They were looking intensely enough ahead of them that it was as if a foe was already in front of them. They expected the next order even before it came.
"Lower the spears!" Skullic said. At his word, the spears were lowered in an instant. It was done swiftly, as if by tense muscles, once more reinforcing the idea that they were acting as if an enemy was in front of them. Spears came flying forward, all the way from three ranks back, creating a wall of pointed long spears that were feared by all of the Stormfront's foes.
"Advance!" Skullic said. "Maintain formation!"
They responded to him with a solid "HWAH!" And began to march forward, in lockstep with each other, crawling at a turtle's pace as they maintained that solid rock formation that they sat in. The carriage drivers and the servants passing by were watching the scene with a good deal of curiosity, but none was watching more seriously than Oliver.
"This is…" He began to say, seeing the almost glazed nature of the men's eyes, as they responded to each and every one of Skullic's orders with hardly a fraction of delay. One could put it down to merely being a testament of their training, but there was more to it than that.
Your journey continues on My Virtual Library Empire
Before Skullic had arrived in front of them, they had merely acted as ordinary soldiers would, but this group that Oliver saw marching towards him was anything but ordinary.
Their pressure bore down on him. A mass of a hundred men, forced together as though a single entity. It was a horrible thing to have directed one's way. It was even more oppressive than the leaking aura of Skullic himself, that air-stealing presence of a Fourth Boundary man that he was assailing them all with.
Oliver could well imagine what would have happened if a force were to confront those bandits that he'd slain a month ago – they would trample over them, like a herd of slow-moving buffalo. In their unity, there seemed to be no weaknesses.
It wasn't a hundred men as a collective, it was a hundred men, boiled together in a singularity, the connections between each of them so powerful that they could be exploited.
"This is Command," Skullic told him firmly, his hot breath fogging in the chilly air. He glanced at Oliver out of the corner of his eye. For an explanation, this was the only one he could think of. He'd neglected tutelage, because he knew he didn't have the patience to be any sort of leader.
But, it seemed, his concerns were unfounded – that expression that Oliver wore, with that twinkle in his eyes, told him that he understood.
"It is Varsharn that gives me this Command," Skullic informed him. "You've sat some Command classes, so you understand what I mean, do you not?"
"Even though you don't share a blessing with her, the God of War still serves as a way for you to reach others… In truth, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me," Oliver admitted. "If it were Claudia you were acting through, I might understand…"
"It is Claudia," Skullic told him. "Like how a stream flows into a river. I speak through Claudia, for she is closest to me, but that is not a form of myself that I can inflict on other men. Some can speak through Claudia to other men, but I cannot. So, Claudia must relay my message to Varsharn, who relays it to the men."
"That sounds terribly… inefficient," Oliver mused.
"An apt way of putting it," Skullic said, nodding resolutely. "Those Generals that can speak through Claudia to other men, have undoubtedly wielded the most Command. Arthur, in living memory, was the only one capable of doing so, and you should have seen how he inspired the masses."
"…" Oliver processed that information. Complicated it might have been, but when he dwelled on it, it did begin to make sense. Claudia's Blessing allowed a man to improve himself – but that didn't mean it could allow him to reach others. "Then would you not have been better off reaching Varsharn from the beginning, and obtaining her Blessing?"
"You begin to understand," Skullic said. "But not entirely. Varsharn speaks to many Generals. I am not the only one. That I can reach her has more to do with my position than my temperament. It would not have entitled me to become any closer to her Blessing… Ah, that look on your face suggests that if I speak any more complications without an example, you will soon forget."
"…You might be right," Oliver said eventually. He was usually a quick learner, but the guardsmen were still right in front of him, exuding Skullic's aura, through the nature of his connection with Varsharn.
"Then I shall say one last thing. It is because I have reached for Varsharn many times through Claudia that I am able to afflict men as such – the connection has become more efficient, through years of repeated use. That, generally, is one of the marks that separates one General from another. Now, I would have you try to command these guardsmen in my place."
All of a sudden, Skullic's hold on them was gone. He hadn't given them an order. He'd merely waved his hand, indicating that they stop their slow advance. Somehow, they knew that to mean that they could relax. Man and underling, in that sense, seemed to well and truly be one.
Oliver had experienced such a thing himself in the Battle of Solgrim, but he hadn't been able to enact it since. The residual connections he'd felt with the villagers had still been there as a result, but he hadn't experienced forging them.
"Subordinates that are unfamiliar to you will always be the hardest to form connections with. Those you have worked with for many years will likely already have a connection to you, even without you consciously considering it," Skullic said. "But a truly great General should be able to walk into any crowd of men and take complete command of them, as I have shown you.
Demonstrate to me the aptitude you have in that regard."