A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1024 General Karstly’s Plan - Part 10

1024: General Karstly’s Plan – Part 10

1024: General Karstly’s Plan – Part 10

Soon enough, the Patrick forces were moving as well.

Oliver had been almost surprised to find himself well-placed within Gordry’s army.

He’d quite expected to be posted all the way at the back, as punishment for his lack of discipline in the battle with General Khan.

Instead, he was placed quite close to the front, near the man himself.

Karstly’s army breached the edge of the forest as a flat horizontal line, only ten ranks deep.

It made a change from the long snaking near-single file procession that they’d been forced to engage in when fighting against Khan.

Now, at least, they were in battle formation from the get-go, with the wagons and their supplies trailing a distance behind them, far out of reach from any potential threats.

The forest was thick, but there was evidence of a significant amount of men moving through there recently.

It made their going far easier.

Despite its thickness, Karstly didn’t order a breaking of rank.

He forced them to continue forwards, cutting their way through foliage and thorn bushes that barred their path.

It was a rather slow march.

Now Karstly’s lack of enthusiasm in announcing their way forward began to make a degree more sense to Oliver.

He’d anticipated that they were still a distance away from their enemy.

He’d known that no forces would meet them on the edge of the forest, for that would mean abandoning the better terrain offered by the Lonely Mountain once they got deeper in.

It took nearly half an hour of slow marching before the steepness of the terrain became a problem.

Only then did Karstly fold his army in half, bringing them nearer to the tracks that ran their way through the many trees of the forest.

Unlike the true Black Mountains, this woodland was mixed.

It had both coniferous and deciduous trees amongst it.

It was a rich place of wildness.

More than once did Oliver spy a rabbit lopping through the undergrowth.

He knew that Nila would have much enjoyed the hunt there, if she’d ever gotten the opportunity.

The steepness of the terrain only grew and grew, until they started to see bare rock rising up into cliffs on the side of the road.

The wagons trundled unhappily along behind them, more than a few finding it difficult to navigate the unpaved muddy tracks.

The men’s march grew into something that was more akin to a sleepy walk.

It might have been different if they could see the way ahead, and they could guess when they were likely to fall upon the enemy, but with the green of the forest, and the beauty of the day, it was impossible to imagine bloodshed.

The light shone through the trees, and the thickness of their placement stopped the soldiers from being able to see too far ahead.

It was the lush green that they were made to focus on instead.

It was a thoroughly pleasant place, with the birds twittering their springtime song, and the flowers blooming underneath trees in all sorts of different shades, from white, to purple, to gold.

The army was quiet in its march.

A sleepy army it was indeed.

Men did not even have the energy to speak, aside from the likes of Firyr, who had paused more than once to point out a particularly interesting feature of the terrain.

Even he was quieter than he usually would be, though.

Whether that was simply because there were fewer people responding to his conversation than normal, it was hard to tell.

After another half an hour, Karstly drew them to a sudden pause.

He made no sound, and raised no command, he simply held his hand high up in the air, his palm open, and the men knew to begin to slow.

“…This doesn’t look like anywhere,” Firyr said.

“I wonder if he’s realized these tracks are too frickin steep to be travelling.

My legs are burning here.

This is land for goats, not people.”

The other soldiers were looking around the same.

They couldn’t see the way ahead through the trees, nor could they see past the rocky faces of the cliffs that were rising up to their side.

From the thinness of the path, it certainly didn’t seem like a place of any sort of significance, but the Colonels were moving towards the front now, after another hand gesture from Karstly, and they were engaged in urgent conversation.

“Verdant?” Oliver said.

“We’re here,” Verdant confirmed.

“Just beyond this next twist in the path, my Lord.

Admittedly, we’ve taken the back way.

I imagine that there is a better route from the other side where the Verna keep their men supplied.”

“That would make sense.

That’s the direction that they would have come from.

That’s where civilization lies,” Oliver said.

The conversation of the Colonels was brief.

It was barely a handful of minutes before Gordry was back again, urging them into formation, despite the lack of room for such movements.

“MOVE!” He said.

“Assume your position within your forces!

This track may be narrow, but it isn’t nearly as narrow as you fools are making it seem.”

Once more, the Colonel’s voice was thoroughly out of place within the forest.

It was jarring enough to make the men all but run into their positions, though it wasn’t as if there was that much improvement to be doing.

“The way widens out up ahead.

We will be reforming our ranks there,” Colonel Gordry announced, as if that was the only thing that the men wished to know.

They had not even seen the enemy yet.

Questioning expressions were written all over the faces of the men.

But those questions would go unanswered, for General Karstly himself was already advancing, and with him, the entire army followed.

Around the curve, they went.

The muddy track had transitioned into a stony mountain path.

Oliver could well believe that this was a mountain that had once belonged to the Black Mountain Range.

It had the same sort of feel to it.

He knew little about rocks, but he still thought the types of stone that he saw to be nearly identical.

If he had been blindfolded, he would have guessed himself to be nearer Solgrim, or somewhere else along the Stormfront border.