A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1670 - 1670: A Captured Capital - Part 5

It contented Blackwell to simply see those men busy, however. He needed no immediate, tangible results. For his war was with the mind behind the defence of the Pendragons, rather than with the fortress itself. He needed to be a step ahead of Pedidarius, or else, it would be he that would be placed on the backfoot, and made victim of a serious counterattack. But by the same token, if he won the war of wits between the two of them, then he would be able to access strategies that otherwise would have been denied to him.

So Blackwell worked for the effect of creating a giant curtain. A giant screen for more subtle manoeuvring to take place – and with a loud cry, and with the casting of a few dozen archers from atop the wall in which they stood, there was revealed one such manoeuvring.

They were barely fifty men that Blackwell had managed to sneak in, amid the chaos, but they were an elite fifty, with Second Boundary men amongst them, and a Third Boundary man that led them. Blackwell's lips curled in a malicious smile. Just a strong fifty, placed well enough, could cause ripples that affected thousands. He knew that more than any.

It required the coldest of hearts to operate effectively in such a position. In the past, such a critical role would have been given to Captain Lombard. Few were as icy as him, as capable of bearing the risks and expectations of his General. With the campaign that they faced, General Blackwell found himself missing the presence of his most trusted Captain more strongly by the day.

It was another man, in Captain Kamly, who he had to trust to take his place. That trust only went so far though. It made what once might have been a decisive attack to the top of the enemy's fortification under Lombard into something that was more akin to testing the waters under Kamly.

It forced a response from Pedidarius – it made the man reveal his will, and where his head was. It was more that response that Blackwell was interested in, more than the advantage of the few hundred slain men that he secured, as his vicious melee troops tore through so many of those armed archers.

"BALLISTA!" He heard Captain Kamly shout from atop the wall, locating one of the pieces of equipment that had given them so much trouble, and taking efforts to see it sabotaged, by Blackwell's orders. The smoke that was soon set to rising in the sky told tales of his success in that.

Blackwell watched, for as long as Pedidarius to make his move, but he saw no signs of it. There was no team sent forth for the exclusive purpose of intercepting Captain Kamly and his men. Instead, it was the ordinary soldiers that were forced to deal with it. Those already in place, and the stronger men that they had present. They switched from bows to swords and to spears, lighting once more the attention that was given to the troops below.

The lack of a response was a response in and of itself, by Blackwell's estimation. It made him stroke his beard in his thought, and he felt the rising of an anger. There was an insult in the waiting. As if Pedidarius had other schemes afoot – as if he had determined that it was far more useful to simply wait, and let Blackwell exhaust himself. Whether such a thing was a bluff or not, it was difficult to tell, but the old instincts of House Black made Blackwell's decisions for him – he could only temper that reckless anger to a degree, and make sure that it was tactically sound.

"FORWARD!" He shouted, committing more men to the walls now, and to their ladders. With the archers distracted, he determined that the losses ought be far less significant than they were before.

He followed up that first order with another, directed towards the gates. "SWITCH!" He said, his loud shout reaching them, and their response instantaneous. The men on the battering rams dropped them only too gladly. They'd been running back and forth without stopping, with arrows skidding past them, and flames scorching their sides. They relished the opportunity to rest.

Their burden was quickly picked up by another two teams of men, ones that, for some reason, seemed ever so slightly different to the first. Their armour was the same, and there was no symbol of their rank, but they seemed to pick up the heavy burden of the battering ram just a little too easily.

Then, when they charged, they seemed to move just a little faster. And when the first of the battering rams collided with the gate, the noise it evoked was just barely different. It was more a song than a single sound. There was an initial impact, and then there was the groan of something giving.

With the second battering ram speeding along behind the first, that song was made more complete, and the gates were bowed clearly this time – forced inwards by just the slightest degree. But the degree inwards was bad enough. It was a sign of the coming weakness, and it came with a rather valid cry of dismay from the defending Pendragons.

A team of Second Boundary men was what Blackwell had seen them switched with. Swiftly done, and it was a nasty attack. It allowed the enemy to settle into a rhythm with the previous attacks, only for something of a far mightier strength to befall them incredibly suddenly.

It was risky, however. Second Boundary men couldn't be spent in the same way that ordinary men ought to be. They could be killed just as likely by arrows, and what a loss it would be to lose some of those men in that way.

But such was the calculated aggression of General Blackwell. There was a sting on the end of every punch, it was just a question of when that aggression might manifest itself, and where the damage would land.

More oil was thrown down by the gates, in an attempt to get the battering ram teams to stop. The gates were forced inwards a mighty distance now. Another charge seemed all it might take to run them through. By that point, one of Blackwell's Colonels took over. He handled the timing of their withdrawal, and allowed them free of further danger, even without shattering the gate in its entirety.