A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1792 - 1792: Supposed Victories - Part 3

It was the small things like that which Oliver found himself dwelling on. When he positioned himself so quietly, and declared that he would do as was asked of him, and simply wait, he saw meaning in the small things, as if they carried with them the very embers of that future victory.

And who could say that they did not? If a single moment had vanished from the battle that Oliver had done with the Emerson's, he did not believe they would have had their victory. A single turn of the head different. They were all notes in a grand piece of music. One thing out of place, and it would not have been the same.

The question, however, was still in what he needed to do. Every time he tried to keep himself relaxed, he found the urge for activity boiling up from somewhere, just as Blackwell had felt in the Capital. If Oliver had known how such a feeling afflicted even those grand and more experienced men, he might not have been so hard on himself in feeling it. Yet he had nothing to compare it to, he was sure it was just another something borne from his own lack of maturity. Hod and Blackthorn were busy waging their war, eternally sure of what they needed to do next, constantly reacting to the dictates of battle, and Oliver was forced apart from it all, with nothing at all to draw on.

Another solider dropped his helmet. Oliver turned his head again, and raised his eyebrow. This man seemed particularly embarrassed, for there was a hint of accusation in the eyes of those that glared at him, seeming to label him as doing it merely to copy the man before him. Both men had seen their helmets tossed up and down, as bored as they were, and both of them had eventually had them miss their hands, and go clattering to the floor.

Oliver wondered if it was madness that made him study that fact for longer than he should have. An analysis of the quiet pulling of some sort of wind. Did it even matter if there was truth behind it? Oliver wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything at all. The only thing that guided him was a feeling that was foreign – an entire sense system that was foreign. That system glared and things, and saw meaning in things that Oliver would have previously overlooked.

It wasn't that Oliver didn't know what to do. It wasn't that he couldn't find a hundred little ways that might affect the battlefield in front of him. It was that not a single one of those ways forward brought about the wave of feeling that he felt rising up whenever the moment was significant. That was the only guiding force he had, as far as surviving in a battle against Tavar's strategy. He knew not what it was, but faith in it was likely the only advantage that he had.

There was the steady patter of nervously shuffling horses' hooves. Oliver had a hundred cavalry with him. The horses weren't enjoying standing still either. Initially it had been proposed that Oliver have an entire detachment purely of cavalry, but with so many peasant soldiers amongst them, that hadn't seemed a feasible thing to enforce. Besides, Oliver was content enough with a hundred horses. He'd seen the effects of a mere hundred horse time and time again as a Captain.

Glancing up at the walls, he could see Nila and Professor Yoreholder with their team of archers making a dash along the walkways, looking for space in which they might fire upon the enemy. A great cloud was soon enough cast into the air, from the bows of the enemy archers. Nila and her men were able to duck close behind the wall, however, and immediately they were on their feet returning fire, their range far greater than that of the enemy.

When Oliver lowered his gaze, it was as if he could see through the wall. By the eastern gate, just a short little curve away from the gate itself, there were likely a thousand bowmen stationed, if the size of their arrow volley was anything to go by. He felt the slightest little twinge of something as he acknowledged that. Enough to make him narrow his eyes, and put his hand in the air, and give the order for the men to walk forward with him.

They came, slower than a normal walk. A stroll was more like what it was, but they went eagerly for it. No longer were there men dropping their helmets, or horses impatiently tossing their heads. There was tension instead, as if the men themselves were the arrows of a bowstring even larger than the black bows that Yoreholder and Nila held.

As they walked, a boulder made its way crashing down into the city behind them. It was a good few hundred metres away, but they could still stand to see the enormous damage that it had done to the building that it fell upon. Someone's home it might once have been, but now its thatched roof was caved in upon itself, and the walls of the second story were folded down into the first, replacing the ground floor entirely with rubble.

"Mmm…" Oliver grunted at that as well, and slowed down even further. He was well aware that the catapults were an eternal problem for the defending army. To get rid of those would have been a great boon. Though he was aware too that they would most certainly be well defended.

To open a gate, and to race out from under it, was a matter of the utmost risk. It allowed the enemy army all the time that they needed to rush into the city. It seemed to be a play that brought about more problems than it solved. It was far from being a clean plan.

It was a reminder, though, to Oliver, of the targets that he might select. In the quietness that he had been forced to dwell in, there was something more beginning to build. It might have simply been his own sense of bloodthirstiness, but there was a feeling in his chest that was rising to the point that he almost felt like rushing forward.