A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1618 - 1618: The Fingers of Man - Part 5

And now, his greatest strength became his biggest weakness. If he was a more reckless man, he really would, he thought, have plunged forward, and claimed Oliver Patrick's head, and declared the Prince's death a mere accident for the war effort.

After all, if they thought in terms of the overall war, what was more important? That they preserve the life of one Prince, or that they preserve the life of the Emerson army, and see that they captured Ernest, so that they might reinforce the Pendragon armies and see Queen Asabel and Lord Blackwell overturned?

He knew the answer to that question himself, but he did not have the heart to overturn it. When it mattered most, when there were no other answers, he could only trust in those questions and morals that he'd picked up so long ago. There could be no changing now, as old as he'd become. A stellar career he'd served, and now, he thought, it was perhaps pastime that he was subjected to a degree of embarrassment.

In front of all his men, he clambered from his horse. Tens of thousands watched. Soldiers that had given him the highest degree of their respect for so long, that had come to trust him as implicitly as they would have trusted the word of a creature mighty enough to be called a God.

His boots brought him down into the snow, and already he was a smaller man. It might have been that he could have trotted up to Oliver Patrick on horseback, but somehow, psychologically, for Fitzer, that only seemed worse.

He handed his reins to his Colonel. The man accepted them, a distraught look on his face.

"Please don't, General," the man begged.

Fitzer looked at him grimly. "What other choice do I have, Ignis?" He asked. "Tell me, if you see another way. Tell me – I would know it now."

He gave the man a few seconds of pause, but naturally, where Fitzer could see no paths of opportunity, nor could the man Ignis below him.

"Forgive me, Ignis," Fitzer said. "For the embarrassment that I shall bring you – all of you."

"No, General, it is us that should ask for forgiveness," Ignis said, bowing his head. "All these years you have found solutions in our name, and now, we are too incompetent to find one of our own, when you have a need. We failed to make use of the favourable battlefield that you created for us. We allowed them to survive for too long, and this here is the result…"

"There is no changing that," Fitzer said. "Even if we were to be granted the opportunity to change one thing, it is hard to know exactly what we would choose… I have a feeling, today, we were simply outmatched from the start."

"That's not true, General!" Ignis said passionately. "We had them on the backfoot. The only way they've managed to get us into this position is by the devious nature of their trap."

"Would that were so," Fitzer said, turning his head away. "I ought to be off, Ignis. That creature is about to say something else. Look how his lips curl. He's enjoying this. I would not give him the satisfaction."

"…Where will we end up from here, General?" Ignis said, his voice almost childish.

"The Gods only know," Fitzer replied, striding away.

The gazes of all his men weighed heavily as he went. Even in his worst of dreams, he did not fancy he would have felt quite as sick as he did then. It was a nightmare beyond nightmares. Thousands of betrayed and confused looks, wondering why it was that he surrendered. Thousands of wounded prides, and all of it, his fault.

"Put them on," Oliver said, when Fitzer stood over those discarded shackles.

"You would force this indignity on me as well?" Fitzer asked, baring his teeth in his anger. Pride was not such an easy thing to slap down, Oliver soon saw. It was like trying to push a lump of buoyant wood down under the surface of a water. It soon enough jumped up again.

He wondered at his honour from the way he delighted in Fitzer's stance. To know that this creature so mighty, was restrained to his will. "Indignity, General?" Oliver asked. "It's a privilege I grant to you, as an acknowledgement to my mighty foe. I could not assume to let my men touch you."

"You played this underhandedly, pup," Fitzer told him, refusing to budge. "Do not sit there on your horse, looking down at me. You dare to class this as a victory?"

"What else would you call it but that?" Oliver said, wearing a smile that seemed more Karstly than Oliver Patrick. "The lives of your prince, and all your remaining thousands of men are in my hands, General Fitzer. You do talk loudly for one that will soon be asking favours."

"…Arrogance, dishonour," Fitzer said. "That the Gods favour you, boy, is a mystery to me. Your arrogance will come back to haunt you. Dishonour never does last. It's a poison that will eat you away – and it's on that poison I will bet."

"And yet you still put your shackles on," Oliver noted, as in the heat of Fitzer's anger, the General was forced to stoop into the snow, to pull up the heavy chains, and put them about his wrists. When he had, Verdant slid up next to him, to slide the key into the lock, and see them firmly secured.

"I do what is necessary," Fitzer said. "But you will not win this war, mark my words. If not I, then another will take your head. Look at all that you have left – you still claim that you will defend Ernest against other invaders?"

"You are not in the highest position to be making threats, General," Oliver said calmly. "But you are right, with the position of your army, and all of your thousands of men still present, I am in a degree of eternal danger. I can't exactly ignore them, and see the poison that you so excitedly speak of spread."