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A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 948: The Blackwell Forces - Part 4
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Then, once more, they were moving. Both Patrick soldiers and Blackthorn intermingled, staying in the same central position of the marching column.
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Five thousand men made their march together. Or at least, five thousand soldiers did. What trailed along behind them was a lengthy snaking baggage train, and hundreds of people that could be classed loosely as 'servants'. They were the retainers of men with certain standing, as well as cooks, armour smiths – to maintain their equipment – and stable hands to look after the horses.
For all the minor roles about camp, there seemed to be an outsider brought in. Oliver overheard from Lombard that there were even some scribes amongst their order, in charge of sending communications by crow or hawk.
With so many men, they had to do their best to stay away from the villages. No village-bound road could possibly contain the width of the line that had formed as they made their way eastwards. Still, even in their avoiding of the village itself, there could be no avoiding the villagers.
They saw many a crowd form as they marched, filled with peasants marvelling at the sight of so many armed men travelling together, with so many different flags flapping in the wind, heralding the approach of the many houses.
"Another five days, at this pace," Lombard announced to Oliver. His position in their order of five thousand, as one would expect, was one of considerable standing – but he wasn't in complete charge. Oliver had only seen the man in charge of their number of five thousand from a distance. Apparently, he was a General in his own right, by the name of Broadstone.
"We are rather slow…" Oliver murmured. He was on horseback, riding Walter, after growing tired of sitting in the jostling carriage.
"Such is to be expected. The baggage train always weighs an army down," Lombard said. "I don't suppose you've ever been on a mission long enough to need that many supplies?"
Oliver shook his head. For his few hundred men, he barely needed a few wagons, but what they had following along behind their army of five thousand were hundreds of wagons, like an army in and of themselves.
"That there is our weakness," Lombard said. "Eye it well. It is not so much a concern now, in our own territory, but when we make it to the Verna lands, that train will be our most fatal weakness. It's the very heart of our assault into enemy territory."
It was something that Volguard had spoken of to Oliver before, but as with many things, the true magnitude of the supply train's weakness did not hit home as heavily until Oliver had seen it with his own eyes. It was a frustratingly slow procession, and with its great size, it would be immensely difficult to keep defended.
There was no getting around it either. Of course, technological improvements might see true improvements in the logistical realm as well, but otherwise, this was what they were stuck with. Long, drawn-out procession, carrying everything they needed at once. It was better to be over-encumbered with food and supplies than risk having your army starve in the territory of the enemy.
Lombard had said to eye it well, and as the day passed, Oliver found himself doing exactly that. Carts drawn by oxen and horses, many of them pulled by simple ordinary men – Oliver doubted that they were even of the Serving Class from the way that they were dressed.
It was so very different to the state of the forces that he'd commanded before that it was hard to express to himself truly what the significance of the difference was. Of course, he could lay out the facts of the inconvenience, and he could recite what Volguard had taught him for anyone who cared to listen, and no doubt they would have praised his understanding of the issue.
But that wasn't the kind of understanding that Oliver had learned to be satisfied with.
Given that he needed to ride with the likes of these wagons for so long, and to protect them for many months, he wanted to understand the implications of their existence on a fundamental level, in the same way he'd come to understand how his men would likely respond to certain stimuli without even necessarily looking at them.
How would the supply train react when they were set upon? That was a question that Oliver asked himself, as he tried to find out truly what it was that they were, in the same way a scientist might decide how to categorize a new material based on its feeling, its appearance, and how it interacted with other things.
The supply train would scatter, he had a feeling. The ordinary men were more likely to be hires than servants. He had an inclining that some of them pulling their goods were brave merchants looking to make a profit. They certainly weren't the type that would stand their ground when it all came to a head.
The end result would be dozens of carriages fleeing in all directions. It would very well be the sort of chaos that Skullic and Volguard had warned him against – and that was only in the consideration of a single variable. There was so much more likely to go on. It fed Oliver's restlessness, and urged him to consider more factors. He didn't want to arrive only to perform poorly. He couldn't afford to.
He'd made all those promises to Asabel, to Nila, to Skullic and to Blackwell. He couldn't afford to start slow on them. He'd made the promises readily, and he delighted in the forward energy that they gave him. His word filled him with strength, for he intended to achieve it right until the very end, but it also came with an immense pressure, and a sea of doubts.
To relieve that pressure, he wanted a victory from the start.
As Oliver dragged his eyes back forward, to observe the marching soldiers around him, he quickly realized that he wasn't alone in that fact. The men wore smiles, and they laughed good-naturedly, passing the burden of the march off through light conversation, making the time fly faster for each of them.
But there was a forced nature to the smiles that they displayed, and the same was true of the laughter.
They were all anxious, imagining the future that awaited them in the back of their mind, and no doubt many of them had hit upon the simple resolution that Oliver had – a swearing to themselves that they would seize a quick victory the first chance that they got, and it would all be smooth sailing from there.
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