1028: The Lonely Mountain – Part 4 1028: The Lonely Mountain – Part 4 With those optimistic words, Oliver was left his encouragent.
Indeed, the mountain didn’t exactly look inviting.
It hadn’t looked inviting even when he wasn’t the one to lead the charge.
Now it looked even less so.
He found himself wishing for shields.
“Patrick!” Ca General Karstly’s shout.
“The wagons.” The shout was too well-tid for Oliver.
His eyebrow twitched.
Just when he’d wished for shields, was Karstly telling him that they’d brought so?
Despite how out of place such things would be in a Stormfront army?
It seed too hopeful a prospect to be true.
“The situation has changed again, has it, my Lord?” Verdant asked.
“It has,” Oliver replied.
“Karstly is giving us opportunity.
We’re to lead the charge.” “Ah,” Verdant said, nodding, as if it was expected.
It was a more disconcerting reaction than it would have been if he gasped with surprise.
But as ever, those pale blue eyes of his seed to be able to see through everything.
“I had overhead Colonel Gordry making ntion of a few hundred shields that the Blackthorn n had brought for situations such as this.
I imagine that was what General Karstly’s shout was referring to.
Shall I see if I can requisition them?” Oliver scratched his head with mild irritation.
“I suppose we’d better.
Yet another thing falls into the reaches of General Karstly’s plan.” “What’s to be done, Captain?” Firyr asked.
“Lord Idris went away looking excited, he did.
Is it shields that yer after?” “Shields indeed,” Oliver said.
“I hope you’re still retaining your energy, Firyr.
Our earlier plan to make use of you is going to be coming into action more suddenly than we’d expected.” “We’re leading the charge, then?” Firyr said.
“Even you had guessed?” Oliver said, his eyebrow twitching.
It seed as if everyone that day was seeing through him.
“No, it was sothing that Lord Idris ntioned might be a possibility.
He told Jorah to try to find a path that might be worth attacking.
I dunno if he found anything, though,” Fiyr said, shrugging.
“Well, it’s all the sa to us, ain’t it, Captain?
This is what we usually do.
Just now we’ve got reinforcents for it.” Oliver seed to recall having said sothing similar earlier himself.
He drew in a deep breath, and nodded calmly at Firyr’s statent.
Indeed, this was a place of opportunity.
Though General Karstly was almost teasing in the way that he placed the Patrick n at the front, that didn’t take away from the fact that they were really and truly going to be in the vanguard once more.
They were given the privilege of opening this battle – the sort of privilege that should have been given to a Colonel.
A fact that Gordry was making Oliver aware of as he glared him down, his gaze shooting daggers.
‘A head,’ Oliver told himself.
That’s all they needed.
There was that central winding road that lacked fortifications across its width.
That was where the nearest Rogue Commandant seed to be positioned, along with thousands of n filling up the road.
They were at best ten n across each rank, but the rows extended up infinitely.
Unlike the earlier battlefield that they’d fought on, it would be nearly impossible to make use of montum here.
All the way, they’d be fighting uphill, and against a number of enemies that would never cease.
They couldn’t go round, or attack from the flanks, they had to go continuously forward, and all the while they would be pelted with arrows.
A more disadvantageous position it was hard to imagine.
“Steady,” Claudia told Oliver, as he looked for the calm within himself.
This wasn’t his best showing, he knew that.
This wasn’t how he’d hoped that the battlefield would go for him.
After the promises he’d made to Asabel, and to Skullic, he’d wanted to put in more work than he had.
“You slew a Rogue Commandant, Oliver,” Claudia reminded him.
“That is a feat that will be celebrated.
Do not forget that you are a Captain.
You do not need to place the fate of an entire army on your shoulders any longer.
It is for the General to worry about victory.
You had only need to carry out his orders.” ‘That is true,’ Oliver murmured, feeling a small spark of truth in what she was saying.
It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten that, but he’d acted like he had.
It was hard not to fight aiming for victory.
In fact, Oliver didn’t know how to fight any other way than for the victory of the entire army.
It was strange to place trust in a General, and expect good things to happen.
“Foolish wench,” Ingolsol said.
“That’s a position of weakness.
You share the sa Vessel as , do not corrupt it with your weakening words.
The boy wasn’t strong enough.
That’s all there is.
He ought to have let lose more.
He should have showered the enemy in the fear, but he was unable to.” “Sothing is still missing, Ingolsol,” Claudia said.
“Not everything can be overco with might alone.
The laws of progress are not so easily twisted.
Just because one has a need for strength does not an it will necessarily arrive.
The strength of one’s emotions is a component, but it is not everything.” Oliver was almost able to see Ingolsol shaking his head in disagreent.
“Progress can and should be subordinated.
Pah to anything else.
Pah to what you reside over, wench.
Overwhelming might is the only answer that should be had.” The two seed inclined to argue for hours on end on this subject, as they often did.
Unsurprisingly, their two ideals were rather different, and their two wants for the battle were different still.
Even his Fragnts seed to be unsettled.
They were the purest forms of divinity, but they lacked the knowledge that the Gods who bore them had.
They were stuck in a similar position to Oliver.
They were in a new place, and forced to co up quickly with new solutions.
It seed almost foolish to have the expectations that they did, but those expectations were not so easily dismissed.
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