A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1118 An Army in need of Improvement - Part 5
1118: An Army in need of Improvement – Part 5
1118: An Army in need of Improvement – Part 5
“You have hinted at it, my Lord,” Verdant said.
“I do believe so, anyhow.
You chase a higher ideal.
You’ve your eyes set on something greater.
What sort of soldiers would we be if we did not make way for our Captain’s grand battle plan?”
“I have no such grand battle plan,” Oliver said.
“Ah, perhaps you have not seen it as such, my Lord, but that is exactly what it is.
Your strength – the strength of the you that can cross the line of the Fourth Boundary.
That is a strength that can change the Patrick forces entirely by its lonesome,” Verdant said.
“And here I was saying that I ought to make more use of my strategy,” Oliver said.
“To grow more efficient in my use of Command as well, so that I can do what I have seen Khan do.”
“Am I mistaken, my Lord?
Do your intentions point in other directions?” Verdant said.
He seemed troubled by that fact, more troubled even by the interference of those earlier soldiers, for a frown formed on his face of the most confused sort.
Oliver sighed, and set his mind at ease.
“No, I don’t suppose you are mistaken.
I have voiced such thoughts of strategy, and of Command, and I have heeded the calls of progress… but it does seem, that in the end, my heart has dragged me back to the sword.
It tells me that there is still gold to be mined there, if I’ve the strength to take care of it.
As foolish as that is.
The logic of my mind tells me that I would be better served in other directions.
All that I know of progress tells me the same… and yet…”
“And yet progress, as you have often said, remains ever elusive, who could predict it perfectly?” Verdant said.
It was a line delivered with too perfect a timing for Verdant to even know, for Oliver had thought much the same thing, witnessing how his men had progressed at a rate far exceeding his expectations.
“You’re pushing me, Verdant,” Oliver said.
“And I will push you as well, Oliver,” Lasha said.
When she said it, she put a hand on her shoulder, and made to actually push him.
Of course, she didn’t.
She was far too refined a Lady for that.
It was the sort of joke that Nila would have pulled – only she would have actually pushed, and she would have used all her strength to do so.
“This is the worst time to be doing it,” Oliver said.
“I should be training with the men.
I allowed myself today for a rarity, more to see how you would do Lasha, than anything else… but I dare not take longer than that.
The importance of seeing four hundred men progress is far more important than myself.”
“Are you so certain?” Verdant said, as Oliver’s eyes wandered over to his men, seeing the satisfied smiles on their face, as they took their water, and they took their places on the ground, sharing conversations of victories almost achieved.
“What?” Oliver said.
“You dispute that?”
He’d thought that on that point, Verdant of all people couldn’t have disagreed.
He thought that was the least controversial thing that he possibly could have said, but Verdant was shaking his head with a viciousness, and there was a hard look in his eye, like a man defending a hill that he was prepared to die on.
“Of course I dispute it,” Verdant said.
“Have you forgotten the nature of the Patrick army?
Have you forgotten the reason that such a rabble can gather, and they can not only work together, but they can be made stronger for their differences?”
“Time will do that, Verdant, and many battles,” Oliver said.
“Oh, but of course it will.
Still, it was not time that birthed the Patrick forces in its initial state, was it?” Verdant said.
“I know we all mention the battle with Talon far too often, but that was the catalyst for all of this.
That was the hardest battle that we’ve had to overcome in the last few years – that is, until now.
In that battle, how was it that peasants and slaves were raised so quickly out of the dirt?
Men who, just weeks before, had been tending to the fields and tending to the mines?
How was it that they were made into soldiers that rivalled even that of Skullic’s men?”
“They were picked for it,” Oliver said.
“They came with strength already, and they had viciousness in them from the start.
For the slaves, that’s more true than anyone else.
They had more to draw from than we could have delivered to them.”
“It is, regardless, unnatural,” Verdant said.
“They had no reason to fight, still so many gave their lives for you.
They came to us not with this viciousness you speak of, but as broken men, men that had forgotten their freewill, and they had forgotten their reaching.
That was not so when we finally crossed swords with Talon in the Macalister Fort.
On that day, they were freer and more full of heart than any man.”
“And you would blame that on me?” Oliver said.
He knew Verdant well enough to see where this was going, but it was not praise that he could accept.
“Praise Claudia, not I.
She runs the laws of progress, not me.”
“You are the heart of this, my Lord.
You are the axel upon which the wheel of the Patrick army spins.
If you grow stronger, we all grow stronger, we can all reach further,” Verdant said.
“Have you forgotten what I told you back in that tent, when victory seemed so far away?
You have become what I said.
You are the belief that the Patrick men hold to, their greater ideal.
You are what allows them their progress.”
“I do not allow them it,” Oliver said.
“You grant me the power of a God.”
