A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1197 Candles in the Wind - Part 5
1197: Candles in the Wind – Part 5
1197: Candles in the Wind – Part 5
If ever there was a sight for what the end of the world might have looked like, Oliver thought that likely would have been it.
It wasn’t man against man, it was one colour against several, uniformity against diversity, one concept against the other.
And what angry little concepts they were.
When the silver river met the coloured one, they made something impossible complicated.
Where there was overlap, there was life.
Ever perishing life, but a liveliness nonetheless.
A short few seconds – perhaps as much of a minute if they were lucky – of a combat per man, enough to make up for the life that they would be losing, before they were cut down.
In a single instant, all their potential as a man was tested, all their senses and their strengths were utilised, and they experienced all that they could experience, going as far as they could go, before inevitably, they perished.
Against the backdrop of such a battle, Oliver’s place was made certain.
A General that he’d never spoken to directly, and yet the responsibility that Rainheart had afflicted him with was monstrous.
The move that Rainheart had just made demanded one thing only from Oliver – that he stall General Zilan in place, long enough for Rainheart to make ribbons of the army that he’d left behind.
That responsibility was delivered to him from a distance, without words to complete the order.
It was understood in advance that Oliver would obey.
He had no other choice but to.
But then, against Zilan, was discipline enough to match up against the man, even for a handful of minutes?
He did not seem a lone rider as he galloped his way across the dusty plains.
There might have been no men to either side of him, but he seemed to carry the strength of an army with him nonetheless.
The air rippled into obedience beside him.
His size was impossible to tell.
He was just a mass, larger than life, the longer one looked at him, the bigger he grew.
Somehow, Oliver could tell that the excess weight around his belly and around his throat would be no hindrance.
He had a strength that went beyond mere physique.
And to match that strength, what was one to do?
The ever-moving wheel of hundreds of chariots that encircled Lombard seemed as unbreachable as if it had been a static fort of the same wooden walls.
Oliver found himself not wanting swords, but rope to climb over them, or those siege ladders that the Verna had brought with them.
Anything but a head on assault.
Speed might have seemed to be his greatest ally, but the wind blew in Zilan’s favour.
Oliver’s infantry couldn’t hope to match the speed of such a well-bred horse, fresh to the fight, galloping for all its life was worth.
Already, Zilan had managed to match the distance Oliver’s men had covered towards their target.
He’d reach where he needed to be long enough before Oliver and his men would.
There seemed to be an option there.
Some sort of bridge that they could use to keep themselves from falling into the murky waters.
For those waters were murky indeed.
Nothing was set in stone yet.
Not even on the Battle board had Oliver felt such relentless tactical pulings.
It seemed to be courage that was necessary now, more than mere strategy.
And it was Zilan’s courage that had put them all on the backfoot.
If they were to yield to it now, then the advantage of it would only grow.
“Verdant, Blackthorn, we shall have to rush,” Oliver said.
“Jorah, I leave the command of the men in your hands and in Firyr’s.
We will be going on ahead.
Rush not to our aid, but Lombard’s, and be quick about it.”
He delivered those orders with a calmness that belied the excitement that he was feeling internally.
The gears were turning.
He was being pulled by a current that did not belong to him.
The flow of the battlefield that he’d long since tried to understand, and put a harness on.
It prodded at him, and it told him of opportunity.
It was with a sense of relief that he dove in, and took the risk of accepting it.
Verdant and Blackthorn gave no signs of objecting.
Even though their foe was a Fourth Boundary General, one couldn’t tell such a thing from their expressions.
Both of them wore the masks of a noble, tightly sealing whatever emotions might have been swimming underneath.
That, more than anything, gave Oliver a glimpse of what true unrest their hearts might have been feeling, and he contented himself with the knowledge that his own was in a similar state.
The three of them would have been fools not to.
“Very well, my Lord,” Jorah said, taking the command with a dip of his head, ignoring the venomous look that Yoran was shooting at all of them.
There was no time for such squabbles.
Any man that dared to engage in them was a man that exposed himself as blind.
The battlefield rested on a knife’s edge.
A single moment of lagging attention, and they would all be pulled down from their horses, and bleed like they’d bled their enemies before.
Walter set a pace, and Casper drew Verdant to match it, whilst Blackthorn’s black warhorse rushed to do the same.
Zilan acknowledged them with a glance from the side of his eye.
He must have been able to tell in an instant that he would have no choice but to engage them directly, yet he gave no more than the slightest reaction to that fact. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
It seemed a simple enough charge to make, but Oliver didn’t make the mistake of taking it lightly.
A distance of a few hundred metres it was, true enough, but the earth was already set to trembling as they made it.
The armies of Rainheart and Lombard were already engaged in the fiercest of battles.
It was a suspension bridge that Oliver and his two companions had to fight on, if they were to offer even the slightest of contributions.
“I’ll bear the weight of his blow, the two of you, look for the chance to attack,” Oliver said.
“Bringing him down seems unlikely, but unless we occupy him, by forcing him onto the defensive, his attacks will be endless, and we’ll have no chance at all of slowing him.”
“Understood,” Verdant replied.
