A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1696 - 1696: The Cause of a Tempest - Part 4

The steeper it became, the more Oliver was forced to slow. There wasn't much choice to be had. He didn't know the white horse on which he rode well enough to trust its sure footedness. The men after him grew nervous, as they too were forced to reduce their speed.

"Turn here," Oliver said suddenly, when they'd reached the top of another mound, right on the edge of the forest.

"Here?" The Minister said. "The path's narrow. We'll hardly be able to take out the head of their column…"

Oliver grinned in reply, and the Minister said no more, apparently able to pick up from Oliver's smile that he had different intentions other than shattering the enemy entirely.

The Minister took charge of his own men, and he saw them safely at the top of the hill, and arranged in battle array. Then it was Oliver who gave them the command to draw their weapons. "Playfully, gentlemen," Oliver said. "Slay whatever comes too close, but do not over chase. We will merely be sending a greeting."

The scouts that followed after them took their trail far faster than Oliver had pushed them along it. Their mounts were smaller than those that Oliver and his party rode. They seemed more a breed for the mountains than for the plains. He wondered if Tavar had picked them because he knew the forest that well, or whether it was mere chance. Then, he supposed, if ever there was a question of luck in strategy involving Tavar, it was easier to assume that he had planned it all from the start.

Only when they passed over the mound did they manage to catch sight of Oliver and his men, waiting ready, swords drawn, in their line.

"HALT! HALT! ENEMY ASSAULT!" The lead man shouted, fighting with the reins of his horse in a quick attempt at turning the beast, but with the trail being so narrow, and with the men behind him coming just as quickly, that was an attempt in futility more than anything.

Blackthorn's swift rapier saw his life severed before he could do much more than cry out. He went down tumbling with his horse, forcing the man behind him to jump over the entanglement before he too could be brought down by it. That jump only brought him too straight into the path of Lady Blackthorn's blade.

"Swift," the Minister of Blades said, speaking his praise for her.

"I suppose this is the first time that you're seeing Blackthorn do her work up close," Oliver said.

Both he and the Minister found themselves entirely comfortable. With the said horseman and horse sent rolling down the slope, those that followed were hard pressed to make anything out of their superior numbers. It brought them a degree of comfort that the men around them didn't feel, for the sheer intensity of the situation.

To have swords drawn, and an enemy that outnumbered you three to one, staring you down with a hatred from the bottom of the mound, that wasn't something that bid a man to easily relax.

"GO AROUND! GO AROUND!" Came the shout of one of the more lucid men amongst their enemy.

"That'll be our cue to withdraw," Oliver said. "Come. Keep your swords out."

He turned around again, supposing where it was the enemy might follow them with their flankside attack. There had been a fork in the path that he'd noted on his way through, and it was nearly half of their number that the enemy scouts sent charging along there, along with the other few that danced their way past the fallen soldiers and horses blocking the trail, to try and scamper after Oliver and his men from the rear.

"DON'T PURSUE! DON'T PURSUE! THAT'S OLIVER PATRICK! GENERAL TAVAR WARNED US AGAINST ENGAGING HIM!"

"HE WARNED US AGAINST ENGAGING SUPERIOR NUMBERS. WE CAN SURROUND THEM AND SEE THEM DEALT WITH! THE ENEMY IS THIS CLOSE!"

"NO! DON'T BE DECEIVED! IT'S A TRAP!"

A break in the communication amongst the enemy occurred, as Oliver finally decided to take his men back towards the plains that had been their original intentions. A number of those scouts brought themselves to a halt, realizing, quite obviously, that they were being had. But another number, some twenty, or thirty, could not resist the temptation of a General set right before them, and they came charging out from amongst the trees after them, the branches snagging at their faces.

Oliver had them chasing the rear of his party for a while, dragging all of those men out onto the open plains with him, keeping a distance of barely ten metres between them all the while. And then, when he gave the signal, like a bird spreading its wings from its perch, his group of thirty naturally unfurled themselves in two halves, and went turning behind, to smash their enemy.

What followed wasn't a battle, it was a slaughter. There was nary a wound dealt to a Patrick man in retaliation. The second that Oliver and his men began to turn, the thrill of the chase had died for their foe. They felt the overwhelming dread that it was to be the prey. Their will to fight faded, and the stench of the trap that they were warned of filled their nostrils. All that remained of them were their corpses in the snow.

Oliver gave a small wave to the other scouts that had wisely chosen to wait along the forest's edge. They observed him for a while, before they turned, presumably to return with news to their General.

"Hm," the Minister said. "Thirty men slain. It is something, but hardly a dent worth waving your head around for, General Patrick."

"Indeed, by itself," Oliver said. "But it is not the culling of the enemy numbers that we are after. We're after a storm, Minister. We will see what snow we can kick in the eyes of our enemy whilst we are here."

"Guerilla warfare like this might be effective against any other man, but I fear that you play too freely with the likes of Tavar. He will turn on us, and crush us, just as we have done these men," the Minister of Blades said. "His strategy is an overwhelming thing."