A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1840 - 1840: The Quietest Battlefield - Part 5

In the process, Tavar risked arrowfire of his own, but it was not a risk that he wore on his face. Any would have thought that the old General was immune to such things, with how casually he did walk through it.

"YOUR HEAD WILL BE MINE BEFORE THIS IS DONE, TAVAR! MARK MY WORDS!" Blackthorn bellowed, from inside the confines of his current melee.

Tavar heard the shout and received it with a small smile and shake of his head. He really could not understand the Blackthorn intoxication with combat. Or the intoxication that afflicted House Black in its entirety. Both he and Blackwell, remnants of an age past, had seen so much trouble stirred up in what had once been a rather quiet realm.

Tavar rebuilt his formation, bit by bit, to account for future advances of Blackthorn. Without a good amount of momentum, there would be no breaking free of his ranks now. Two infantry units Tavar set in front of himself, at an angle, protecting his new formation from two charges – both Oliver's potential charge, and that of Blackthorn.

But that angle, to Oliver, seemed a compromise. Something lesser than a flat line of defence. He called up his men with a signal from his hand, and bellows from those commanding men beneath him that set the army to moving, and began to shift them all through the very terrain that had seen their enemies so stumped before. He had them pick their way carefully across the field of corpses, inviting an attack from Tavar, and moving himself closer, so that he might soon be able to stage an attack of his own.

"Reckless," Hod murmured, but acknowledged the intentions behind Oliver's actions, and began to build a strategy of his own off the back of it, that would make use of both Blackthorn's positions, Oliver's positions, and now the pressure that Verdant Idris, like a General himself, was beginning to exert on the unit of infantry in front of him.

As Tavar's men came streaming through the gates, a few thousand more, to add to his cause, having heard their General's call, they were pulling themselves from all areas around the fortress, brick by brick. And naturally, Tavar saw them utilised well. That was the sort of General that he was. He had made room for them, even before they came. He shifted his infantry towards further towards the left, to allow the men nearest the gate to naturally begin to form squares near them.

When there were enough, he split them into two rows, allowing himself two lines of squares, with that space in between them, to dull the momentum of a charge like Blackthorn's, and to stop a man like him from going all the way in one go.

Inside the city of Ernest, Tavar saw his own sort of castle built. For a man that had been laying siege for so many days, he shifted so easily to the position of defender. For all the volatility of the men he fought, the versatility of Tavar was not a thing easily matched. Already, Blackthorn's effective charge had been easily recovered from, and an extra wall had been built in its place, in the form of that second row, and Tavar's archers hid with a certain degree of smugness behind it, firing their arrows with a constantness.

Then he had the men that Verdant Idris was engaged with slowly walk back, bit by bit, with a whirl of his finger. He paid particular attention to how Verdant decided to follow up that attack – he was not a man that Tavar had been able to pay particular attention to in the weeks before, simply for the fact that he had not been given enough men to command.

Verdant's reaction was cautious, not all like the quickness of the General that he served, who would most certainly have seized upon the enemy like a hungry dog. Instead, he was content to withdraw himself, and guide Tavar's retreat backwards. It was a style of fighting that more invited an opportunity for another, than it did seize upon the opportunity himself. And naturally, where Oliver and his own men were stalking in the centre, having now just passed over the corpse field, they were seeing the exposed flank of that unit, and were watering at the mouth at the thought of seeing it devoured.

Tavar nodded his approval. For the priest that he'd known at the Academy to have grown to such a powerful military force to reckon with, it should have brought more of a degree of surprise than it did. It was not in his blood, as a man of the Idris House, but it was certainly in the intensity of his aura. Verdant Idris had always stood as a man with enough presence to make those around him uncomfortable, even when he ought not have had the rank to do so.

Bit by bit, the army of Ernest crept forward, sniffing at Tavar, and swiping at him, looking for any opening. The men that had kept Blackthorn entangled too were allowed their opportunity to retreat, thanks to the constant stream of men that were running by them, from the gate.

For their retreat, however, Blackthorn was granted his opportunity, and he took it to disengage, like the rest, putting himself dangerously in the way of the gate, and those reinforcements that would come by it, inviting a pincer attack on himself. Yet none came. The potential reinforcements paused seeing him, even though it was the back of him, and Tavar too gave the signal for them to pause.

Thirty thousand men Tavar had managed to amass now, delicately, without any really knowing quite how he'd done it. It was something where the conclusion was easier to acknowledge than the process.

He had their formation in that of a semicircle, warding off attacks from more sides, but also weakening himself more than he would have been had it been a simple straight line attack. It was not a perfect encirclement of himself, but Tavar didn't need it to be. His mind, and his quickness made that fortress into an all encompassing thing. The fact that all sides of him were protected was implied – for if any of them were to dash forward recklessly, he would soon see them quickly dealt with. None amongst them were foolish enough to have doubts about that.