A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 88  The Wounded - Part 3

He thought, finally, he was starting to get a sense of what he wanted. More than anything, he wanted to beat the Hobgoblin. More than anything – more than he'd ever dared hope for anything before. What he wanted was the strength to beat a worthy adversary. Such a thought set his soul on fire with delight.

He was even beginning to think he knew what he needed to do. Or at the very least, he was beginning to understand it on an unconscious level – what he was looking for, his body told him, it wasn't to be found in the outside world. There was a problem going on inside of him, there was something that was holding him back. He needed to find what it was.

The Battle board, that which sat in front of him – he figured if he could best that, then it was at least a sign he as heading in the right direction, that he as beginning to change. But even then, he was unsure of it. He didn't know what direction he should be heading in, or what he should be doing with his time and a frustration arose from that. He knew he had to find something, but not where to look.

Just looking at the board now was beginning to annoy him. He knew to practise Battle, he'd at least have to set the pieces up on both sides, but he could hardly summon the energy to do even that. It seemed hopeless to him, as though there was no way forward.

"Not only have I not gotten better at it, I could swear I've gotten worse," he murmured to himself. He recalled such a thing happening with his speed and strength training – but at least he'd improved in those at least before the stagnation.

"Oh wait, with speed I didn't… That went pretty terribly for the first few days," he recalled. "Maybe this is just how things go then? You get a little while where nothing is working… Maybe if I just play a lot of it, something will fall into place and it'll get better?"

With those words, he felt the slightest glimmer of hope. It was well and truly slight, though. If hope was ordinarily a fire, this felt like the weak flame of a candle. But with nothing else to provide him with light, he started moving the pieces on the board, for the first time attempting a different formation on each side.

On one side, he added more archers than usual and on the other side he added less. Just as an experiment to see who would win. He half-heartedly played both sides out, knowing that to best the archers he'd need to clear a path somehow, or at least go down the flanks to avoid them.

But as soon as he tried to shift his army down the flanks where the archers weren't covering, he immediately shifted the archers of the other army to follow. There seemed to be no way for either side to go. It was a true standoff, as one might expect from simply playing himself.

In the end, he settled on a suicide attack by the side with fewer archers. He set up his small number of archers on one side of the board and marched his entire army over to the same side, in one large and compact mass. And then he marched his archers forward, effectively sending them to the death as they entered the enemy archer's range, but managing to pick off a few of the enemy's side in the meantime.

And then he sent his troops rushing forward, fighting as both sides to the best of his ability. To his surprise, somehow, the suicide attack succeeded. The side with fewer archers won out once he'd gotten his army in close. There simply weren't enough spearmen to defend him. And with that, he secured himself a surprising victory (and defeat).

Throughout the day, he practised lazily like that, experimenting with various different formations, to see if any would properly pay off. And by the time Dominus came back just as the sun was beginning to set, Beam was ready for him.

This time, as Beam set out his pieces, he did so with a smile.

"Hoh… What's this?" Dominus said, intrigued, seeing Beam field an army made up entirely of spearmen.

"I just want to see if it works," he said.

"Hmm…" Dominus said thoughtfully, before setting up his formation as he usually might, with 4 cavalry and 6 bowmen and 6 spearmen.

The battle began and Beam immediately sent his spearmen running forward without a second thought. Dominus shifted his archers to the front. They rained down their first volley of arrows and the dice were rolled – they managed to kill 4 of Beam's spearmen units. But by now the distance was closed and Beam's massive spearman army crashed in close, slaughtering the archers it came in contact with.

"Hah!" Beam grinned, seeing his plan work.

But Dominus calmly sent his cavalry units forward, slipping them past the bulk of the spear army, and sending them into the flanks from both sides.

The dice were rolled, again and again as Beam eyed the numbers anxiously. But before his men could claim total victory, they were wiped out from the back by Dominus' cavalry.

Two spearmen and all four of his cavalry units remained. A total defeat – but a much closer battle than Beam was used to seeing.

"Mm…" Dominus said, thinking over the battle once it was concluded. "Well, it's hard to call it progress, but it was rather interesting, to say the least. Let's just say that perhaps this is the start of some form of change?"

"Let's play again," Beam said, already setting up the pieces, with another plan in mind as he worked to fix the weak points in his last attack.

"Nah, leave an old man time to rest," Dominus said, shooing him away. "You should likely rest too. Your body will recover faster when you're sleeping."

"Awh…" Beam complained, his smile fading. He'd actually begun to enjoy playing Battle somewhat, now that he was gathering some momentum in it. But since his master ordered it, he put the board away and settled down to rest.