A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Where he'd slain that Violet Commandant, the enemy began to cave, taking steps inwards in order to be free of the threat. It was a pressure that seemed slight, but it built, and built, and it was felt all the way to the centre, and the slightest pulling on a string that was already too taut.

"URAHHH!" Came the cry of the old General. His long white beard was speckled with blood. He did not seem like the type to Oliver to lead the battle from the front, but it was hard to tell now with the way he wielded his glaive.

With that should, he struck down a Rogue Commandant that he'd been struggling with, out of an encirclement of three, and with his falling, the tide began to once more push overwhelming in the Stormfront favour.

Oliver was satisfied enough with his work, but he certainly didn't expect it to be acknowledged. When General Rainheart looked his way, and raised his bloody glaive in a salute, he thought it to be an accident. He looked behind him, wondering if he'd missed the approach of Karstly or some other such man worthy of that gesture.

But there was no one there, save for the wide open plains, and by the time he looked back, General Rainheart was already engaged in the turmoils of conflict once more.

By now, the General had made it all the way to the impromptu General that Zilan had appointed before his arrival – to that Rogue Commandant of the name Torn.

The General was surrounded by fierce fighters in the form of his bodyguards. From what Oliver could tell, they were all men of the Third Boundary, and strong enough to hold their own against the likes of Rogue Commandants, if not for the Command that separated a few of them.

The General Rainheart did not stand on ceremony. He did not offer up the respects that he might have, before he engaged in a duel with another General. As far as he was concerned, the General of this battlefield that he had spent fighting was already over, and he would not lose his place to a man that stood beneath him.

Within the first few blows of combat, he made that clear enough. Commandant Torn didn't have the men to spare for his assistance. All of those of strength were embroiled with General Rainheart's bodyguard. He was forced to bear the blows alone. The first slash of Rainheart's glaive made his sword ring out in protest, and it made his arm ache.

The second strike sent the sword flat against his chest, robbing him of any room, and then the third pushed past that sword to cleave him from shoulder to hip.

That such a strike didn't immediately throw him from his horse was cause for complaint, and indeed, only in seeing the Commandant remain seated from such a blow did the General Rainheart offer any sort of respect – and it came in the form of a small salute. A slight fist against the chest.

To another man, it might have seemed like a recognition of strength, but Oliver thought it to be an ominous thing. A welcoming in of the death that was to come. And that death did indeed soon follow.

The weighty blow that had already been landed crippled Commandant Torn. He could not summon up the guard that he'd managed before, as lacking as that had been. This time, even with the sword in front of him, and the room to defend, he could not bear a single blow.

The glaive slammed straight through his sword, and added to the wound that it had already inflicted, burrowing it deeper now, following the same lines in the armour.

That blow finally took Torn from his saddle. The man struggled to a knee from there, groaning. The look on his face told him that he already knew the battle had been lost. Like the rest of them, he did not think that Zilan would die such an early death.

Nor, perhaps, did he think that he would follow the same fate. His kneeling offered the head to General Rainheart, and the man took it.

With a thump, it rolled to the floor, and one of General Rainheart's bodyguards scooped it up, and proclaimed victory.

"The Leader of Zilan's forces has been defeated!" He called.

"""AWOOOO!"""

Came the cry of the men, raising up their spears and increasing their strength in time with their morale.

"SHATTER WHAT REMAINS OF THEM!" Came Rainheart's cry, when the morale was at the highest, his Command prodding them at the perfect time. "LET NOT A SINGLE MAN LIVE!"

He was almost as good as his word in that. When the centre had buckled with Torn's death, the entire army collapsed with it. There were nearly fifteen thousand men still remaining when that Commandant fell, and in a matter of minutes, ten thousand were butchered.

What a change it made when formations collapsed, and when backs were shown to the attackers. For so many human lives to be culled so quickly, it was not a site that Oliver thought he would have ever been privy to. It brought back shades of General Karstly's battle with General Phalem. It was over far too quickly.

The remaining five thousand engaged in a full scale route. They began to scatter in all directions, and that slowed down their slaughter by just a fraction. It was the cavalrymen that were the true problems, and the only ones able to properly escape, but there were fewer than a hundred of those in the first place, so chariot heavy had General Zilan's army been.

A good number of them made it to safety, and General Rainheart left them to it. For the infantry, however, he spared no quarter. He could not allow a single spark to remain living, whilst their other battlefield was so uncertain. It seemed almost a cruelty. The battle was over. This was very much walking along the line of surrendering a civilian.

For as soon as a man threw down his arms, was he not essentially that?