A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"It is not our place. Not your place, nor mine – not yet. In time, perhaps, you will stand at the top of that mountain, and you will be the one to cut down such mighty foes," Lombard said.

"But not today," Oliver finished for him. "You need say no more, Lombard. I see my own inadequacies for what they are now. There are weapons that I have been taught that I have allowed to grow dust. No longer shall it be the case. This injury shall not hinder me.

I shall not allow it to be called a blunder, but instead, it will be my opportunity for recognition."

"Very well," Lombard said. "Then point your eyes towards the ones that rule, and learn their ways. Do not allow yourself to be caught off guard by their strength again. So far from the Stormfront, blunders, as you've learned, shall be fatal. That is what it means to attack on an enemy's own turf."

It was a lesson that Oliver had learned the hard way, and he found himself nodding as he heard it. He almost instinctively clenched his right fist, as he often did, when he found his passion stirring, and his want rising. But that hand was as broken as it had been before – though the limitations that it put on him weren't quite as weighty as they had once been.

He was not the centre of this battle, nor the battle with Khan, and as obvious as it might have been to any other man, to Oliver Patrick, whose every battle had depended so heavily on his own efforts, it had required such adjustment. Only with his victory over Amion did he finally feel content to resign himself – temporarily – to the role of the watcher.

A role that he felt he might have even earned.

Before Karstly's charge, the last of Amion's troops were scattered, and the man rounded a curve in the slope, and changed direction along a barricaded path, as he dashed madly towards the next group of men.

"Change the barricades!" Came General Phalem's order. It was an option that he would have preferred not to use, for the weaknesses that it would inevitably make, with the little amount of time the men would have to see those barricades secure. Nevertheless, it was the only option he had if he wanted to cut off Karstly's charge.

Suddenly, the Stormfront General found his path barred by newly moved fences of staked wood. He'd mapped the mountain and its paths in his head before he had committed his men to it. He knew he hadn't made a mistake in his navigation. He didn't fall into the uneasy despair that some men might have fallen into as a result of the trap.

Besides, the Verna soldiers that fled before the newly placed fences told the secrets of what they'd done. It did not take a genius to figure it out.

"He's moved the fences," Samuel noted with irritation. Their charge was brought to a halt by it. All the speed that they'd gathered, and now they'd arrived at a path that was as good as a dead end.

With a turn of their heads, they saw that the higher slopes to their left held even more irritating surprises. Along with the change of the paths, General Phalem had given them a few hundred archers to welcome them.

"It was not unexpected," Karstly said, eyeing the soldiers pouring down the slope to reinforce the barricades that the fleeing combat engineers had just placed. "Colonel Gordry – I do believe we have discussed this."

The Colonel acknowledged the order with a grunt. Such brutish physical labour was the job of a select team of men in particular – a team that happened to comprise the majority of Karstly's newly put-together army. That was, the Blackthorn soldiers.

"We've obstacles, men!" Gordry shouted to his soldiers. "The front rank shall begin their removal. The second rank will see them free from harm."

"AWOO!" The disciplined Blackthorn men responded without hesitation to Gordy's order, and they began their way forward, into a position that could only be called reckless.

It was not only a single barricade that they had to clear. The engineers had managed to place five of them along the slopes, rendering them inaccessible. And now the Verna men were inserting themselves in the space behind each barricade, reinforcing them further, preventing the Blackthorn men from doing exactly what they intended to do.

Ordinarily, those barricades should have been hammered tightly enough into the ground that removing them was an impossibility, but that was a sacrifice that General Phalem had needed to make, if he wished to keep his barricades usable. He recognized such a flaw, and that was why he'd placed his barricades next to the support of men as he had.

"You won't get through them," General Phalem declared. "Or at least, you will not get through them easily. Just how many men are you willing to sacrifice, Stormfronter? You will lose two thousand, right here and now."

"Charging through like that, Captain… Is that not too brash?" Tolsey commented, as he rejoined Lombard, looking thoroughly worn and bloody.

Lombard was silent as he squinted at it. He couldn't say for certain how brash it was, but he certainly knew it wasn't the way General Blackwell would have fought this battle. The newcomer General Karstly was a far different General to those that Lombard had learned to fight alongside.

"Forward," General Karstly called, almost lazily as the Blackthorn men took to the front line. Those are the very front wielded shields, for all the good it did them against the storm of arrows coming from up above. There was only so much that could be blocked. Men were falling by the dozen, but General Karstly barely flinched at their deaths.

"FORWARD! MOVE WITH PACE!" Gordry bellowed on his General's behalf. He would have said it even if Karstly had not. Blackthorn men were not allowed to move slowly. For the honour of their General's name, and for the honour of the teachers that had trained them, they weren't allowed to be lesser than normal men.