A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1905 - 1905: A Timely March - Part 2

"Colonel Verdant," Oliver said, greeting the man, mounted as he was.

"General," Verdant said, saluting.

"Captain Blackthorn," Oliver said, greeting his other retainer.

"General," Blackthorn said, looking stronger than she had before.

"Captain Firyr," Oliver said, greeting him too.

"General," Firyr responded crisply.

"Colonel Jorah," Oliver said.

"General."

"Commander Kaya."

"General."

"Commander Karesh."

"General."

"Gar," he said, simply to acknowledge the young man that was fighting for his attention, oblivious to the same tension as the rest of them.

"Me," Gar said, tittering madly.

He went through the full line of them, those men that had been with him for the longest, and who he had relied on with an increasing strength in his battle with Tavar. He spoke to the rest of them, after offering them his greetings. "These men have fought beside me for many years now," Oliver said. "If you find yourself in doubt, trust in their judgement. They will not lead you astray."

"We have a good many newcomers to our ranks, but our purpose is the same," Oliver said. "Even you Treeants that once fought against us have come to know us. Ours is a simple bond. Fight hard, and as always, we shall struggle towards victory together. Do not doubt that fact. Hold to your discipline, and to your honour, no matter what we face. They are the torch that will guide us all through."

An usually sombre speech for the likes of Oliver, but it felt more appropriate than any other he could have given. It did not come to a chorus of cheers, but to a few nods, and the soldiers drank the advice in.

There was a fog that hung in the air, when Oliver looked beyond them, into the distance. It was hard to see too far ahead. Hard to even tell if it was fog at all, and not just a cloud of snow that the wind had yet to blow towards them.

After a time, Minister Hod came to find him. "Have you readied your men?"

"I have."

"Have you readied yourself?"

"...I have," Oliver said.

"Then take field command of our combined forces. Your voice is stronger on the field than mine. They need a man that will lead them from the front – my place is to watch and command from the rear," Hod said.

A bombshell of an order, one that would have usually caught Oliver off guard, but he found his heart that morning, for how tentatively he was searching around, unsure of the ground that he stood on, to be hardened against it. It did not shake him. There was logic in it. He had commanded a good deal of men before, though never an army of this size. He had to trust that Hod had made the preparations necessary of those men that had sworn their loyalty to him so that they might obey the commands of Oliver instead.

"Very well," Oliver said, his jaw tight, his head high. Once a loose fighting man, relaxed and passionate. Now, out of necessity, hard and firm, a typical soldier. The memory of a ghost of a man. The harsh coolness of Captain Lombard.

Hod put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a shake, through his armour. He looked him dead in the eye, imploringly, not saying a word, but beseeching him towards something. Then he nodded, and left him there.

"Fight hard, Oliver Patrick," Hod said. "The Gods require it of you. They require it of all of us."

If there was that God given requirement, Oliver felt it. He received command not as a man, but as an instrument, a character in a play, a seamless transition. The duty of it – his role in that play – was absolute enough that he could not even fathom a celebration of his elevated position. That chance to command so many men that an Oliver Patrick of a year ago would have been so excited by.

He took to the front of the army, as Hod made his departure, and the men saw themselves all lined up. He was flanked on either side by his two retainers, in Verdant and in Blackthorn. But they were the only two that stayed with him, and Verdant made a point of dismounting before he did come, so that all eyes would be on the General that was to lead them – all eyes would be on Oliver Patrick.

Chilly airs, and stirring winds, and snow that had more frozen to ice than it was soft and fluffy. A fog that obscured the horizon. Oliver had to stand closer to those men so that they could see him, and he had to constantly move up and down the line, lest certain parts of those forces be forbidden from seeing him entirely.

The weather was against him, he supposed. Nature itself on that day might very well have been against him. How could it not have been, when every instinct in his body demanded that they simply stay where they were, and keep camp as they had been?

He had the sense, well and truly, that what awaited them would be something of the highest disaster. It was only a feeling. It didn't reach as far as conscious thought. He noted it to be there, but it came with no imaginings as to what that might be. If he entertained it, his suspicions would have flourished, and he would have looked everywhere and nowhere at once. That was something that Dominus Patrick had taught him early on – not to anticipate the next strike too strongly, lest he contort himself entirely to deal with it, and open himself up to all manner of other attacks.

"Gentlemen," Oliver said. His voice was drowned out by the wind. It might have reached as far as the men in front of him, but no further. That wind that had once seemed such an auspicious thing for him, ever on his side as of late, and ever there in moments of significance, it now turned into a hearty enemy, forbidding him even from the lightest of comforts – in being able to speak to his men at a level voice.