A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1162 A Youth’s Command - Part 1
1162: A Youth’s Command – Part 1
1162: A Youth’s Command – Part 1
The fact that something was being done, even if it was the smallest of things, seemed like a victory to Oliver. freewebnoveℓ.com
He watched carefully as a crow was plucked from one of the many wooden cages that Karstly had left them with, tied to a horse for the very purpose.
Another man scribbled out a message, that Verdant spent a rather long time studying, before he nodded, and allowed it to be threaded into the small ring around the crow’s leg.
The bird was thrown up, and with a squark, it took to the sky, beating an urgent rhythm with its wings, until it managed to find some sort of stability further up in its flight.
Towards General Rainheart’s castle it went – and with it, Oliver hoped the General would feel that it brought some degree of good tidings.
“Well, I suppose now we ought to mobilize the man, and begin to exert pressure on the battlefield,” Oliver said.
He spoke it quietly.
It wasn’t an exactly confident order that had been given.
He was wracking his brain, trying to recall how Karstly had fought, and doing his best to emulate it.
“Very well,” Lombard said.
“I will relay those orders to the men, Captain Patrick, with you approval.
I shall do the same in future.
I think that, by the slimmest chancing, those men might be more inclined to respond if they are voiced by a more veteran man.”
Already, Captain Lombard was adjusting to his position, as strange as it was.
He addressed Oliver as if he was addressing a Colonel, though he neglected to use the title.
Oliver took his offering a little too eagerly.
“Please, Captain, if you would,” he said.
“All troops, into formation.
We proceed towards General Rainwater’s battlefield,” Captain Lombard said.
He was one of the few commanding men that did not need to shout.
His voice had a strange quality to it that seemed to carry far, even when he hardly put any strength into it.
The men moved across the dusty plains, hesitation in their steps.
Oliver could feel the uncertain morale as if it were his own emotions swimming about his body.
Even his eager Patrick troops, so excited by the sudden promotion, had that excitement begin to dampen, as the reality of the task that they were set began to sink in, and they saw the battlefield they would have to impose on up ahead of them.
Chapter 12 – A Youth’s Command
“Three thousand men,” that was what Lord Blackwell told Karstly when the younger General had asked whether Blackwell would be open to sharing those troops of his.
“Oh?
An equal split?” Karstly said.
“Does that mean you judge me to be of equal skill, General?”
It was a prodding that elicited no signs of amusement from General Blackwell.
Those that knew him in times of peace would have called him an amiable man, but when he was on the battlefield, and he held the lives of so many thousands of men in his hands, he found it hard to bring himself to smile.
“It means that I judge our chances to be greater, if the men are split equally between yourself and I.
Nothing more, nothing less,” General Blackwell said.
“Hm…” General Karstly hummed happily in the saddle, riding alongside the older man.
One would never have thought he was mere minutes away from engaging in battle with seventy-thousand men.
He looked like a child whose father had finally made the time for him.
It was all he could do to stop himself from kicking his feet happily.
General Blackwell acknowledged the high-spirits of his subordinate with a frown.
“You are a far different man to I, General Karstly.
You find such amusement in these battlefields.”
“Oh, indeed I do, General,” Karstly said without the slightest hint of shame.
“Where else can you see so many lives bore open at once?
So many hearts exposed to the burnings of the sun.
Here, I feel as if I can learn more than any library.
This is a place of learning, I do think.”
“It is a dangerous place,” Lord Blackwell said.
“I could not call it a place of learning.
There is no knowledge to be found in death.”
“Not for the dead,” Karstly said.
“But for us living?
There’s much.”
“And when you are amongst the dead?” Lord Blackwell said.
“Will you still find such amusement?”
The General shrugged.
“I don’t know.
I shall be dead, my good General.”
There came a long drawn out sigh at that.
“You play too many games, Karstly.
I acknowledge your talent, but your want for entertainment will be your undoing, and the undoing of us all.
I have come to rely on you.
You’ve become a weight-bearing pillar in this campaign.
That weight is the weight of responsibility.
If you move too erratically, you shall bring all of us crashing down.”
“Does that mean you question my decision, General?” Karstly said, entirely unperturbed by the almost scolding tone that General Blackwell had taken with him.
“I question it,” Lord Blackwell agreed.
“I did not think that I needed to state outright why it was unlikely to be a good idea, despite all the implications that you left hidden in your previous message to me.
Karstly grinned.
“So you understood what I was getting at, but you still ignored me?”
He seemed even happier at that.
His legs kicked, once, then twice, before he found control of himself.
“Why is it that I have had to grow so old before I could share the battlefield with you, good General Blackwell?
Had I been able to share your witt ten years earlier, I would have been a far greater man.”
General Blackwell ignored the remark.
“For what few men that we have, a thousand carries a heavy burden.
You’ve placed that on shoulders that are far too young for it.”
“Do you truly believe so, General?” Karstly said.
“You make it seem as if it was entirely my doing – but Oliver Patrick is your protegee.
Not mine.”
The older General went quiet at that accusation.
“I treat him no differently than I do the other up-and-comers.”
