A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Blackwell had Tiberius' attention. He'd succeeded in that much, at least, in freeing the rest of his men from the wrath that was sure to come the second they showed themselves as they did now, in that great blinding light, that faith, and passion. Done differently, it would have been the very seed that brought about their destruction, for they knew not the nature of the creature that they warred against, as Blackwell had come to know.

It was in that land that bordered on the insane that Blackwell carried his responsibility as the Commanding General. He walked through fields of madness, shouldering the burden for those great Generals beneath him who carried their banners for Claudia. He gave them the solidness of ground that he needed to walk upon, and in doing so, he seemed to sacrifice himself in the process. Seemed to – enough that Tiberius would lunge upon him. But he did not undertake such an action as an entirely faithless man. For the Blackwell that had come marching west was a different man that had gone marching east. He'd found a monarch that he believed in, as he had once believed in Arthur. There was a grandness to her that his instincts bowed to, that the entirety of his lineage as a member of House Black bowed to.

As he felt the pain in his body beginning to subside, and something else took its place, Blackwell found he knew with a certainty, at least one part of what that was. "My Queen carries the Blessing of Gaia," he did realize, his searching hands finding him that answer in sensation, just as he had found the answer to Tiberius' own might. "An Old God for an Old God," he murmured. To him, it seemed fitting. Another of the three Old Gods, to match Pandora. A Goddess that Asabel ought to have had no contact with. A goddess that had chosen the girl, and recognized her, long before anyone else could. That secret slumbering greatness of the dragon that Queen Asabel was. Now, it was her dragon fire that saw them all empowered. A great blue fire that slapped away the hands of chaos that sought to snuff it out.

A Blackwell that ought to have been trapped by the charge in front of him instead found his men with him. As if guided by that hand that Queen Asabel had extended unknowingly. Allowing them the means to cross the chaos that ought to have been absolute. The sort of Command that could hardly be taught, or grown. The sort of greatness that was intrinsic. A true Pendragon Queen, somehow, with enough metal to match the charisma of Arthur.

That which had held them back was all the more quickly severed. Order was allowed to be rebuilt, after the sacrifices Blackwell had already made, and after the rallying cry of Queen Asabel, and finally, the allied forces were able to exert themselves properly. There was a single solid push, a moment in which all those men down the full length of Blackwell's frontline fell into unification, despite their disorderly state. There was a feel of the tide turning, not one that was fleeting, but a solid turning, like the stampeding of a horse. It was a changing of tide that was practically felt.

They were shoved, on the ends of spears, back towards the edges of the hill that they had climbed, into the path of their own constant arrow fire. General by General, they rebuilt those lines, and finally, in giving those orders, they found success in doing so – now it seemed those formations had the desired effects, as they would on an ordinary battlefield and against ordinary foes. The enemy was punished for their disorderliness. The broken lines that they held to casually, knowing that true advantage could not be seized upon them, were properly turned against them, using the fundamentals of Stormfront strategy that ought to have been constantly true.

And General Blackwell who ought to have been cornered instead stood his ground, with his men at his back, they erected a wall of spears right into the path of that thousand strong heavy cavalry. Spears burst through that plate metal, and found the creatures beneath, causing screams of the most horrific sort, and sending their heavy riders falling back down to earth, where they were promptly trampled and finished.

They gained ground at a rapid pace, even more rapidly than they would have against a normal sort of enemy. It was as if the enemy were cowering, before that light that Asabel had managed to conjure in them, and that the Generals between them had managed to nurture. There was a stab to that strange morale that they held, a weakness that normal men would not have.

It was not a weakness that seemed to leak quite as far as their Second Boundary men, or those above them, but they too found themselves dealt with by the Captains and Colonels of Blackwell's army that had been watching and waiting, playing out the game of endurance that their General had put them in, and looking for that opportunity they wished to have in order to fully exert themselves.

Their blades found flesh with an increasing rapidly. Any would have thought that they were granted weapons all of a sudden, mightier than that which they'd had before. Weapons that could slice through that heavy armour that their enemy sported as if it were nothing at all.

Naturally, they had no such thing. All they had was the harsh battling that they'd already endured as a foundation. They had the ten thousand men that they'd lost already in bitter fighting. They had that mounting exhaustion and that steady stabbing that had happened to their pride. Not the sort of fuel that most fires would seek, but a fuel that burned hot and strong, once Asabel and their Generals saw fit to finally light it.

The odds that had been mounted so heavily in Tiberius' favour, with a great croaking of mighty scales of judgement, now came slamming down towards the army of Queen Asabel. Within the first span of that charge, thousands were cut down, and sent toppling to the bottom of the hill. Fourteen thousand, at most, was what Tiberius' overwhelming number had been reduced to, and the Stormfronters hardly found themselves to have lost a man in the process.