. It was like nails on Oliver's skin, arousing his barely contained fury. But then he saw who it was amongst that final few hundred. They ought to have been primarily veteran men, but he saw a good few of the recently trained peasantry amongst them. Somehow, they who had only been training for a month had found a pathway to keep up with the rest of them, to keep fighting towards the very grave.

It was a beautiful, overwhelming sight. Oliver ground his teeth, not giving in to the want, feeling Ingolsol shouting in his ear to make use of it all, and feeling Claudia, ever so gently, reaching out those hands of hers, patting at the world. He could hear the witch screeching, and the wind blowing, and he could feel the dragon stirring, ever so confidently.

He saw General Fitzer take a step forward, anticipating the final few moments of battle, and that was when finally, Oliver Patrick found the right moment to give in to that which he was.

"FIRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYRRRRRRR!" He so bellowed, loud across the battlefield, a name of a comrade that had not reared his head yet. A displaced hundred men, waiting, since the very instant battle had begun, for their opportunity.

His voice was swollen with Command, and with rage, and if one had stopped to look at his eyes, they would have thought them to be red, and not the perfect gold and purple that they were. To those that did not know that man to which he shouted, the name sounded awfully close to "fear," and spoken with as much Command as he had so issued it with, amongst the enemy, amongst Prince Hendrick, and even amongst General Tussle and Fitzer, there was an instant in which they did feel that emotion. In which they saw a dragon, mighty enough to blot out the entire sky, and in which they did feel a shiver run down their back.

"MEN OF THE PATRICK ARMY!" Oliver bellowed wrathfully, wheeling his horse around, feeling the Command of his troops flow back to him, just as his Command flowed to them. It energized him. He could feel Ingolsol's strings wrapped around them, binding them to him, and so too could he feel Claudia's wanting stirring in him, that want that his men offered up to him – the will for victory, the will for heroism.

The army that had been tightening their formation with every hundred men that they had lost grew even tighter still. Oliver wrapped them together, by unspoken words, and they shifted.

From the back of his horse, Oliver declared their direction, and he did it suddenly enough that even his own body seemed surprised when they found themselves lurching forward.

By a single effort of will, those final three hundred men were forged, hard and solid into a weapon. They had all played their part, and they had all demonstrated their will, and so it was, a single instant of opportunity had been presented.

From the mind of the fallen Volguard, there had been presented a strategy, an opportunity for a checkmate, even with their lagging numbers.

"The Patrick army might not have the thousands of men of our enemy," Volguard had said wisely. "But, General, what it does have, is you. It has the legacy of the greatest Sword in Stormfront history – and it has two more Swords to go along with it. It has a might in attacking power, on the individual level, that even an army of twenty thousand can not match. The key, is timing. To have that, and to make use of it."

What sort of timing could take down a mighty dragon? What sort of spell, what sort of attacking manoeuvre? Oliver knew from the start there wasn't one. It wasn't timing alone that had seen him where he was, and where his army bound themselves together in their magnificent rage. It was fortune – the fortune that the Gods offered to him.

It was the bird that flew by the crouching tiger. The gift of opportunity. Oliver had waited, and waited, as powerless as any mortal was likely to be, for the magnificent opportunity. He had set the trap, and it had been there from the start, but what use was it, if for all his waiting in the grass, there was no piece of prey to pounce on?

If he had moved any earlier, the birds would have taken flight, and the same trap would never have worked again.

After all that waiting, the praying, the humbling, where he could make no use of his magnificent pride and overwhelm, there came that sudden stream of activity, a rush of elation that made his eyes shine like burning orbs in the darkness of a forest.

They could not have been more animated. The creature beneath Oliver that he rode shared in their excitement. It felt their roaring fury, and it tossed its head, throwing its magnificent braids with every movement.