A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 321: The Worth of a Man - Part 3

That group that had been hanging back earlier, cowardly, now seized an opportunity to charge forward with the rest. They saw the hole opened by an old man's sacrifice, and now they all speared towards it like starving men, as though their Gods were waiting for them right there.

He couldn't understand their mentality. Were they cowards, or were they not? Were they strong, or were they weak? Were they even a threat at all? It was the strangest battle Jok had fought. Again, he felt his strategic horizon broadening.

He felt pieces begin to fall into place, as he had many times in his life.

His perspective before had been limited. Limited to mere warriors. But the battle was liable to be done in all forms. Those flames that the Captain had set earlier, burning so many of their men. Those monsters that they had encountered on the way here. All of them were pieces that existed to battle with.

All of them were worthy of consideration… All of them were different.

One could not expect to command on a normal battlefield, succeed, and then hope that such experience might continue to dominate in a thoroughly different environment. Just as the Yarmdon knew their mock battles with wooden swords were no true substitute for the real thing, so too was Jok being forced to realize a fact that he had known for a long time – every battle, every situation was different.

A good commander had to adapt and overcome.

This here just happened to be different to all the rest. The power of a unified force. He'd never even considered such a thing. They were weak together, and easily exterminated, but as little groups, they'd become something else. He thought of the same coins that he had thought of earlier – it really was like they were coming up with heads continually. Stay tuned for updates on m-v l|-NovelBin.net

And that was only because there were so many different groups, so many opportunities. By dividing their forces, they'd increased such opportunities.

Chaos was building. More and more groups were coming out of the shadows. It was nearly fifty men now that had presented themselves, either pressing against the wooden shields, or hovering menacingly a distance away.

"There's weakness in this," Jok could feel it. He was experienced enough with the battlefield to know that there was weakness. But novelty in and of itself was usually enough to win the battle – it was the surprise that did them in. It required a commander quick on his feet to deal with something he didn't yet understand.

He'd half expected the enemy to dwell in the shadows for a while longer, to continually make use of the shadows, for it had been effective. It would have been problematic to have to go chasing through the darkness after them. But, with no prompting from Jok whatsoever, they'd started to gather in the same place.

There was a weakness there, he noted. Each group could individually look for opportunity, but unless they had an experienced leader in their group, they wouldn't be adept enough to tell the overall state of the battle – and even if they were, and they made a good read, they couldn't relay that command to the other groups.

If they'd been more unified, they would have felt the effectiveness of their earlier attacks and stayed in the shadows of them. Instead, something drove them forward. He wondered if it was the same fear that would have pulled them away. It seemed that fear was now directed entirely at him.

In him, they were seeing their most monstrous of enemies, the guard of the gate that they eternally sought to breach. They were more than willing to give up their lives for it.

"And now who stirred up this lot to do that..?" He doubted it was the boy. The boy didn't have a human look in his eye. He doubted he could inspire more than a handful of people. Maybe only those that understood him best would draw strength from his strength. But the villagers? They wouldn't.

It should have been unity that prevented them from running, but now it was the isolation that did the same. They feared the isolation of being left alone in the shadows. They feared leaving him alive. They feared not taking the opportunity, when it was placed directly into their hands... They feared not acting.

Someone had forced responsibility for this battle on the individual. Someone had told them that it was up to them, personally, to take his head. Someone had indirectly told them that it was they that should walk the hero's path, they that could save them all.

Rather than a vague notion about killing as many as they could, and if enough of them did that, then they'd seize victory, they'd instead been handed the reins to victory themselves.

"So that's it," finally, Jok understood. It was that meagre notion that empowered that. That heroic impulse that caused even the most cowardly women to block a spear for their child. Some darkened mind had noted the conditions to be right, and stirred them up enough so that it could be.

They saw victory, and it was close enough that they believed in it. After all, he was right there, or so they thought. It was only twenty or so steps, and they could reach him. Under such conditions, even the most cowardly of men felt his heart beat with opportunity, like he'd finally sighted the blind spot of a moose.

But that was their lack of understanding. They didn't know the world of Blessed Warriors. They didn't know the difference between them and ordinary men.

For the first time in his whole battle with the Stormfront, Jok gripped his sword with the intention of fighting his opponent personally. It was a risk, indeed, it went against the conventional battlefield strategy – his earlier plan had been sound, after all, to merely conserve his own life, for he was clearly their target, and then his men would do the rest.

But now that he knew their plan, now that he knew what gave strength to even these weak wilts of grass, he knew he could crush it. All he had to do was demonstrate his might.

"Make way," Jok said, his voice quiet and stern. The man closest to him looked at him in surprise. He'd fought under Jok's command for a while, and knew his proclivities. The youth would sooner hold the puppet masters strings than his own blade – controlling the steel of hundreds was far stronger than the steel of a single man, after all.