A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Colonels and Captains chose the right course of action in dealing with Jorah. They chose to use their superior individual strength in an attempt to reach him, for in that realm, Jorah was far lacking for the rank that he now held. Yet, those men who charged in with such aggression never seemed to come close. They would find their charges stifled ever so quickly, as if they were walking through a quagmire. And then they would find themselves surrounded. They would find swords perfectly placed at their backs. They would soon suffer the wounds of blades wielded by mere ordinary men – and indeed, Captains themselves fell to the likes of them.

Tavar scratched his nose. It was difficult not to fall into the lull of Jorah's display. The gift that he had for that small-scale level strategy was something rarely seen. If the circumstances were different, he thought that, out of all the soldiers on that battlefield, it might have been Jorah that he would have wished to steal most, and see raised up, for the subtlety of his position. He was the sort of man that would be of benefit to any army, no matter where he was placed. The other Patrick men held personalities so large that they seemed to demand an entire force be built around them. That they could fight alongside each other in the same army was a matter of great strangeness.

Verdant, leading his two thousand, commanded in a much different way. He had the forcefulness of Oliver Patrick in his charge, but then he had that level-headed yielding nature that Lord Idris, his father, had always used in his diplomacy. He crashed in like a wave, and then he retreated like a tide. An endless game of strength and sacrifice. A strategy that betrayed the stench of wisdom. The sort of thing that once more, Tavar's Colonels and Captains could not match, for its uniqueness. And already, Tavar could see one of his Fourth Boundary Colonels confront Verdant head on, only to be left with a dent in his chest plate, from where Verdant's spear had struck him in a side strike, and then a wound in the neck, from where an ordinary soldier's blade had finished the job.

"The might of Bohemothia too – that's a troublesome thing indeed," Tavar murmured.

For as much punishment as his men were being afflicted with, there were no large-scale moves that Tavar could yet do to respond. To do so prematurely would be to invite disaster in whatever location was weakened, so that such a movement could happen. His best response, though rudimentary, was simply enduring. He, at least, had enough experience to know when such a thing was necessary, even if it was not nearly as stylish as the polished strategies that all supposed Generals usually wielded. He simply held on, and supposed – with a good amount of evidence – that the buoyancy of the change that was giving the Ernest Army their second wind would soon enough die out. That the transformation of the men would run its course, and magic would fade, and once more, the physicality of superior numbers would be of the utmost importance.

Until then, he was made to watch, as Kaya and Karesh, more students of the Serving Class, demonstrated a level of might that most noblemen at the Academy would struggle to match, no matter how many years they did spend on the battlefield.

Those two were far more typical of the straightforward, charging and reckless nature that one supposed would be attributed to the Patrick army. They both rushed in, at the head of the hundred men that they'd been given, and they let their swords and their bladed-gauntlets go to work, enjoying the newfound strength of the Second Boundary that they had.

The men under them – peasantry, for the most part – seemed to enjoy that style of fighting more than any other. It was the sort of style well suited to hundred man detachments. Where, after a single solid hit, they would fall into a melee, and it was good swordplay that would decide the outcome of whatever went on. Good swordplay, and grit.

The two shouted commands in the process, to see their men organized and motivated, but they were not yet at the point of their peers, Tavar could see. They knew not that true hearty Command that really brought men into alignment. But that was not to say that the pressure they affected Tavar with was minimal. Left alone, simply to fight, they posed trouble that was endless. With no strategy to guide them, they burned away at the walls of men around them nonetheless. And with the martial skill of Kaya and Karesh at the head of the two forces as guidance, the men could be seen to be well motivated to do the same.

There was another man that Tavar did not recognize, who effected the same style of combat, with a loudmouth, and a heavy club rather than a proper weapon. He led at the head of a band of a hundred, shouting remarks, and seeing the men motivated towards the devious style of fighting more appropriate to thugs and bandits than of proper men. He had a certain amount of individual might in and of himself, sheerly for the great size of the man, but he was not of any remarkable Boundary, merely the first. And yet, it did seem, at the head of that band of peasants that he led, he was just as much of a threat as the rest, if not more.

His was a voice used to giving orders. And his was a charisma that rough men were used to yielding towards. Just barely did the giant man seem to scrape right on the edge of Command, until, with a single instruction, he went all the way.

"TEAR THEIR EYES OUT, I TELL YER, AND THEN WE CAN COUNT HOW MANY WE'VE KILLED!"

It was a rough line, brutal, and strange, and not exactly the sort of strategy that would make for an efficient dispatch of the enemy. But it was a line that elicited cruel howls from those under him, and made them dance forward like hyenas, circling their foes, biting at them ever so carefully. He brought out what seemed to be the worst in them, and he made them all the more dangerous for it.