A tower of cards was what their position had been, Oliver realized. When he entered this battle with so few men against so many, it had been momentum that had carried them for so long. With so few men, they needed momentum just to fight back against despair, and dare to hope. Now, their hopes had been dashed.
"We killed fifty of theirs," Amberlain had pointed out. "And another five today. We've still killed twice as many of them than they have us."
"A bit of basic mathematics, and you'd see why that doesn't work in our favour," replied Rofus, unusually grim, his usual cheerfulness gone.
They looked into the flames, and smelled the scent of burning flesh, watching as the smoke drifted skywards, fighting against the light sprinkling of downfalling snow. It was hard to say what those men were seeing in those flames, but Oliver could guess that it was not an image of victory.
How could they pull it back from this? Oliver did not know.
