A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He set himself in the middle of the road, though he'd yet to draw his sword. Verdant fell in beside him, and Firyr came just behind them, with his hundred men filling the road for a good distance. Jorah came next, and then Blackthorn, with Yorick's men making up the rear, and Lombard's men coming after.

Ordinarily, a Commander so gifted in attack couldn't afford to be stationed so far away from where the frontline was likely to be, but an exception was made for Blackthorn in this battle. Oliver supposed that it would be a dynamic one.

Though at first, it might seem as if she was far away – since she was nearly twenty ranks back – Oliver had a feeling that their positions would see a shift far more quickly than any of them expected.

The Verna lowered those giant shields as Oliver drew closer. They thudded into the ground, and spears extended past them. They were difficult to breach even on flat land, and on the likes of these slopes, they were certain to be something else. Their rigid steel made the Yarmdon wooden shields look puny in comparison.

"Prepare yourself, Verdant," Oliver said. "You and I will seize the opening act – we had better use it well."

Though Oliver intended to seize the opening act for himself, he was not the only one on that battlefield that thought the same. From the shieldmen of the Verna, to the bowmen of the same army, to the ex-slaves of Oliver's own men, there was not a single man amongst them that didn't intend to stake all they had on this opening act.

This was the moment when their confidence was at its highest. The Patrick men, of course, were numbed into their confidence. Their exhaustion had accumulated to the point that fear could no longer hold a proper sway. They would go forward, even if they didn't summon all the enthusiasm needed to go forward with vigour.

Yet even for the most tired men, that opening act was their time to show a fraction of their energy. Each man worked on the same belief, that if they put all their might into their first move, then the enemy would cower, and they would be able to rest afterwards.

Even the archers, shooting their endless rain of arrow volleys, were careful in how they shot their projectiles. They knew that if they picked off someone important this early into the game, then the battle would quite easily drift into their favour, and they would be rewarded for their achievement.

The trouble was, who did they aim for? Amongst the Stormfront it wasn't nearly as obvious who should make for the proper target. But the Sergeants amongst them soon took care of that, as a shout went up, carrying Oliver's description.

"The young one at the front! With the curved sword!" They said. "Fix your arrows on him – he must be their leader."

"The woman with the black hair too. Look at that armour. She'll be someone important."

"That tall man with jewels in his steel, he's got to be important as well. Put him down!"

So was their selection of men that they could shoot. Even as the cries to fire came, the men were aiming their arrows ever so carefully, picking their targets, knowing that their future could very well ride upon a single shot.

THWUMP! THWUMP! THWUMP!

But even as they aimed through the cracks in the shields, that wood was nigh on impenetrable. It was with considerable vexation that man after man found his shots stopped. That irritation mounted, but their desire to see a man dead did not die down. They knew as the Stormfront men committed more and more to the slopes, their backs would increasingly be revealed.

As the archers intended to snatch their glory with their arrows, the shield wielders intended to do it with their spears. They knew they merely had to hold, but there was a nervousness that came with that. Those men in the front line, that was the worst position to be in, the most nerve-racking, for they would be made to bear the brunt of the charge.

"Calmly, calmly," one old Verna man said from beneath his blue-plumed helmet. "We've the hill, and we've the weight. They will not be able to break through. They will find their feet to have less stability than on the soft sands of Pandora's Desert."

The men at the front weren't chosen at random, given the difficulty of the role. Their robes beneath their armour were of a different sort than the others arrow them. There were gold ribbons running around their wide open sleeves. These were scholarly men, who had also trained in the martial ways. There was a position of great respect in the Verna world. Scribe Soldiers, they called them.

They were known for their cunning and their ferocity.

Rogue Commandant Amion had particular ties to their group. His ranks held more Scribe Soldiers than most other armies.

"Was it wise to put the Scribe Soldiers at the front, Commandant?" Asked one of his closer men. "We've men capable of far more brutishness than they. The front is a position that requires strength. Cunning comes later."

"Cunning comes first," Amion replied. "We will take these foes seriously from the start, Jericho. There are more ways than one to stop a charge. Brute force is merely the most often used course. The Scribe Soldiers are capable of something more interesting than that."

He said so with almost alarming confidence. His faith in the Scribe Soldiers was almost religious. Had Jericho not served with him for so long, he might have doubted his master. But even after all these years, the Scribe Soldiers continued to surprise him. Their ways were old, and ancient, and more often than not, they hit upon a solution that the modern world had not seen in a long time.

"Then I pity this foe of ours," Jericho said, gazing down at the charging Stormfront forces as they neared, a smirk playing on his lips. To see the Scribe Soldiers surprise him again – the anticipation made it hard to keep that smile hidden.