A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1838 - 1838: The Quietest Battlefield - Part 3

Their battle had reached its highest point of tension, and there was a feeling, there and then, that the outcome of the siege and Ernest might very well be decided before the sun had even set.

Hod walked his way around the walls of the city, putting himself in a better position for command, and then he simply waited. Waited for the inevitable cheers to come, when it finally set in – beyond the shock – that a man had slain a King. There was only one faction likely to overcome their horror at that. Those that he had already taught – who he had drilled in the lesson that rank was not everything.

The peasants of the Patrick army, and all the soldiers that had served under them over the years, raised their spears to below the grandness of their victory.

"""URAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"""

They did declare. Madness was what it was. For something so significant and important to be snuffed out, and for the reaction to be the certainty in aggression that they chose. Perhaps it was simple belief. As the others knew to fear the darkness of a new age, those men had learned to trust in one thing, and that was the light of their General's torch, that they had followed through so many crises and victories already.

Their arrival had been a swiftly done thing. They had come, excited to once more serve under the man that they held above all else. They had come sweeping, with the certainty that grandness would be achieved, and the death of King Germanicus only lent to that. They were certain, as long as they fought together, as a unified Patrick army, under their General Oliver Patrick, then no foe was likely to stand in their way.

Feeding off the certainty of their allies, Blackthorn men, and Yoreholder men, and all the men in between, shouted their victory. They joined in the cries of jubilation, as they shouted down the army of the enemy.

The impossibility of their victory that they had laboured towards for more than two weeks now, and brick by brick, was that glorious future in which they stood victorious being built. Now there was only one man whose head they did need to steal, and that belonged to none other than King Germanicus himself.

General Blackthorn was in no mood to wait for orders. He could feel his skin prickling with an ancient sense of anticipation. This chaos was where he thrived. He felt like a fish that had finally been returned to the water, and he was allowed immediately his want of diving just as deep as he wished to.

He did not consider what he might do, for there was no longer any room in General Blackthorn's might for thought. He had placed himself upon the right wing of their formation, merely for the fact that it had been closest to his current position – and now, off the back of those cheers that had rippled through their army, he raised his glaive, and on foot, he led the charge of the right wing.

They went charging altogether, some three thousand or more men. It was a wonder that they were able to keep such organized formations, given the suddenness, and the lack of words for the charge. But that was the very reason that the Blackthorn men were drilled so heavily, and given to such discipline, even more than any other army – so that they could allow their General to fight like this, when it was that he deemed his instincts necessary.

It had come suddenly, but Hod did not find that he disapproved of Blackthorn's sudden decision to attack. Neatly, Tavar had been given all the time that he needed to set up his formation. There was nothing any more waiting could give them. Off the back of a massive tidal wave of morale, that was exactly the right moment to charge.

The peppering from the archers was immediate. Tavar's Colonels saw to that. Great clouds sprang up into the air, and fell upon that arrow-headed charge that General Blackthorn had created, with himself forming the very tip of it. Immediately, massive casualties were inflicted, numbering in their hundreds. Men were set to tripping, but they were far from being broken. Blackthorn Sergeants and Captains saw order reinstated. They had men moved into the gaps. They were no strangers to reckless charges. When that arrow-headed attack did near, though it numbered a few hundred less, it was once more in perfect formation.

Four squares of infantrymen Tavar had set up as his front line, each numbering nearly three thousand. It was the gap between the infantry squares on the right that General Blackthorn targeted, voluntarily plunging himself between six thousand men.

Spears were all pointed his way when he came crashing in. They were formed up, good and strong. It didn't look like the sort of formation that any charge could easily crush. Yet where General Blackthorn met, he sent men flying backwards. Two strokes of his glaive, and in both squares, two giant gaps were opened up.

It seems a risky manoeuvre once more, now that he allows himself to be sandwiched in from both sides. The head of his arrow hits nothing but empty air. A foolish, foolish endeavour.

Unless one looked at it from above, and unless one looked at it, knowing who exactly General Blackthorn was. Hod grinned, unable to stop himself, feeling his teeth growing into a smile, as his skin tingled. Blackthorn was not one to be outdone. He felt the moment as strongly as the rest, as soon as Germanicus' head had fallen, and he was not likely to miss the opportunity.

Empty air it might have seemed to hit, but his arrow-head had a stronger target. One that became clearer with how swiftly he moved between that gap between infantry units, and towards the archers that lay beyond it, and towards the great General Tavar, sitting amongst his cavalry, just ahead.