A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1737 - 1737: An Iron Curtain - Part 7

"""URAHHH!""" The men howled, hearing the Command in Oliver's voice, and the will of Ingolsol. It was theirs. That desire to keep what belonged to them dug right into their souls. They were greedy men now, those that had once been called peasants. They were drunk on their newly acquired might. Their prides that had been so long crushed under the heel of those that had been called their betters blossomed under Oliver's influence.

They saw not his leaving as the burden that it indeed was, but the highest symbol of trust given by a General that they had sworn their loyalty to. To be left to defend as they were, without even a Commander. So excessive in their might they must have been, that they overpowered even in the others of their same company.

Oliver could spare them no time any longer. Only trust. He lowered his voice, and his tone changed into something more urgent. "Gar. With me. Now."

Gar was with him in a flash. He could not have failed to notice Germanicus either. The young man was grinning in excitement. He wanted nothing more than to cross swords with such a creature.

Together, he and Oliver ploughed along the wall, cutting through the landed men of Tavar's army as they went. Oliver called out his fury, and rallied the troops where he could, trying to spread the sentiments of victory, and that burning that he had started in his own section.

Perhaps he might have been unwelcome by those Blackthorn Colonels whose grounds he intruded on, but they did not let it show. The Blackthorn soldiers came just as readily to Oliver's aid as his own men might have. And those Patrick soldiers, in the form of those men that had once been peasantry, came beating to Oliver's cause even more excitedly. They showed themselves in a form that was beyond even their actual might, performing wonders so that their General might see them, and be proud of what they had become.

And indeed, Oliver was proud. The blooding had done them good. The seeds that had been sewn by the first instances of their training bore fruit, and the roots ran deeper, and deeper still. Down towards their scars, and their suffering, and all the pain that it meant to survive in the harsh lives of the peasantry. They worked towards greatness still.

It was might that Oliver had intended to rally through on – but he quickly found that might to be subordinated by a stronger force. He'd intended to rally his own troops, and see them raised up, but they did as much for him as he did for them. It was as if there was a wind at his back. He found himself inflated, without force. He needed not rage to fly any higher.

"SHOW THEM YOUR WORTH, MEN OF MINE!" He said, feeling his excitement stir, and the purple war with the gold in his eyes. He needed stay there an even shorter time than he had expected. He threaded through, and changed all in his wake, as if there were no obstacles at all. It was a greater speed than he could have achieved even if he had tried to. It felt, once again, like he moved upon the wings of miracles. And yet, for all of that, he was still far further away from General Blackthorn than he wanted to be.

The sound of steel against steel rang out. A more resounding noise that could be heard in the rest of the battlefield. There was a weight to this that overwrote the rest of the song that was being played. Blackthorn took the initiative, and had begun an attack in a flurry, battering down his glaive against Germanicus' guards.

It was with a warhammer that Germanicus defended, and he did so deftly, and swiftly, against the advantages of his weapon. There was a smile on his bearded face. The spiral tattoos on the skin of his cheeks seemed to spin with a life of their own, as if they were the magic shield that saw him protected.

His aura was a chilling one. Mystical in the same breath as it was beastial. Wrongness hung about it, just as strongly as rightness did. The Blackthorn men shrank back from the scene of the duel, giving way, even though they had not been ordered to in the way that Germanicus' men had.

Blackthorn knew very well that Germanicus was holding back on him. He could see in how easily Germanicus continued to defend that he was being toyed with. Yet he battled without hesitation. His blood stirring to a rage that made his mind go white, and lent his glaive further strength. A smile of his own terrifying sort grew to contort Blackthorn's cheeks, as he was allowed to reach beyond himself, towards heights that he had never needed – or even dared – to grasp for. There stood in him a foe mighty enough that he could take them all.

More and more Blackthorn pushed, until the very second that Germanicus grew bored, and with a lazy backhand stroke of his warhammer, wielded almost entirely with a single hand – with his left hand only serving to guide its path – did he send General Blackthorn flying back into his men.

He might have tumbled off the edge of the wall, down into Ernest, had those men not caught him.

As casual as that blow had been, it left its mark. The plate of General Blackthorn's chestplate, underneath his surcoat, right where the sigil of House Pendragon was, above his own Blackthorn sigil, there was an incredible dent.

He'd been proud to put on that surcoat. He'd felt the honour for his Queen, when she had claimed the old sigil of her House entirely. When she could wear that as her own, rather than be forced towards her own Asabelian interpretation of it. It was hers now – and as her General, his Queen's glory was his own.

With blood leaking from the corners of his mouth, Blackthorn saw very well where it was that the hammer had landed. Not on his own sigil. Not on the dark black of the rest of his surcoat. But right upon the honour of his Queen.