A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1895 - 1895: An Inland Kraken - Part 7

But they had gained more important things than simply the lives of the men in front of them. They had regained the top of the hill, and they had regained order.

They came striding, cutting down those banners with Tiberius' terrifying sigil on, and replacing them once more with the fluttering banners of the House of the Dragon, and the House of Blackwell. Dragon and owl looked out from atop their outpost together, and declared all the enemies beneath them inferior. The bannermen thrust their charges into the ground with vitriol. There was a feeling of accomplishment in it that would not have been there if not for the precise nature of the enemy that they faced. That weakness to morale that Tiberius had inflicted using that tactic now became their strength, and the tide came back around, all in their favour.

From the front, the Generals led. Blackwell's soldiers were the worst off of them, narrowed all the way down to two thousand, but one would not have thought so, for how they bristled and took their positions so readily, longing for the command to give chase to the fleeing foe.

Blackwell looked to his left, and saw General Broadstone still mounted. He gave the man a nod. The other General returned it. He was defensive by nature, General Broadstone was, and he'd manage to conserve a good three thousand men for those instincts – but he knew too when to attack. Given the hill, and given the advantage they'd secured, the moment was obvious, and with every second the sands in the hourglass of fate ran away from them.

For those Generals beyond Blackwell, who were unlikely to see his expressions from a distance, he saw a banner raised, and a command given. Skullic and Karstly saw it, and Skullic attempted to look for Karstly, to see a confirmation of intention from him, as Blackwell had sought one from Broadstone. But Karstly was entirely facing forward. He glanced to see the command, and waited no longer than that. He too, like Broadstone next to him, found himself still mounted. As soon as that order was delivered, it was Karstly that took the initiative, and he that led the charge.

"Damn it," Skullic cursed, having to follow after him, but missing out on precious seconds, and being forced to fall behind. A flat line charge was what Skullic assumed they would aim for, so that they might envelop the enemy, and aim towards Tiberius beyond it, but now with the delay and lack of communication, he was made to fall into an arrowhead – the entirety of their army was.

Broadstone and Blackwell were veteran enough that it meant little to them. They allowed Karstly to form the tip of that arrow, though it was an imbalanced one, with a greater line on the right side than on the left. Karstly had the sort of eagerness that a good charge needed, and Blackwell saw no need to rob him of his excitement. He held his men in check, and took the position furthest back, allowing the others their glory, and allowing himself the position of greatest strategic advantage, in a role that was likely to be more responsive than the rest.

Only a handful of horsemen did Karstly have left with him, with Samuel included amongst their number. They took to the front, ahead of their men, rippling down that icy snow-covered hill at a speed that was frankly dangerous for the mounts under them.

There was only one target that Karstly had in mind, and they were well beyond the backs of the fleeing infantry, and of the bowmen that stood behind them, and even the cavalry beyond them. It was Tiberius and his bodyguard that he had an interest in. He'd expressed his want to the rest of his officers from the start – they had no complaints and no need for orders from him, when he did circle ever so slightly, to collide at an angle with that line of men in front of him, so that he might quicken his course towards Tiberius.

They hit hard, and sent men flying for it, even after those same men bowed to the instructions of their Emperor, and turned around, just in time to hold the line. Peasants armed with stake spears, fashioned out of forest wood, would have crumbled just as easily as they before the charge of a determined Karstly and his guard.

"A step slower, General," Samuel warned, seeing that they were leaving the infantry behind.

Karstly took the advice, and slowed every so slightly, though his blade did not. He continued to carve apart the men nearest him, taking care to see the gap as wide as possible. For all his impatience, he still made way for them – the infantry. Samuel knew it was not a decision made out of compassion, but out of recognition. The infantry would be that final necessary push that would drive Karstly all the way home to his target. He could not do without them.

Broadstone roared his approval, for he was the next to meet with the enemy. He did so with sword held high, from the back of his horse. He swept low in the saddle, to lengthen the arc of his first strike, slicing apart all that was in front of him, and widening the gap that Karstly had already created even further.

Morale exploded, as the men saw the destruction in front of them. They thought themselves to already be charging the fastest they could, but now there was an extra burst of fear. These were men that had endured, and now they could see it finally – that magnificent bridge over which they could march, to storm that castle that Tiberius commanded. To see him thrust down as the monster that he was. The Skullic men found all the more reason to charge faster in that, for this was the tyrant that had seized their home from them, and done only the Gods knew what to it in the process.

Tiberius growled his discontent. All the time that he'd spent stamping out every bit of order that threatened to present itself, only for it all to come back together like this, like the snapping of a great rubber band. Every drop of the struggle that he'd proved to be useless now became part of that overwhelming force of momentum that threatened to crush him and his army.