A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1842 - 1842: The Quietest Battlefield - Part 7

With eight thousand men between the allied forces, the tightrope that they were made to walk was a cruel one. The sheer size differential between themselves and their foe was not an easy thing to overcome. Yet there was that tension regardless, there was allowed an opportunity to circle. Tavar could not be reckless either. If his foes could slow him for even a second, with claws and teeth as sharp as theirs were, he could have seen them torn apart entirely.

Those were the orders Hod gave, slow, calculating things, more designed to test positioning, and improve their stationing than anything else. It spoke to something about the difficulty of their plight, that both Tavar and Hod were forced to make such slow moves, to feel each other out. Even after those weeks of battling, they knew not each other entirely – at least, not enough that they could dominate the battlefield set out in front of them.

Purposefully, Hod had Verdant and Oliver move closer together, leaving an option of charging straight through the middle of them to Tavar and his cavalry. If the man had wished to free the Emerson hostages, there would be fewer opportunities than that.

But Tavar simply shook his head seeing it, knowing very well what a rudimentary sort of trap it was. In a way, he was almost disappointed that Hod would show his hand like that. "You must give your opponent just enough respect, Hod, and no more than that. Lest you limit yourself, for fear of an image of him."

Tavar's response was different, bolder, less searching, now that Hod had shown that instant of hesitation. He had those ten thousand men stationed at the gate begin to slowly walk towards Blackthorn's exposed back. The General whirled around and growled at them, low in his throat, as if doing so would scare them away – and though it didn't entirely, the sheer intensity of the man certainly limited how willing they were to engage him.

With those ten thousand men, he marched his entire formation of thirty thousand forward a few paces. By instinct, all the allied forces found themselves retreating, knowing very well that they didn't wish to be sandwiched in place, and Oliver was acutely aware of the difficult situation that Blackthorn would soon be facing. Being positioned in the centre as he was, it was Oliver's duty to see him helped.

"Damn it, we're getting pushed back too much," Oliver said, "we've lost the initiative entirely." He glanced up hopelessly towards the wall, where Hod was no doubt of the same opinion. The sort of attack they needed wasn't now one that would see the battlefield solved in one go, but an attack that was just potent enough to gain some respect back from Tavar once more.

Hod had his archers fire as Tavar advanced, and naturally, that was exactly what Tavar aimed to do as well. As soon as his archers were in range, he began peppering General Blackthorn. The General turned on his heel in a whirl of anger to face Tavar once more, as he could feel his casualties building up – and that was what Hod took advantage of. A risky order he gave, but they were forced to. That was the sort of men that he had fighting under him, and that was the magnitude of the foe that they faced. They couldn't play it safe and slow to the point of suffocation.

It was Blackthorn's Colonels who had to receive Hod's order for him, so possessed by anger had General Blackthorn become. But what he was told was the exact thing that he was thinking himself, and wished for. Hod only gave him permission, that extra nudge that he needed to put it into action.

"Charge," was what it was, as simple and as reckless as that. Against two rows of infantry, with three squares of around three thousand men in each row. There wasn't any chance of breaking through both of them at once, and nearing General Tavar's inner guard, but it didn't matter. Hod, apparently, had other intentions.

In the same instant that Blackthorn was set to charging, Hod had an order for Oliver. He had him charge as well – though in a different direction, towards the flank of that ten thousand infantry that were coming for General Blackthorn's rear.

"Gods be damned, you reckless bastard," Oliver said. Even for him, it felt like a delicate manoeuvre. If he hadn't seen Hod's signal when he had, the timing likely would have been entirely off. Even now, he wasn't sure if at a full charge he could make it in time.

"MEN OF MINE!" He shouted, raising his sword. He needed say no more than that. They knew exactly what he expected of them, and they responded in kind, with cries of their own. When the Patrick army did move together, whatever obstacle stood in their way, they would shatter, with all the overwhelming might that was expecting of them.

Thundering across the battlefield they went. Oliver found himself slipping ahead of the bulk of his men out of sheer eagerness and panic, unwilling to see the rear of Blackthorn's charging force contested.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw men flying, and he knew Blackthorn to have made it to the enemy. His glaive was working the wonders that it always did. With a combination of mighty technique, and sheer overwhelming physical prowess, he and his soldiers carved their way forward, sinking already deep into that first square of infantry on the right, and piercing straight through it, into the empty space beyond. They practically split it in two.

Then it was Oliver's turn, to show that Blackthorn's efforts were not in vain. To make sure that his charge continued to find the proper rewards that were allowed to him. Hod's timing could not have been more perfect. Oliver had done what he could to match it, but from the start, it was Hod that seemed to have calculated it, including Oliver's own thoughts as to matching him.