A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1612 - 1612: The Witch - Part 11

They shattered through the walls of men, like a giant flood crushing through the long held rock formation of an area. They dragged all they had along with them. Three hundred men, all sharpened towards one particular purpose. None with a will of their own – it was the will of the collective.

Even Oliver had forsaken his will. The very will that had managed to keep Ingolsol in check for so long, against the flow of Command that ran through all his men, even it was able to be subordinated. He cast his mind aside. Not his purpose, but their purpose, and in return, he felt that rushing of return Command, that which made the likes of Khan and Blackwell so powerful in individual combat. The bravery to set aside oneself and become something beyond a man. It was necessary to do so. To fight beyond a man, naturally, one had to become more than a man was. One had to be the heart of the collective. Such was the rush of a General.

And by the collective, Oliver felt his instincts sharpen, as if he had three hundred pairs of eyes, as if he had Verdant's vision, Blackwell's speed, Nila's precision, Gar's emptiness, and the Minister of Blades' might. He was all of them, and they, very much, were all of him. They were filled with the fire of Ingolsol, that hunger for power, it tainted them all, it slackened their jaws, and made them fiend for blood in a manner that even goblins would have flinched at. But then there was Claudia, that which balanced them, and gave the deep hunger the meaning it needed, the path towards that power, the beautiful story.

It was a perfect degree of balance, a perfect degree of speed. As sharp as the point of the spear, they plunged through all that was in their way, hundreds of men were thrust aside, in that sudden burst of acceleration.

The army that had seemed so defeated before, once more, found its second wind. Against the Command filled soldiers of Fitzer and Tussle, they burst through. As mighty an army as one was likely to face, and against that magnificently forged three hundred, for the span of a few instants, that twenty thousand were powerless. They drove their weapons through the hard scales of the dragon, and found themselves unstoppable.

The fear spread amongst the enemy. They were still buried in the heart of the Emerson formation when their speed began to lag, after that initial burst, but the fear made up for it in their place. They saw the enemy start to flinch back, and then it was as if Ingolsol was on the battlefield with them, casting that magnificently dark shadow that was so entirely him. They did not even have to make it towards their foes before they began to take their steps back. None wanted to stand in the way of a flood. It was nature that made them move, just as it had been Command that had fought against that nature before.

Verdant and Gar awaited them. The closer Oliver and his men came, the more synchronized did his group's actions seem with those that awaited them. Tussle had dared to start pushing that attack against Gar, sensing with a panic that he needed to do something, and fast, to cull the momentum before it could be turned against him. And yet for all his efforts, and all his chasing of Gar, the young man only led him closer and closer towards the path of the magnificent arrow that was being sent his way.

With Verdant to support Gar, whenever it seemed like the young man's knees might buckle in his exhaustion, the General found his efforts to be quite well in vain. And when he dared to look up, in exasperation, knowing that his attempts to be currently futile, he was greeted by the sight of Oliver Patrick, on his white horse, with his eyes full of that terrifying hunger, and all those three hundred men behind him.

For a second, the dark shadow of fear held even him in place. He felt a shiver crawl down his back, and his mustache trembled. He realized, with a bout of certainty, that he very much did not wish to be on the end of that charge. It wasn't pride any longer, it was just foolishness. No fool ought to stand and take a charge, when the option of letting it simply pass by still existed. Yet it took him a second too long to put his heels in his horse, and make that attempt of wheeling around, well out of his way. By that point, Oliver's blade was falling, with all the strength of a titan. From horseback, it fell on men with such force that it cast several of them in the air. His horse bulled into those that he didn't meet himself, and then the Minister next to him, keeping pace on foot, tossed them back into the ranks of the enemy that followed.

The walls that stood in front of them were not trampled, they were thrown, such was the speed, and might. It was a shattering, not an overwhelming. They pierced through them, as if they pierced through glass.

"Tussle!" Fitzer shouted, seeing the danger for himself better from a distance. He could see that Tussle's attempts at turning his horse was to bring him too little speed too soon, and all he had achieved was putting his exposed rear well within the path of his enemy.

Tussle's bodyguard swept in front of their General, before Oliver could get too close too quickly. They carried shields, and spears, one of the few soldiers on the battlefield to wield both. Heavy square shields they were, almost Verna in their size, but not quite. They clomped down in a mighty wall, ten of Tussle's most elite men, all of them Second Boundary, to stop the threat to their General's head.

"HOLD!" Their leader bellowed mightily, a veteran man with enough wrinkles to tell of all the years that had passed during his time of soldiery. A white horsehair plume streamed down the back of his helmet. Confidently, did he take the centre, his spear thrust towards the horse that was to come his General's way. The most basic of all battlefield tactics – a spear wall against a cavalry charge. And he buried the butt of his spear right into the ground. There was no strength that could see it moved. Any strength would only drive it deeper into the soil where it already sat.