A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1844 - 1844: Old Boulders - Part 1

They ought to have been the mere cruel words of a goading enemy. They ought to have been received in one ear, and then dismissed in the head a mere heartbeat later. But the strength of that shout, it brought them to shiver. It was the shout of a General, after all. If Blackthorn had spoken such a thing, in such a situation, they might have shaken as well. However, they would not have shattered as they did then.

The line that had held to meet Oliver lost their strength. What he was met with was something far weaker. He slowed not against them, but sped up instead, feeding on their fear. Then, the row behind them, seeing how easily the men before them had been dealt with, and having heard Oliver's fearsome command, did indeed start to break. They opened up a gap in the middle, doing anything that they could to get out of his way.

Tavar's expression shifted, seeing that flat line that he had relied on to such a degree began to deteriorate beyond his expectation. "...Has my evaluation of the battlefield grown so dull over all these years?"

He could see Hod on the wall above him, smiling, as if this had been part of his strategy. But was it strategy at all, when Hod relied on things beyond his control. Tavar considered it, and he shook his head. He found he did not mind. A man so gifted in logic as Hod as to become a Minister so young. A genius through and through. That he would find meaning and strength in that which others would have dismissed merely as optimism, false hopes, or even magic, and that he could even build strategies around such things, Tavar had to acknowledge that was a strength.

For if it was beyond Hod, Tavar could not predict it either. On his own evaluation of the battlefield, by all the laws he knew, Oliver's charge should have ended there, but it had not. It had gone further. His Command had dismissed Tavar's own. He'd rendered the men that Tavar had such a grasp on into mere terrified civilians. That flat line that should have crushed Blackthorn from the rear instead went scattering in all different directions, entirely routed, by the time General Patrick had made it to its centre.

"...I suppose if I could criticise myself, I think I ought to have assumed that, in killing a King, the embers of that victory would not die out so quickly. The strangeness of it would be just as quick to ignite a new flame. Ever, young General Patrick, with the right placement of you by Hod, you have confounded me. I am almost tempted to call this unfair, Minister. We fight on the Battle board, and yet you have an extra wild card in your hand that thwarts all rules…"

He trailed off, seeing just how far General Blackthorn had come. "Make that two wild cards. The Black blood runs stronger in this one than I remember. Or is it the mere lure of my head that makes him fight so viciously?"

Blackthorn, and a hundred men at his head, had broken past the second square of infantry, leaving behind their other men to deal with the soldiers in their place. Blackthorn had simply one objective, and that was to see his glaive reach Tavar, by whatever means he deemed necessary. And now, for the second time in their battle, he was right on the edge of achieving just that.

He barrelled through the archers in his way, halting their bow fire, trampling over them like dry grasses. And then hungrily, once more, did he begin to rush towards Tavar and his horsemen, not in all deterred by the superior mobility of the cavalry that stood in his way.

"You're far too reckless, General Blackthorn, one would think that you do not value your life. And yet, I have to admire the degree of trouble that you've caused. You, Hod, and General Patrick have certainly seen me tangled up," Tavar said. "But there are still lessons you need to learn. A formation is a fluid thing, under the right General."

He gave the signal, and the left side of his formation that had currently been unoccupied began to move, lured by Hod's own replacement of Verdant, bringing him closer to Oliver's rear, to prevent any of the routing men from circling back around, and to bring his army back into a soldier mass once more. It was clear that he was preparing the means for a single spear thrust towards Tavar. He was looking to end the battle there and there.

When Tavar's men shifted, however, they came all the way around. They had stood still as a castle at first, bringing the Ernest army in, but now they moved into what was entirely an envelopment. And suddenly, it did seem, that it was Tavar who was fighting with his back to the city – the very city that he and Hod knew he had every reason to rush towards.

Hod's eyes widened. He hadn't foreseen that it would be done so easily. Tavar had matched both his threats with a single move, and created a new threat of his own. No one seemed to use superior numbers as well as Tavar. He had that path open towards the Emerson reinforcements if he wished it now, though it was still risky, for the problem of pursuit. For now, Tavar chose to hold his men in place, making Hod suffer under the tension, and making it all the more necessary that Hod have Blackthorn's attack succeed.

Defeated, those men that had been hanging at the gates seemed to be. General Blackthorn saw himself thwarted from that rear attack. And yet, even with that result, which no doubt ought to have surprised General Tavar, it was still very much the General that seemed to be in charge, and seemed to have benefitted. For where they sat now, with Tavar's flank curled around their entire army, blocking them from running off into the city, it could well be said that they were right on the brink of checkmate.