A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1178 A Passing Result - Part 1
1178: A Passing Result – Part 1
1178: A Passing Result – Part 1
It was a small defiance that the man didn’t cower despite Zilan’s bellowing.
It was one of the reasons that made Zilan hate him so, and one of the reasons that made him keep him around.
‘One of these days, he will flinch, and once I have a hold of his weakness, I shall never let it go.’
Against attacks that favoured quality, rather than quantity, Zilan sent forth his own quality.
Rogue Commandants.
From his evaluating of their foe, a Rogue Commandant for each ought to have been more than enough.
If a single man kept track of each detachment of Patrick men, then there would be no chance of them getting closer.
The second they tried to pierce into the skin of the Verna ranks, as they had before, they would be repelled.
“It is done, good General,” the attendant said, returning after delivering his order.
He noted his General’s expression, seeming to guess that there was something else that Zilan wanted to say.
“Is there more, General?”
Zilan ground his teeth.
‘Far too damn sharp for an attendant,’ he huffed, but he saved his raise, and he spoke his words anyway.
“For the young Captain over there, assign him three Rogue Commandants.
I shall let you pick who they might be.”
“Very well, General.”
Chapter 14 – A Passing Result
The first day in command of a thousand men, and Oliver could not deny that the result passed his expectations – and just barely, by the skin of his teeth had he achieved it.
With the noon sun beating down upon his head, and lulling him into a delirium proffered by heat, he did not have a single thought as to what the way forward might have been for him.
To attack like he’d seen Karstly do, pressuring with a thousand… He knew it would never have worked.
If not for the Captain atop those walls, who had shown him the value of a single spark, and General Rainheart, who had shown him the same, Oliver did not think he could have gone back to camp with his head held high.
He had come perilously close to being relieved of his title on the very first day.
It was an idea that he knew, on some level, before, but as with many ideas, he had not been able to weigh its significance properly enough for it to give him the strength he needed, not until he was offered an alternative view on it.
Their battling from all sides had won them the attention of Zilan, finally.
Oliver had made sure that he had not mistaken the man’s gaze on his back.
He had turned to meet the man’s eyes, with golden flecks in his own.
That feeling of victory, as he finally made him look, buoyed him from the rest of the day.
He knew that the success of their formation wasn’t likely to last forever, but then, they didn’t need it to.
They just needed to instill a reaction.
That was their duty – and they’d managed it.
General Rainheart had a far easier time of it after that.
When the red-plumed helmets came, inevitably, each of them was forced to withdraw.
It was a game of cat-and-mouse now, and all of them were given a mighty opponent in the form of a Verna Colonel.
Oliver, for the stir that he had made, had been given three.
“Didn’t fancy any battling, did he?” Firyr grunting, nodding towards where Yoran trailed at the back of their line, stooped over the neck of his horse.
For how exhausted he looked, one would have thought that he’d fought harder than any of them – but General Zilan’s response had come before Yoran had even attempted to get involved in the engagement.
“Don’t, Firyr,” Oliver warned.
“We don’t need any reason to make him angrier than he already is.
It’s his men that we’re being made to borrow to fulfil our number requirements.”
“Well, that’s lucky for them, ain’t it Captain?
If they’d been stuck under him, they wouldn’t have been allowed a drop of blood all day,” Firyr said.
Lombard shared a look with Oliver.
It was hard to tell much from his stoney expression, but Oliver knew it to be a warning.
He returned the look, trying to indicate his understanding, trying to reassure his old mentor that he wasn’t likely to make matters worse than they already were.
“More importantly, there has been progress on the left battlefield, between Khan, Karstly and Blackwell,” Lombard said, reminding them of their true objective.
“All we had need to do is keep this battlefield as it is.
Our order is to prevent our castle from falling, whilst our Generals busy themselves elsewhere.”
“Quite right,” Oliver agreed.
“Have you had any more news on that, apart from the bird that came earlier?”
“Only what I can see,” Lombard said.
“The cracks of that left castle have grown no deeper.
Khan’s arrival was unable to shift the battlefield in the Verna favour.
With Karstly and Blackwell operating together, they’ve been able to drag him into complete stagnation.”
“…Incredible,” Oliver had to admit.
It dulled his excitement for his own victory ever so slightly.
The number of Verna men that Karstly and Blackwell were being forced to match up against was overwhelming – and still, they’d managed to prevent the siege weapons from mounting up any damage regardless.
He almost regret not being present there to see how they had fought.
He had no doubt that he would have learned much.
Their strategies couldn’t have been as primitive as the ones that he had been forced to fall back on.
“I do not disagree,” Lombard said.
“Though there are other battlefields where the incredible has been achieved,” Tolsey noted.
This time it was the Vice-Captain’s turn to receive a warning glance.
He flinched, still unable to match up against Captain Lombard’s intimidating gaze.
“Indeed… It is made clear to us, what an honour we have been bestowed with, to serve under the likes of Blackwell and Karstly.
To be capable of withholding seventy-thousand men with a mere ten thousand, and with General Khan of all people at the head of them… The Stormfront military might that we are famed for has made a good showing today,” Verdant said.
