A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 87  The Wounded - Part 2

Beam set up his pieces to mirror his master, and the game began.

On turn one, both armies brought their archers to the front of their armies, leaving a distance of just 6 squares between them and their enemy. If either side decided to move one square forward on the next turn, then their pieces would be in range to be picked off. Each archer unit was capable of firing on a single square each turn – and if another piece was on the square they targeted, then they'd be annihilated.

It often seemed to beginners that the archers were far too strong a piece. Given that they could seemingly annihilate any other piece before they came close. And that was true, to a degree. But their weaknesses were their lack of speed and the slowness in their attacks – archers would need to wait a whole turn in between attacks.

During that time, it was quite possible to slaughter them with lesser units, and most players decided to retreat at that point.

As both Dominus and Beam's pieces had their standoff, Dominus began to send his cavalry units along both the empty flanks of the board, two units each side.

On the next turn, their four units met each other. For each unit doing battle, a dice would be rolled for each player. Whoever's dice came up with the higher number would win the battle – the same went for archer attacks. When archer units attacked, a dice was rolled by both the archers and the defenders. Only if the archer's dice had a higher number would the defender be annihilated.

This was only true if the pieces were facing each other, however. If a piece was attacked in its side or from behind, the victory would go to the aggressor without a dice needing to be rolled.

"Damn it…" Beam cursed, he'd already lost the first dice roll. On one side, he and Dominus' pieces had killed one unit off, leaving them evenly balanced with one piece each remaining. But on the left flank, Dominus managed to annihilate Beam's cavalry whilst still retaining a cavalry piece of his own. He sent his remaining cavalry piece thundering deeper into enemy territory, whilst ordering both his archers and his front line of spearmen to advance.

The archers went first and dice were rolled as both Beam's and Dominus' pieces attacked each other. It ended up being a slight victory for Beam, with 4 of his archers surviving and him killing 3 of Dominus'.

But then there was nothing to stop Dominus' spearmen as they advanced forward. Beam was forced to make his archers retreat as he waited for them to reload by the next turn. But the enemy spearmen were closing in on his spearmen now, and they met.

At the same time, Dominus' free cavalry piece went on a rampage, with no one to stop it. It killed two archers and took out a spearmen unit, collapsing Beam's left flank and freeing up Dominus' own spear piece on the left, allowing it to advance and attack more of Beam's men in the side.

Like that, the battle was lost. There was no coming back from it. From what seemed just like a simple unlucky roll, with Dominus' cavalry managing to get the better of him, soon turned into total victory and Beam lost again.

He cursed, about to blame his defeat on mere poor luck like he used to, but he knew now that it wasn't the case. He'd played hundreds of games with Dominus at this point – such a string of losses was not luck. It was him simply being out matched.

Beam twisted his face in annoyance. His strategy test looked bleak at this rate, and he recalled all the emotions he'd felt the previous day as he worried about it. "Damn it…" he cursed, realizing that even with all this free time, he'd have to put in a considerable amount of effort to make any progress.

"One more game, then you'll have to practise yourself," Dominus told him, finishing his tea. Beam nodded and set up the pieces again, once more mirroring Dominus' forces.

And once more, seemingly by luck again, Dominus bested him with ease, without even pausing to think. He reacted merely on instinct, as though such a thing was second nature.

"How are you so good at this?" Beam asked, exasperated.

Dominus just chuckled. "That's the issue – I'm not. Most military officers would have an easy time beating me. I don't know any of the strong strategy plays or really any of the tactics. I'm a weak player through and through." n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Beam frowned, it wasn't what he wanted to hear. "Then I'm hopeless with strategy… I won't be any good even if I manage to beat you."

"Well, as I've said before, you'd be the best in your village if you managed to," Dominus told him. "Commoners aren't trained in strategy. Not that being good at Battle will necessarily mean you'll be good at real strategy – what happens on the field. But it'll at least train you to think strategically, put you in the right frame of mind for building logical plans."

"Mm…" Beam bitterly stared at the board where his defeated pieces lay, feeling his frustration building.

"Well, I'll leave you to practise, boy. I'm going out for a while," Dominus said as he stood up and dusted off his trousers. He glanced back briefly before he disappeared into the woods.

"Man… I'm in a rough spot," Beam mumbled, looking from the wound on his leg back to the Battle Board. He'd reached a deep and difficult-to-breach roadblock. His progress in everything had ground to an absolute halt and there was nothing he could think to do about it.

He delicately touched his wound with a finger, wondering if he'd be able to speed up its recovery if he somehow drained the fluid that was making it swell so large. But from how painful it was to the touch, he immediately set that idea to the side.

"I'm going to be getting so much weaker waiting here like this… And my speed is going to be gone. Not only that, but I'll probably suck in a fight too – so there goes my hope of beating the Hobgoblin," he murmured to himself. "Just what can I do sitting here like this? I know I should be practising Battle, looking for a way to get better… But I just can't see how."