A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 988 - Opposing Schools of Strategy - Part 1
988: Opposing Schools of Strategy – Part 1
988: Opposing Schools of Strategy – Part 1
The attempt at grappling worked against the Verna man.
Even in a side stroke, Verdant was far the stronger.
He didn’t have the distance to jab the man with his spear tip, so he wrestled him from the saddle instead, throwing him backwards towards the hooves that followed him.
He heard a scream of pain a short moment after, confirming the kill.
The Patrick momentum remained all but unstoppable.
As the Commanders targeted the purple helms, the footsoldiers targeted the blue helms, bringing them down one after the other, in a wave of satisfied cheers.
It didn’t matter how many men they were against, to have so much of their command structure dismantled so quickly – there were few armies that could recover from that.
Oliver could feel the fear beginning to mount, and as he prepared to make his way towards General Karstly, he thought he had one final use for it.
He turned the eyes of Ingolsol on them.
His pupils were overtaken almost entirely by gold.
That veritable stampede of men that had been fighting to get in his way suddenly stiffened.
All but the strongest of men felt their movements begin to slow, as fear hit them as a sudden wave, as shocking as an icy slip into cold water.
“This sensation…” Ingolsol purred.
In his hand, he held the hearts of dozens of men, like puppets on a string.
“Halt,” Oliver said.
He added a degree of Command to his voice.
The two forces wound together – that of Ingolsol’s power and that of the force of Command.
The men were rendered ineffectual.
They were still standing there, with their weapons angled oddly.
To grab control of so many men at once was a difficult feat still for Oliver , and only something he could do if he did so lightly.
He couldn’t take the fullest of control of them.
The best he could do was delay their movements for a few moments, but then, that was more than another.
The fallen Inka, along with the dispatching of several of his officers, left those foot soldiers stranded.
With Ingolsol’s power freezing them in place, they were as useful as a collection of dried sticks.
With Oliver at the front, they continued to plough straight through, making their resistance appear ineffectual.
“What?” General Khan said.
It was not a tone of outrage, nor even disbelief.
It was a thorough questioning of what it was that was in front of him.
He didn’t stop to panic – he was too well trained for that.
But his mind still rushed, as he attempted to come up with reasons for the phenomenon in front of them.
“What?” He said again.
His attendants had no answer.
Through the beast that was an army of forty thousand, a mere three hundred men were plunging as if they were coated in an untouchable aura.
All that attempted to reach out to them were scorched.
Even the hardly youth that was Inka hadn’t managed to land a blow.
“General Khan!” Yadish shouted suddenly, pointing towards the sea of downed men that Oliver had left behind him.
There now stood a youth, covered in blood, reaching for the reins of a horse that was not his own.
His movements were unsteady, and thoroughly disoriented, but they were the movements of a living man nonetheless.
“Inka…” Khan said slowly.
He could see the wound across his torso.
It was a wound that would have brought other men to death twice over, but somehow, he was bearing it, and even managing to feel fury through it.
He bellowed commands to his men, and attempted to establish some semblance of order, but by then it was too late.
“HORSE!
BRING ME A HORSE!
THIS ONE’S REINS HAVE BEEN SEVERED!” Inka shouted when he finally realized that the horse he’d seized had been abandoned for good reason – in the chaos of combat, its reins had been sliced straight through.
“He still wishes to fight,” Khan acknowledged to himself.
Out of that truth, he began to reform his idea of the battlefield.
“There is Verna blood in him, good and strong.
They have surprised us, these Greenlanders, but surprise is a gift that is only truly delivered once.
We have learned.
We will not make the same mistake again.
The three hundred that bear that flag of the beast – they are not to be allowed the chance to spark into a bonfire.”
“Your orders, General?” Yadish asked.
By now, the Patrick men were already breaching the wall that divided them from the back half of General Karstly’s army.
There wasn’t much that could be done to stop them.
Momentum alone was set to carry them the rest of the way.
It was only the extension of Khan’s formation that kept the Stormfront men trapped.
Khan had put gap after gap between each line of men, turning them into battlefield speed bumps, reducing the effectiveness of any strategy that depended on momentum.
“We improve what we have already seized,” Khan said.
“They have seized their momentum.
To overturn Inka so swiftly – that is not the sort of victory that we will be able to right in an instant, Yadish.
This battle must be drawn out.
We must slow the pace down.
Slow…
Give the order.
Draw the men back.
Continue a steady retreat, putting the same distance between the shield ranks as before.”
“Very well, General!” Yadish said, before relaying the orders to the flag signallers, who then transmitted them to the rest of the army.
Now, once more the Verna men were moving.
Chapter 15 – Opposing Schools of Strategy
“Their retreat continues!” Samuel shouted, hearing the steady pounding of feet as the enemy continued to march away from them, putting more men and more space in their path.
“So it seems,” Karstly said, still retaining his calm.
“There is nought to be done.
They make the fullest use of their numbers.
We can only overcome them with speed, and with strength.”
He looked out of the corner of his eye towards his left as he said so.
The Patrick forces had blasted through the wall that divided them from the Karstly army, and were attempting to catch up with the tip of their arrow, as they continued to run down any enemies in their way.
