A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

But the shift in tide that Jok had expected did not happen. Even as nearly fifty people died all at once, their comrades merely stepped over their corpses and continued the assault, continuing to apply pressure to the shield wall.

Beam watched over it, stone-faced. His two commanders at his side seemed similarly unmoved. Everyone seemed ummoved. It was a shocking level of morale, one that made Jok's smile falter.

Earlier in the day, Beam had been crushed by a single loss. Now he was able to remain straight-faced at fifty. His own mistake – that had cost him fifty lives. Fifty lives that he wouldn't get back, all because of his incompetence. That would have crushed his soul earlier, it would have crushed the souls of the villagers as well.

But now there was an understanding between them. Beam did not force resentment upon himself for competence had no chance yet of obtaining. He'd known as soon as he took up the mantle of the leader that he hadn't had the practice required to do it well. But the only way he could remedy that incompetence was by being willing to make mistakes.
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Here, mistakes came in the form of weighty prices, too weighty for the average man to bear. Such was the burden of the leader. But it didn't break any of them. Calmly, Beam observed, as he would in a swordfight of his own, he searched for weaknesses, and the hearts of men.

They'd hardly been rattled at the deaths, Beam noted. The fire in them burned a bright white. They were thoroughly in the grips of the hero's realm. It was Claudia's passion that ignited them, even as they fought inside Ingolsol's domain. He could feel that, and he could feel their hearts nearly melding onto his.

As though, if he just prodded them slightly, he could cause their flames to burn out of control.

"Do it," Ingolsol said to him. Since Beam had taken the reins, Ingolsol had grown louder and more forceful. "Have their bodies pave the way to your victory."

Beam ignored the voice, and continued searching for his opportunity.

There was a scuffle further down the line of fighting, towards the road. A woman had managed to catch her fingers in a Yarmdon man's long hair. He cut at her, but she was pulling him down, holding his hair tightly like a rope.

Ever so slightly, she forced him out of position.

Beam tapped Nila on the shoulder. She understood without him having to say a word. The exposed gap in the shield wall was just wide enough for that arrow. It punched itself through the man's eye, just as all Nila's arrows did, killing him instantly.

Their leader set off a moment later, a boy whose speed attempted to rival that arrow. Even as the man was still falling, as the woman was still coughing up blood from the axe buried in her chest, Beam made his way there.

She caught sight of him, in her last moments, as he reached to claim victory off her sacrifice. She, who'd known no more violence than was offered at the hands of the loom. She that had never even wielded an axe to cut wood, never mind a knife in anger. Off her back, she, who knew herself to be weak, Beam built a bridge to victory.

His boot found the man to the left side of the gap, knocking him well out of alignment. And his sword hacked into the neck of the man on the right.

She smiled, even as she passed away, for she was delivered an acute understanding. That day, for all days, her victory would ring out. In every villager that lived, the magnitude of her being would be manifest. In every interaction that each survivor had from then on that lived, she would have a part in it all – as would the rest of them.

They were no longer individual villagers, they were Soldiers of Solgrim. Their army's victory was their victory.

With Beam, more soldiers streamed to that gap, like the water of the bucket finding the only hole. He punched his way inside, like a gauntleted fist through a paper wall. His swordsmanship earlier had been deadly and monstrous – but now it was something else entirely. For the whole army was his sword. All of those villagers, they were his weapons, and they moved in unison with his cause.

Before Jok could even bark an order, they'd made it as far as the third rank. The only saving grace was that they were too far to the left of him to make it to Jok in a single push – they'd have to fight their way right for that. But in the most important sense, it didn't matter, for the structure of the shield wall had already been undermined.

"TIGHTER!" Jok shouted. "GIVE UP SPACE, TIGHTER! FORM UP ON ME! WE RIDE OUT THEIR MOMENTUM!"

The Yarmdon were strong enough to heed his call. They started to heed his order, step by step. They were true-fighting men. Theirs wasn't morale, but experience. They feared not death. Even still, Jok could see their movements slowing… The might of the enemy was having its effect.

They'd begun to doubt their victory.

Not only that, Jok realized. He was beginning to doubt his victory too.

An arrow whizzed by, burrowing its way into the head of the man behind Jok. He'd moved his head out of the way just in time, but even then, he'd been slower than he was earlier. He had to clamp his hand down over his neck, as he felt the deep gash that had been inflicted in it.

He cast his eyes towards the shooter, locking gazes with that red-haired girl.

Were her shots more deadly than before? That skinny-armed little runt? Jok could hardly stand it. He couldn't stand what he couldn't understand. It went against the world that he'd lived in up until now. There was too much for him to process, too many miracles.

Before it was he that reached into the void and came back with the flaming sword of surprise, so that he might cut down his enemies and climb the green ladder of progress… now here he was, at its mercy.

"Gods… Have you forsaken me?" He spat, biting down his teeth so hard that they almost tore through his lip. "Damn you then. It was my own strength that got me here, my own power of will. I will not kick back and drown your illusory rivers."

Beam was growing closer, like the head of a charging stampede of bison. His sword had all the weight of a Warhammer, as he stood, at the leader of all those men and women. He could feel it. It wasn't just a sensation. As their leader, as the one bearing their responsibility, it gave his sword a weight and a strength that it had previously lacked.