A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The professor's voice filled the classroom with practised ease as Oliver settled himself.

"Now, a formation of spearmen find themselves surrounded on three sides. To the front, we have the heavy swords infantry favoured by the Garsh to the East, and then on both of the spearmen's flanks, we have enemy cavalry harrying them. Remind me, what do we call such a scenario, and how do we make use of it?" The professor said, calling out the question to the class.

When no one deaned it fit to answer, he turned to Oliver. "Young master Patrick, perhaps you have an answer for us?"

"Hm? Spearmen surrounded on three sides… What are the numbers?" Oliver asked, instinctively straightening up. He was hit by that familiar attentiveness that used to come whenever Dominus had asked a problem of him, bidding that he solve it.

The professor tapped a line of chalk-written glyphs with his long teaching stick on the board. "We standardize the number of each unit here," the professor explained patiently. "It allows one to view strategy a little more abstractly."

Despite his tapping on the board, Oliver was having difficulty making out the characters that he pointed to. Writing – and reading for that matter – had never been his strong suit. There'd never been a time in his life when he'd truly worked on them. He wasn't sure if the professor understood that, for he soon gave Oliver the information that he needed.

"For infantry, we can generally take them to be two hundred and fifty men strong. For cavalry, fifty to a hundred. Here, a hundred," the professor said. "Now, knowing that, what can we say of this particular unit of spearmen?"

"It's a lost cause," Oliver said bluntly. His bluntness inspired a few smiles around the room. It was evident to all of them that this was material he had not studied. Oliver felt no particular shame about his ignorance, he leaned back in his chain, feeling the wood against his back, and sniffed calmly, taking the problem for what it was, and the people for what they were.

The professor smiled kindly, but strictly, as he listened to Oliver's answer. He must have come to the same conclusion as the others. "I imagine this is not material that you have studied before, Master Patrick?"

"It is not," Oliver agreed.

"An unfortunate thing. It is not easy to cover three years of study in but three heartbeats. Regardless, I am in agreement. Such a unit is indeed a lost cause. Will call such a unit a 'Burning Building'. Now, Master Patrick, what can this Burning Building do for us, given that we are incapable of saving it?" The professor asked.

"It depends," Oliver said with a shrug.

Again, there were snickers at his unconventional, seemingly obvious answer. Oliver noticed that the boy next to him was shrinking ever further away.

But, surprising and quietening their snickering, the professor responded firmly to that, with more force than he had the others. "Exactly!" He said. "That is the foundation of strategy. We speak of Whirling Dragon, and an Infantry Spear Thrust towards the heart of a General's camp, but what use are such strategies without context?

The board changes, every single time, according to the subtlest of differences. What we attempt to do here, is pick patterns out of the infinite, and make things more manageable. But even then, above all else, context is important." He paused his tirade for a moment, to drink water from his glass atop his table, under the slate board. "Write that down, and affix it to your brains."

The students began to write as he bid them to. They had thin parchment in front of them. Or at least, it was thin by Oliver's standards. They inked their pens in the weighted leather ink satchels that they carried, and the room collectively began to sprawl what the professor had just said.

"One must understand, that strategy is distinctly unlike the rest of your subjects. Relativity is the most important aspect of strategy. Mathematics – there are things you can learn, right ways of approaching problems, and much of the time, even the right answers. In the histories, you had merely need remember and record information, with as much nuance as you fancy.

The truth in strategy is always relative, always nuanced. That is the heart of our subject. Do not approach it in the same way that you would your other academic endeavours."

As he spoke, Oliver found himself lightly nodding in agreement, as he recalled the struggle that he had had learning Battle with Dominus. He'd tried again and again to remember different techniques, to try different approaches, but every time, it depended strictly on Dominus what he was able to do.

If he wanted to test a particular approach, and Dominus layered his troops so that it was impossible, then Beam would lose again and again. He'd had to develop situational approaches.

"Now… I think we have just enough time to finish off our little problem. Recognizing relativity in strategy is all well and good, Patrick, but one must also be capable of solving the problem in itself, lest we become mere philosophers. You have an army of a thousand infantry garrisoned a mile away. Your spear unit was caught unawares, during a routine drilling.

The attackers noted the opportunity, and your lack of horses, and they attacked. Thus we have our Burning Building. That is all the context you will be given, Patrick. What orders do you give?"

Before the professor had finished, another question had been on the tip of Oliver's tongue. He'd wanted to know if the army that the attackers had brought was the full scale of their might, or whether there was likely to be a larger force elsewhere. But here he was, without that information. It was not too unfamiliar a feeling.

He closed his eyes for a moment, briefly recalling the Battle of Solgrim, and the weeks leading up to it. Fighting monster after monster, only for their numbers to increase. The problem had not been solved until they cut off the head of the snake – and that snake had been Francis. It was far too easy to return to the scene of battle, to recall all of those that had died that day. Explore more at empire

When he did so, the same dreams that readily came to him at night pounded in his ears. The death cries of men and women that weren't meant for battle. The lives of Lombard's soldiers, tossed away so early on.