A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Lasha gave them the smallest of nods in return. It seemed a cold gesture, but Oliver – daring to think he was beginning to understand her just a little bit – thought she was secretly rather pleased.

"That's the sort of fighting we should be practising anyway. Single combat is all well and good, but a battlefield is the true test," Oliver said. "Good work everyone… Now, I say, let's go hunting for Hobgoblins, mm? Verdant, what do you think? Reckon you can give it a stab this week?"

"I'm extremely hesitant, my liege," Verdant admitted. "But if you think I stand a chance, and that it would be useful training, then I would be a fool not to listen. In matters of combat, you are by far my senior."

"Then let it be done," Oliver said.

When Kaya heard tell of the expedition that weekend, he didn't think the walk would be anywhere near as challenging as the battle was likely to be. He'd been wrong.

He'd hardly slept the night before, for fear of combat. Even though it was what he wanted to do – he wanted to be a soldier, he wanted to be good with a spear, and he wanted to be strong – he found that he wasn't anywhere near as good at it as he would have liked.

He'd hoped that, when the moment finally came to prove himself, he would be able to summon up a strength that he hadn't been able to present during his classes. On that front, he'd been wrong, and he ended up disappointed.

He walked at the back of their line with Jorah, as Oliver broke ground through the deepest snows by the front. Apparently, hardly anyone visited the Grand Forest in winter. It saw most of its activity come springtime, when factions used it to prepare for the Games.

As such, they saw hardly any other footprints from other parties. After a while, they'd seen none at all. No one dared to go this deep. Kaya found he could guess why. The air here was repressive, speaking of what lay there… He'd heard tales of Hobgoblins, and the link. His mother used to tell him stories about them, when he asked her to tell him something scary.

It shamed Kaya to note that he felt almost as nervous as Blackthorn's retainer Pauline looked. He walked directly behind her. Oliver had casually told him and Jorah that their job was to keep an eye on the girls, just in case there were any attacks as they walked. Read new chapters at empire

Kaya had nodded to go along with it, but now he was here, he couldn't help but think that any other person in their party would have been better suited for the role of protector than he.

Even that fierce little blonde girl – the one that he'd recently learned was called Amelia – seemed more likely to be able to protect her and Pauline than he would be. He gripped his spear. Pauline really looked like she needed protecting too. She watched nervously through the trees, and yelped at the slightest noise. He noticed, because he found himself doing the exact same thing.

When the goblin attacks did come, it was Jorah that reacted first, and then Blackthorn to the front of the girls. Gavlin the Minister of Blades trailed a distance behind their party – Kaya was sure that he probably would have reacted before him too, if he'd tried to, despite there being such a gap between them.

It was with such a forlorn mood that they entered the first of the Hobgoblin clearing. The party quietened, as if expecting something. There was an almost visible tension between them. Those that had been here the previous week seemed to expect something even beyond what he and Jorah did.

He saw Pauline shuffle closer to Pauline, and then he saw Blackthorn stand protectively in front of them. He'd noticed that about her – she seemed cold in the Academy, but out here, she watched over those retainers like a mother duck watched over her ducklings. It was endearing.

Even she had stiffened. Even she seemed visibly nervous about what was to come. Kaya thought he knew what to expect, but seeing the tension amongst the others only served to heighten his own fears. Even Jorah – his ever-reliable friend – had a grim look on his face.

"Shit… my hands are shaking," Jorah said, holding his hand up in front of his face.

"Mine too," Kaya admitted. He could never have admitted to being afraid without Jorah having done so first.

Oliver strode to the centre of the clearing, leaving their party on the edge. That youth, even younger than they were, that boy that they now called Master. He walked with such confidence. His walk seemed almost lazy, but at the same time, it was hyper-alert, dangerous, ready to swing at anything that came near.

He pulled the sword from his hip, sensing something that the rest of them could not. There was a crunch in the snow, and Kaya turned his head to see the Minister of Blades standing right beside him. He forgot to breathe, having someone so important standing so near him. But the Minister of Blades didn't even glance his way. His eyes were firmly fixed on the clearing.

A moment later, there was a resounding crash, as a Hobgoblin burst through the trees, and Kaya quickly found out just why the rest were so on edge.

A beast worse than those that haunted his nightmares. This made the Hobgoblind in his nightmares look less of a threat than an angry drunk. This was death incarnate. This took the spiteful insanity that infested goblins, and it channelled it into a brawny ball of furious muscle. It dragged a wooden club behind it, bigger than it was, yet it handled it as easily as if it were a stick.

Kaya didn't even have the sense to step back. He felt more like his heart would stop. He forgot to breathe, and then when he did breathe, he didn't breathe properly. His breaths came too rapidly, and he hyperventilated. He looked up to Jorah for reassurance, only to find his friend's eyes widened with the same fear that he felt. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead.