A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

A straight gallop initially, to gain speed, and then Tiberius brought them curving around. Heavily, they beat a rhythm into the earth, curving along the back of Tiberius' own formation, bringing those High King men to a degree of terror. Weak they were, to buckle like that, and glance over their shoulder, but it mattered not to Tiberius. They were no longer entirely necessary, for he had already placed the neck of his enemy onto the executioner's block, and he was the swing of the axe that would see them beheaded.

The curve brought him around. A dangerous speed to turn a whole two thousand strong cavalry dispatchment at, but Tiberius made it work regardless. They tore past a corner of their own men, flattening a few in the process. Tiberius' own blade was wet with blood, as his sword crept out, to cut down allied soldiers that impeded the path of his manoeuvre.

Then he was aligned, so perfectly, to crash into the flank of Prince Hendrick straight from the side. A sneer. Cruel, and certain. The perfect punishment for all that Oliver had seen done to him. A humiliating end to their battle, with the pointing out of a fatal mistake.

Prince Hendrick was caught seemingly perfectly. With General Fitzer on the other side of him, there was no strong soldier to block the charge. The Prince's eyes widened, finally taking note of the danger that was coming his way, but by that point, there was naught that he could do to avoid it.

Bravely, did he did it. Terror threatened to leak into his eyes, but it was only there for a second. In the next, there was the smallest hint of a smile. He found his strength, and Tiberius despised him even more for it.

CLANG!

A barely raised sword, from a man that much weaker than him. A timing that a man like Hendrick should have been incapable of. Just the barest hint of steel, delivered far too slowly. It wasn't enough to save him from the cruel wound to his shoulder that he was given, nor was it enough to save him from being knocked from his sword. However, Tiberius knew well enough that he hadn't been able to cut deeply enough to reach bone. It was a surface level wound, at best.

The speed of his cavalry brought him deeper into that mass of men. It was towards General Fitzer that he neared next. The man would be distracted by the falling his Prince, and he would--

Nay, he wasn't. To Tiberius' surprise, Fitzer's attention only flickered away for the briefest fraction of a second, then he was entirely facing Tiberius, sword clenched firmly, horse positioned strong. Well enough to deflect a killing blow even from the likes of he, even if he could not entirely stop its momentum.

Tiberius went for him regardless, his anger building. Their swords rang together, and Tiberius' blade clipped the upper part of his arm, however, it was not even enough to draw blood, for the armour that was there to slow the strike even further. Fitzer reeled in his saddle from the strength of the blow, but he kept his feet in the stirrups.

"FIGHT HARD, SOLDIERS OF MINE!" Came Hendrick's shout, as he pulled himself up out of the mud, now covered his own blood, and he raised his sword in the air.

Tiberius looked over his shoulder, the immensity of his irritation growing. For the perfection of which he'd chosen the route of his charge, he found the rewards to be far lesser than he would have liked. He still hammered through the men that stood in his way, lesser footsoldiers and the like, but to see Prince Hendrick killed, as was his initial intention, he needed to exit, and then turn his men back around.

He did so, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he brought them low. A well trained two thousand they were, to do a full turn at such speed, and reenter just the way that they came.

Prince Hendrick was now placed on foot, and even with Fitzer in the way to defend him, his chances of blocking another fatal blow were next to zero.

Yet those two men stood, confidently, valiantly, believing in themselves. The charge of those ten thousand men forward that Tiberius had wished to halt hardly seemed a thing that had dulled. He could not see the corpses of the men that he had slain, nor take in properly the significance of their own effect. They were all turning to look at him strongly, judging him. Ten thousand pieces of stone, set to slow him, on his path to take the head of another royal.

A feeling of wrongness in Tiberius' chest. This was never how it normally went. To outmanoeuvre a foe brought strength to all things. It lent him a momentum that transferred to every part of the battlefield. Here, he had none of that momentum. Here, the more he fought, the more he found himself slowed. In reentering for a second charge, he found himself far less effective than he was the first time.

"FORWARDDD!" Hod bellowed – he that should have been a mere strategist, and now he was commanding archers from the rear, sending five thousand men forward, with bows drawn, to exert further pressure on Tiberius, and to rain fire down upon that left side of Tiberius' formation which still remained untouched.

"Dastardly things," Tiberius cursed, hating the lot of them. Mad is what they were. They were still high on something that wasn't at all real. It was morale that he felt himself fighting against. Even the poison of Pandora found it difficult to cut through it. And what was the source of that morale? A single boy, one that Tiberius had already outmaneuvered several times already, and outmaneuvered again now, trapping him in a prison of Oliver Patrick's own making.

He looked, to see how it was those thousand men were faring, to reassure himself of the path that he'd chosen, even with the difficulty that he now faced.

And what he found were the ashes of what had once been his army.