A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1615 - 1615: The Fingers of Man - Part 2

In the effort to simply move, to free himself from the icy nature of fear, Fitzer put the heels to the sides of his horse, and the beast responded in kind, driving him forward. With it, it seemed as if, to a degree, that spell had been broken. Fitzer found his voice enough that he could call out to the men nearest to him, reassuring them.

"Hold," he told them, his closer comrades, his higher officers. "One blunder does not rid us of our superior numerical might. They are still merely three hundred."

For the nods and the eyes that he received, he was able to build up his confidence, brick by brick. They still had faith in their General Fitzer. Those soldiers that served him exclusively, on account of the longstanding rivalry that they had with Tussle's army, were quickly able to convince themselves that it was mere incompetence that had seen General Tussle slain. Fitzer knew that wasn't the case, but he didn't need to correct them on it. He had to start a fire again, somewhere, and quickly, before the army routed.

"BEHOLD THE MISTAKES OF TUSSLE!" Fitzer said. "BEHOLD THE DIFFERENCE IN OUR STATION!"

He shouted, as if somehow, it was his victory, in seeing his ally fall. His heart twisted in guilt from it, but he could see no other way. They needed a General they could believe in. If they acknowledged what had happened before them too strongly, then the troops would never find their heart again.

"A MISTAKE THAT'S EXPECTED OF HIM, THE INFERIOR PRODUCT!" Fitzer said. "ENOUGH TO ENDANGER OUR BATTLING! HOW IMPULSIVE! HOW RECKLESS! I OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN COMPLETE COMMAND FROM THE START, AND NOW YOU MEN OF TUSSLE, SHALL UNDERSTAND WHY I TAKE IT!"

"BIND YOURSELF TO MY WILL, AND WE WILL SEE THIS BATTLE FINISHED. WE WILL CRUSH THE PIDDLING THREE HUNDRED THAT DECLARE THEMSELVES A RESISTANCE, AND WE WILL MARCH HOME, VICTORIOUS, DESPITE THE FOOL OF A GENERAL THAT MANAGED TO GET HIMSELF KILLED IN A BATTLE SO FAVOURABLY WEIGHTED IN OUR FAVOUR!"

He felt a brief thrill in seeing his own shouts begin to drown out the roars of the victorious Patrick men, that seemed to have had their fill of their cheering. He felt his own sort of thrill, in seeing the near defeated army begin to stir under his Command. Their morale, so dangerously placed before that it seemed like they might route at any instant, started to stabilize. But the fact remained that they didn't wish to engage the Patrick men head on – but Fitzer was fine with that.

He continued to shout his commands, and he allowed his men to reform their ranks a distance away. Beautiful, perfect squares of a thousand men. Lines of rank and file, all perfectly organized, with their sergeants, and their Commanders, and their Captains and Colonels. Fitzer took reassurance in that order, just as he knew his soldiers to be taking reassurance in them.

So ordered, and so organized, their numbers once more seemed as they ought to have seemed – mighty and overwhelming. And throughout it all, there was naught the Patrick men could do against them but watch. They saw the men stream away, half at a run, only to regather a distance away, and they jeered at them for running, their own morale swelling. Fitzer ignored those shouts, and continued to bellow to his men, restoring his command.

With a good bit of field separating the two of them, and now over ten thousand men, those three hundred that Oliver Patrick had managed to keep for himself seemed nothing more than a battered grain of sand about to be once more swept over by an angry sea.

"Now it's your turn to make a mistake, General Patrick," Fitzer said, too focused on his task to realize that he'd finally acknowledged Ser Patrick by the title of General. "You should have engaged us while we were still wavering from a route. You've missed your opportunity, and now you'll pay for it again."

Despite that, he found he didn't like the confidence of the way that the Patrick men still stood, as if they were far mightier than the three hundred numbers that made them. They had cowered before, when faced with the twenty thousand strong Emerson army – and rightly so. Oliver Patrick had kept his head down, and he had played the board carefully, with the quietest of strategy, as he rightly should have. But that quietness was entirely gone. Now he faced forward, eyes aglow, staring through Fitzer and his army, all the ways to the walls of Solgrim Fort, towards where Prince Hendrick stood, as if he now was Oliver's only enemy rather than Fitzer.

If Fitzer found himself dwelling on that for too long, the fear would start to kick in again. That fear still sat, like a darkened shadow, casting itself over the battlefield. He felt as if he was facing off against a monstrous creature, capable of the strangest of magics. Like a mage, or some sort of wizard, or a witch. He liked it not – but a good way of dealing with the fear-inducing effects of magic was simply to pretend that it did not exist.

Slowly, he allowed himself to find his footing, he found comfort in the old ways of building, and checking ranks, and looking for his strategy, as if the battle had just begun. The processes of routine comforted him. He didn't mind how slowly he went. The slower, he thought, the better. Ignore that giant looming shadow, and see himself once more built up to the point that he'd begun the battlefield in, or so he thought.

But he had not realized just how large that shadow had grown. Or perhaps he had realized it, and decided that, from its sheer size, he could not acknowledge it. So he distracted himself with the most mundane of tasks, checking rank personally from the back of his horse. He found comfort in the small things, little task after little task, until a voice came ringing out, that would allow him his escape no longer.

"GENERAL FITZER!" Oliver Patrick shouted his way, a frightening amount of amused satisfaction in his tone. "WILL YOU THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, OR WILL WE HAVE TO COME AND TAKE THEM FROM YOU?"

Fitzer's anger overrode his fear, and he was bellowing before he could think. "HA! YOU CAN TRY AND TAKE THEM FROM US, IF YOU CAN SO MANAGE, WITH YOUR PIDDLING THREE HUNDRED!"