A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1025 The Lonely Mountain - Part 1

1025: The Lonely Mountain – Part 1

1025: The Lonely Mountain – Part 1

The bend in the road was an unnerving one.

To their left was a sheer drop, whilst to their right was a high cliff face, preventing them from getting any further in from the ledge.

Those on the outside gulped as they looked down.

They were hundreds of feet up already.

The trees beneath them were made to look small.

With how narrow it became, the widening of their formation only resulted in alarm.

Oliver would have preferred to have tightened his force had he known.

But that narrowness was as temporary as Gordry had them it would be.

As soon as they rounded the curve, the pass began to open up again with a dramatic suddenness.

Within the span of a couple of steps, the road had doubled in width, and even further along, it had doubled again.

That ought to have been when the men felt their relief, but none did.

As soon as they’d rounded their corner, their attentions shifted.

Their eyes were lifted up from the ground to the way up ahead.

Finally, they caught their glimpse of the enemy.

“Shit,” Firyr said.

The others had absorbed the scene in stunned silence, but Firyr spoke for them all with that curse.

Five thousand soldiers – they’d known to expect that.

What they hadn’t known to expect was the degree to which those soldiers were fortified.

Out here, in the middle of nowhere, with no known building efforts having taken place in the last months, the men had hoped there would have been limits to the degree that the Verna had been able to fortify themselves.

Those hopes ended up being in vain.

It was nature itself that they were up against.

A more perfect place for a fort it would have been hard to imagine.

Oliver did not think the space that the Verna inhabited to be the very peak of the Lonely Mountain, but it was likely the highest spot accessible to man without a rope.

It was a large broad rocky peak, with a top flat enough for men to camp on – and a good deal of them too.

It was the sort of place that would have been worth building bridges and stairways towards had it been inaccessible.

But as if to bless that men that it knew would covet it, the Black Mountains had provided man with all the tools he needed to access it.

A dozen spiralling paths ran around the mountain, like spiral staircases.

Some were thin enough only for a couple of men, but others were thick enough for far more – and they all reached their way towards the top.

“So that’s what Blackwell has been aiming for,” Oliver murmured.

Blackwell no doubt had not seen it himself.

He’d simply picked the point off a map.

But the fact that a point he’d picked off a map could be so perfect when witnessed in the flesh – that was a strategic skill that was worth complimenting.

Of course, General Khan too had recognized the potential for that patch of land on the Lonely Mountain to be occupied, and he’d gotten there first.

He’d positioned his five thousand men and all their tents and supplies there, and then he’d fortified it to a degree that was almost excessive.

Every pathway that led to the top was teamed with men, and every ledge was fenced by thick spiked fence posts.

There was no simply climbing the way past occupied roads.

Some roadways were fenced off entirely – indeed, most of them were.

Only a single road remained conspicuously open, and that was a road that was manned by the most men, with archers positioned above it, as though inviting them in.

“Before midday?” Jorah said, looking up at the sky.

Judging by the position of the sun, they were likely two hours away from midday at best.

“Defeating this, in two hours, when our men are matched and equal?”

“Impossible,” Kaya finished for him.

Those hundreds of flags flying above the top of the fort seemed there to mock them.

It was not merely a collection of men.

This was a fort commanded by a General, and one that General Khan had likely placed there himself.

It was not to be underestimated, and especially not by men that were so exhausted that they’d nearly been defeated by the walk there.

Chapter 20 – The Lonely Mountain

“Right,” Karstly said.

“That’s about what we expected.”

“Expected how, might I ask, my Lord?” Samuel said, a touch exasperated.

“I do believe you promised the men victory before midday.

We’re barely… two hours off, I’d say.

Do you believe that such a fort will fall in merely two hours?”

“It could fall in fifteen minutes if we played our cards right, and if the enemy General were a fool,” Karstly said.

“And do you expect it to?” Samuel pressed.

“I do not,” Karstly said.

“But before midday – that seems possible to me my good friend, Samuel.”

He stretched his fingers out in front of him.

He ought to have been just as tired as everyone else, given the efforts he’d exerted in his last battle, but not a trace of that fatigue was worn on his face.

His eyes glowed with excitement as he evaluated the enemy ahead of him.

“Ah, what sort of battle shall we fight?

What sort of poem will overcome these rock steady foe in front of us, Samuel?” Karstly asked.

“Rock steady…?” Samuel repeated, pulling a face.

He’d been friends with Karstly long before he became a General, and he was accustomed to his way of thinking.

He feared the start of a joke, and he was not disappointed.

“Indeed, for these foes are embedded in rock, and they do not seem quick to move,” Karstly smiled.

“Rock steady.

What ways are there to defeat rock, Samuel?

You can drown it.

Give it water, and a rock will sink.

You can break it.

A sharp and strong tool, and a brittle rock will shatter… But hmm, just how brittle is this foe?”

“Will you spare me the poetries, General?” Samuel said.

“I do not have the same sort of inhuman tolerance for a lack of sleep as you do.

I would prefer to have my worries set at ease.

I wish I could be more confident in your ability to snatch victory, but even you… the situation you’ve created for yourself… it isn’t a pleasant one.”