A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I will crush the last of their resistance," Tiberius said. "Oliver Patrick marches east. He will be there on the morrow. He will see the heads of his fallen comrades, and he will be defeated. Need you a more compelling vision of the future than that, strategist? Or will I have to snatch these men away from you regardless?"

Blake paused, not giving his response too hurriedly, despite the clear irritation written on Tiberius' face. The man was impatience personified. For a commander that had won such a grand victory, he hardly seemed to be too happy about it.

"Your current remaining number?" Blake paused. "Could you not finish the job with those?"

"Six thousand?" Tiberius snorted. "I could. But I won't. I wish for your reinforcements, and you will give them to me."

"If all you say is true, then this war might be over tomorrow. What can I say to the High King to reassure him against you?" Blake said.

"Whatever lies you choose," Tiberius said. "It makes no difference. His crown shall be mine regardless, just as your men shall be mine."

…

… Find the source of this chapter at M|V|L-EMPYR.

A weakness that he had dared not mention for such a time, for fear of the reaction. Only for it to be delivered so easily, and accepted, not only easily, but with praise along with it. Oliver slowed his mount despite himself, even for the rush that they were in. So cruelly Verdant had spoken just minutes before – and he was the same man that so warmly proclaimed his worth.

"...Gods be damned, Verdant, I'm glad it's you," Oliver said, quite honestly. Even after all these years, he found he could not properly understand the man. All he said seemed to be of the realm of the cryptic, and yet, when it came down to it, there was none more loyal than he.

"Tempest," came a voice next to him, closer than he would have liked. "Makes sense."

That was all Blackthorn too had to say on the topic. She'd kept pace with them on foot, just like the infantry behind them, and even with the wind rushing, she'd picked up on those fragments of conversation that she ought not to.

Oliver looked at her dumbly, a different sort of panic seeping through his heart. That dishonesty that he'd run with for so long. What a hypocrite he must seem, to cling to his honour in his defence, and then live his entire existence upon a lie.

"It makes sense," Blackthorn said again, not looking at him, so busy was she with rushing forward. "My Lord."

Oliver felt his heart skip. In the middle of that terrible churning sea, so cold, so terrifying, there was that impossible warmth. The two of them together. His retainers. His closest two men. They had hardly flinched at it.

He breathed in, and then out, and then in again. His heart seemed as if it was beginning to move once more. His empty head filtered through its thoughts like a sieve. They crashed into him, a thousand things at once.

Nila's gentle hands when he told her about the past. The weaknesses there. 'Damn it to hell, why am I thinking about such things on the battlefield?' Oliver thought to himself, with enough wherewithal now to realize just how strange his thought patterns had been. The enemy was right there in front of him. There were those plated men that Tiberius took personal command of, with his heavy cavalry, and his infantry, but there were also men bearing royal surcoats, wielding spears and bows – infantry of the High King, Oliver assumed, and there were easily twenty-five thousand of them, enough to surround Hod and the army that he was attempting to gather around him, peppering them endlessly with arrow fire.

If it were to continue, they would most certainly lose. 'Lose…' Oliver thought, his heart not properly stirring at the word. For to worry about losing meant at the same time that he believed there was a possibility of winning. And as soon as he cast his mind towards such things, he was reminded of something crushing, the most weighty of boulders. He was an insect trapped underneath it, hardly able to move more than a leg. Unknowingly, Blackthorn and Verdant allowed him that much, and the love that Oliver felt for the two of them in that moment, was incomparable.

He still couldn't address the problem head-on. Oliver knew his way of dealing with death was not the most healthy of things. Still, he had not come to terms with the fact of the demise of his family. It was not only until recently, in growing closer to Nila, did he realize the weakness in himself. When she held him in her arms, he felt a safety that made him realize how on edge he'd been elsewhere. How he had fled to sleep on the floor to feel the hard reassurance of its support.

He'd wept in front of her, and she had wept in front of him. Delicately, her hands had reached deeper in him than any other had. Without even truly trying. Simply by being next to him, she'd defeated him, and the ideas that he'd had of himself. And then, before he had known it, there was that other side of him. That different way of fighting, not as tense as before, nor even entirely relaxed. The overwhelming power that was capable of defeating even the likes of that Emerson army, and even the likes of King Germanicus. Hidden beneath the scars of his existence.

He was glad she wasn't there – a reassurance that came in the middle of the battlefield. A lightening of Oliver's burden, and he and his men crashed into the back of the infantry that had been pressuring Hod, and began to scatter them. A little more hint of fire from it, another little reason to exist.

The love of the Gods that seemed to appear, despite the cruelty of the situation. A belief, somehow, that they had not abandoned him. Impossible to believe though it was, it was all that he had. The bravery to shoulder the burden that Verdant and his men had thrust upon him. The coldness initially of the comment, and now the warmth of the belief written in it.