A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1733 - 1733: An Iron Curtain - Part 3

The Minister shrugged, knowing very well that it was a genuine possibility, giving his lagging physical competence. "If the Gods are good, I will not. If the Gods are against us, however… Well, me falling from my horse shall be the least of the things that we have to worry about. The tightrope we walk gentlemen can see any degree of wind sending us tumbling from it."

"I suppose so," Skullic said. "But I would at least like to imagine a more glorious end than that. A greater struggle than simple bad luck. I'll see a second horse found for you, then. If you're going to ride hard, you might as well go all the way."

It was not something that Hod had asked for, given that he would have preferred the time to rest from the saddle himself, using the excuse that he too was letting his horse rest. With a second beat, however, that escape route was removed from him. He accepted the gift with a tight expression. "Very well."

"Give my regards to the young General Patrick when you see him," Skullic said. "Congratulate him on his victory of the Emersons. Not too much, mind you. That fool will do something reckless if he swells too much with confidence."

"And for Blackthorn?" Hod said.

"Send him my apologies," Skullic said.

Hod smiled. "I can imagine he will very well need them. A good few people are going to be laying blame at your door for the troublesome creature that you have helped Oliver Patrick become." He turned to Karstly then. "And you, Karstly? Any words for our allies?"

"…Tell them not to lose," Karstly said. "I do not wish to see this war ended so soon."

…

…

The dawn was announced with the sound of warhorns being blown, and battle formations being taken. A hundred thousand men gathered themselves to lay siege to Ernest's walls.

On all sides, the city was surrounded. Tavar made the fullest use of his numbers. Battalions separated into squares a thousand strong each, and then into greater squares ten thousand strong each, perfectly encapsulated their city.

On the north and south sides there were catapults, and by the gates there were battle rams to the east and the west. It was a varied strategy that Tavar already made them deal with. He gave them a multitude of problems to keep their minds on, making fullest use of the massive scale of his army.

Then there were ladders. Ladders of such a quantity and such a length that, from above, it was like looking into a nest of snakes. Already, a hundred such ladders were hefted onto the soldiers of different men on the front lines of Tavar's encirclement, all around Ernest, all ready to charge at the same time.

Tavar and Germanicus stayed side by side. They didn't split themselves up to allow a more effective command of the battlefield. Tavar instead opted to keep them together, by the southern wall, staring it down, as if to declare it was there that the battle would be won.

General Blackthorn stood staring down at them with a grim expression from that same southern wall. He tried to get a measure of the men from a distance, for all the good that it would do him. The only thing that seemed to be a certainty was that the foes they faced were incomprehensibly mighty. A fact that made Blackthorn's hands shake with excitement. A thing that made his grim expression seem more unhinged than it did stable.

On that south wall too, Oliver found himself positioned, as if they were trying to perfectly mirror General Tavar's deployment. For the defence of the other walls, Blackthorn had sent his various Colonels, and he'd seen a good deal of Patrick men threaded amongst the troops.

That was what the two Generals had agreed upon before the battle had begun. Their formations were based around the new peasant recruits that Oliver had seen trained to the best degree that he could. They'd put their more experienced men in the harsher positions, and the less experienced in the easier, to allow them a chance to sharpen themselves before they could be crushed in head on battle.

It was an alarming thing to realize that the large bulk of their army was made up entirely of peasants. Ten thousand of them they had, thanks to the efforts that Oliver had put in during his scouting to see more of them gathered.

They shifted nervously along with the horns that Tavar saw blasted. Seeing the enemy formations so solid, and so intimidating, how could they not? To see such numbers commanded so uniformly made them all the more terrifying.

But the peasants were not quite as pathetic as one would expect them to be. From the off, Blackthorn held his doubts as to their efficacy. He drew up his war plans – to the small degree that Blackthorn did indeed plan anything – and he did his very best to include them as little as possible.

He'd spared their training one session of viewing, and he'd found himself surprised. Ever so slightly surprising it was. But he still found it difficult to believe that the passion they put into sparring and thrusting their spears at empty air was something that could see themselves withstood on the field of battle.

As the beginning of it approached, Blackthorn gave them another cursory look, to see how they held up against the building pressure. Against such numbers, so perfectly encircled, that pressure had a physical quality to them. Even trained, experienced soldiers would find their morale lagging in such a position. It seemed hopeless, when there was nowhere to flee to.

Yet those peasants – or Patrick men, as Oliver now claimed them to be – were unexpectedly rigid. They were nervous, but it was a healthy nervousness. A fierce nervousness, like that of ten thousand foxes that would very well be certain that they would bite should the situation ever demand that they needed to.