A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"""SWIFT AND DEVASTATING!" They called out, as General Karstly's horse took to the slopes first.

"Your orders are to remain here, in the centre of the slopes, until the battle is concluded," said the messenger, but Oliver barely heard him. His gaze was cast higher upwards, towards where Karstly had just given his speech.

As far away as he'd been, he felt the subtle Command of that speech as well. Hearing it, just then as it was, he felt as if he'd gained more understanding of exactly what Command was than he'd managed in all his years trying to decipher it at the academy. There was a subtlety, at least, to a Command wielded well that matched the nature of the battlefield flow as he'd come to understand it.

And, in a strange sense, the nature of progress too as he'd come to understand it.

"Lombard…" Oliver said. "Why haven't I heard of this man before now?"

"For the same reason that his name barely registered in my mind, I imagine," Lombard said. "A Tiger isn't truly acknowledged until he takes down his first piece of prey. Greatness can wander unnoticed, until it decides to make itself known."

It was almost with a sense of relief that Oliver heard those words from Lombard, hearing the man speak the same impression of Karstly as Oliver himself had. Just in that moment, as he gave that speech before his charge, and after he'd secured that strategic position so effortlessly, it had become impossible for Oliver to deny.

There was the presence of a great man, of the likes that he didn't think even Blackwell had anticipated. Both his strategy and his mastery of Command were completely and utterly horrifying.

'Why do I only make note of it properly now? Why not in the battle with Khan?' Oliver wondered. He doubted his own abilities to evaluate. There were magnitudes of existence that he had been unable to acknowledge before, and only within the last few weeks – and the last two days in particular – had he been forced right in front of them.

He supposed the answer lay in the nature of the opponent. General Khan had been adept enough to keep Karstly in check, for the most part. But General Phalem – despite the fact that he was a General – lacked that ability.

Now Karstly stormed the slopes, and his men came behind him, furious in their excitement. They might have been a mere three thousand, their foes might have been nine thousand strong, but Oliver could not believe that even an army of twenty thousand would have stopped them then.

He lept from his horse as Karstly vanished from his sight, and with almost frantic motions, he climbed a nearby boulder, right on the edge of the mountain path.

"C-captain! Careful! Your hand!" Jorah said, panicked. Even he knew about how badly battered Oliver's hand had become now, and he was not the only one that shouted.

"Oliver!" Lasha said, horrified.

But Oliver could not stop. He had to see. This was the ideal that he aimed for. To let it vanish from his sight for even a second was to miss a whole lifetime's worth of knowledge. With but a single hand, and the forearm of his injured arm, he scrambled up the uneven rock until he made it all the way to the top, some fifteen feet above the ground.

By then, he'd already missed a good thirty seconds of it. Both armies were atop the mountain now, facing off against each other, and still the Stormfront charge had not slowed for even a second. In fact, it grew all the faster. It was as if in seeing the men in front of him – the Verna men that Karstly had deemed inferior – the men saw the truth of his words, and they grew excited for it.

"ALL UNITS, STAND YOUR GROUND! WE FIGHT TO THE DEATH! IF WE HOLD FOR A MERE HANDFUL OF MINUTES, THEIR EXHAUSTION WILL CATCH UP TO THEM, AND WE WILL HAVE OUR VICTORY!" General Phalem shouted.

"""FOR ICARON!""" The Verna men shouted, invoking the name of the Sun God. Their morale was not low either, Oliver noted with surprise. Somehow, in his mind, it seemed as if the two couldn't exist at once. After General Karstly's speech, all other traces of morale seemed like mere dark shadows in comparison to the light that he had created.

The Verna men stood firm, as if they could not see what all the Stormfront eyes had been forced to see. Karstly was at the very front of their charge. A strategist, a General, and now, Oliver thought, the man fancied himself a swordsman. Was there not a limit to how well rounded a man could be? Surely, even though he was of the Fourth Boundary, in his sword there would be an element of weakness.

The Verna men put barricades all along their line apart from in the centre. There was one of the lessons that Phalem had learned from Khan. You never wanted to cut your enemy off entirely. You merely wanted to limit his options, and force him along a path that was more suited to you.

He'd indeed managed to do that, but the Stormfront men barrelled forward, as if they thought nothing of it. Behind Karstly, the Colonels of Blackthorn loyalty – with Gordry amongst them – kept their charging men in perfect formation. It very much looked like the basic training drill that Karstly had declared it to be.

It was so orderly, so devoid of the fear and uncertainty that should have come with battle, and so full of freshness and enthusiasm.

Then Karstly hit.

Just that man, right in the centre by himself. The same Verna shield wielders, with their spears pointed outwards. It was a foe that they'd grown used to, and learnd to respect. And it was a foe that Karstly brushed through, as if it was no more than a paper wall.