A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2071: A Castle to Keep - Part 2

Once more, that was good enough. Beyond good enough. To was the solid pillar that built the bridge to a mighty victory. It began as a tightrope. Something that Oliver had recklessly cast from one side of the battlefield river to another. Something that only he and Gar had initially had the skill to balance on.

Now, it was a thicker thing. When Lady Blackthorn and Colonel Idris arrived, they did not find themselves to be in a realm that was beyond them. They saw the complicated song that was developing, and they found that they could contribute to it.

Lady Blackthorn with three sharp thrusts, making use of the attention that King Patrick and the Sword Gar had grabbed, felling three men all at once. Then, Verdant Idris, as a clumsy man, and a brute – the very opposite in his fighting style as he was in his every day diplomatic personality – there was a lowered shoulder, supporting his spear. Then, a bull rush, straight into the side of the wall of spearmen that had turned to face his King.

He sent two men flying, and then unsteadied three more. An offering it was, both to Gar and to Oliver, who would not have missed such an opportunity. Like swooping hawks, they swiftly plucked away the lives and hearts of those men that Verdant had seen weakened. Gar with thrusts of his short-sword, in through their chests, and necks, and Oliver with the same slash, delivered back and forth, shoulder to hip, from left down to right, then right to left again.

When Prince Hendrick left the keep, and made it to the ground, he was not greeted with the most inspiring of sights.

His archers attempted to pepper the advancing Patrick and Treeant army with arrows, but by now, the large majority of those soldiers were already beginning to stream through the crack in the gate that King Patrick had already seen all but captured.

A few thousand spearmen hovered strangely around the gap, unable for the most part to do anything but watch. They could only attempt to replace the men that were fallen continually – the rest of those soldiers, without any targets to strike, only stood there, waiting for their own opportunity to contribute.

The same was true of the officers. Only those nearest to the fighting had any degree of input. As it was currently, it favoured the individual might of the Patrick men most splendidly. Faces were there already that Hendrick could recognise. There was Lady Blackthorn, Verdant Idris, Gar, Firyr, Karesh and Kaya and then Oliver Patrick himself. Men that had caused such a stir in the battle against Tiberius, and now Hendrick was being forced to fight them by his lonesome.

It was a ten man cell of the highest strength. Behind them, Jorah organised continually the advance of the rest of the army. The Treeant soldiers were particularly eager to find themselves involved. They jumped past the Patrick men, even if meant throwing themselves onto the points of spears. Indeed, that was the fate of the first three Treeant men that Hendrick saw. They were skewered midair before they could even attempt to land.

It almost mattered not what the rest of the Patrick army attempted to do. As it was now, Hendrick did not doubt that Oliver and his officers could fight in such a position forever. They’d managed to stay firm for the most impossible time in the first battle that the Emersons had fought against the Patricks.

This positioning, especially, where Hendrick’s men were forced to confront Oliver and his best fighters individually was catastrophic. As an attempted solution, Hendrick’s own officers were battling forward, hoping to stem the tide somewhat. The only result there, however, was Second Boundary and Third Boundary men being lost one after the other.

Hendrick was no genius military strategist, but he already knew that there was exactly one formation that he would never have wished to face Oliver Patrick in – and it was this current one.

"FALL BACK!" He demanded of them, as he sprinted over. Men of command turned to see who it was that was calling. They trembled to see their Prince rushing over, and soon saw his orders repeated.

Back from the gates they came, and gladly. They’d allowed the Patrick army in, and given them all the space that they needed to regroup – but that was a sacrifice that they were forced to make. Looking at the mound of corpses Oliver Patrick and his soldiers had already created, numbering over a hundred, Hendrick was glad of the choice that he made.

He had three battalions of a thousand spearmen, and he brought all them marching back towards the keep. He gave away the outer walls, for he was forced to. Now, there was only one target that they needed to defend. Just that impossibly tall tower that was his keep. He’d already ordered the sturdy gates to be closed and reinforced with crossbeams after he had left them. Now, all they needed to do was stop the Patrick army from getting any closer – a task that was easier said than done.

Back to the tower they went, stationing the three infantry squares in front of its gates. Here, the archers once more found their use. Stationed atop the outer walls as they were, as soon as King Patrick’s army wished to cross across that cobbled courtyard, they would need to do so with the continual threat of arrow fire from their backs.

King Patrick did not rush. He allowed Hendrick his retreat, and then he stood there, gathering his breath, and waiting for the entirety of his own men to come through the gates – a task that was not a quick one, when only five men could come through the gates at a time.

"Archers," Oliver murmured, stepping out from the cover of the gate tunnel, to glance up at the walls. A small volley of arrows peppered the ground where he’d just been standing, and he quickly drew back away from them.

"Indeed," Verdant said. "Not enough to truly put the pressure on us, however, Your Majesty."

"A problem that we can easily deal with, if it please you, Your Majesty," Jorah offered. "They have no infantry to defend them. We can take our time, and bull through their barred doors, and make our way up onto the outer walls."