A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

But how could he trick a creature as fast as the Boulder Crab? He hardly had the opportunity to move. It was usually a sequence of steps that he found he could throw a less-intelligent opponent off with, but against this crab, he was lucky to be allowed a single step.

To channel all the discrete of three steps into a single one. That seemed like a higher-level martial ideal. The sort of thing that a noble would laugh at, and call disgraceful. That was the very essence of this sword form.

Oliver bounced off the crab and landed on the ground again. To his left, there were the trees, and then to his right, there was the cliff face once more. He landed and feigned with his shoulder, making it seem as though he was about to head towards the trees. That would be the obvious thing to do, wouldn't it?

But instead, he sprung to the right. The crab went hurtling left in the same motion. It recognized its mistake in an instant, and it was able to correct it all but immediately. Still, it was a half step behind. Oliver jumped for its eyes again. The creatures hurriedly closed it, and raised a claw to ward it off.

Only, Oliver had put only a tiny fraction of his usual strength into his jump. He'd acted as though it was all his force, but he'd barely left the ground. He moved forward, having gained himself a full step of time, and he instead attacked the beast's joints. There were three of them per leg. It couldn't all be hardened carapace, could it?

Like with armour, the joints had to be the weakest part, didn't they?

He forced his sword in, timing it as best he could. He felt it bounce off something hard, and his heart almost sank. The hardness only served to redirect his strike towards the soft, though. If he'd had a point on his weapon, that might have been enough to deal a significant strike. The creature gave a deceptively cute squeal of pain.

It sounded more like a kitten getting hurt with that tiny mouth that it had.

Oliver danced back, his sword bloody.

"There! Ingolsol! You bastard! Revive yourself! There's blood for you!" Oliver said. He could see his friends gathered on that platform a distance away now, directly behind where the Boulder Crab now furiously thrashed. Enjoy new tales from empire

He saw Kaya and Karesh raise up their hands in cheer – the rest stood with stony faces. Verdant looked serious, as did Jorah. Gavlin was as solemn as a statue, and the three girls… Well, Oliver couldn't read their expressions at the best of times. In the midst of combat he had no idea what those down-turned eyebrows meant.

"Loud, so dreadfully loud," he heard a faint whisper.

"Ingolsol!" Oliver shouted back, surprised that there would ever come a day when he would be glad to hear that voice of darkness in him. But he'd learned that lesson. That little monster inside of him had become an integral part of what it meant to be Oliver, and before him what it meant to be Beam. Claudia had too. They were as much a part of his foundation as his heart and kidneys were.

He needed all of them just to function.

"Not me, dullard, I've since healed," Ingolsol said. "It's her you should shout for."

"Claudia?" Oliver called out to her, and in the same instant, he felt a wave of pain run through his body. He collapsed to his knees. It was only the awkwardness of his fall that saved him from the crab's attack. The claws caught him, but not with their sharpest bit. They hit him with force, and tossed him, sending him flying. Oliver's mind went white, not just from the pain offered up by the crab.

There it was. It was as though he'd jabbed his finger into the worst part of a wound. Merely the attempt to call out to what he had once known had rendered him almost broken.

"Why…?" He murmured, dazed, crawling back to his feet. What had even happened back then? What had Francis done?

"You would remember, if you thought hard enough," Ingolsol told him. "Ah, what a waste. I could have burned it all down, and embarked on a mission of slaughter through your body. But the fires extend to me. Even I'm weak now."

The Boulder Crab did not give them the opportunity that they needed for their conversation. Only with the adrenaline pounding through his chest, covered in fresh wounds, did he finally feel like he could call out to Ingolsol properly again, as he had when they'd done battle with the Yarmdon.

He needed the combat in order to see, in order to force what wasn't important away. The crab demanded all his attention – and he delighted his body by doing just that. An ounce of cunning, and he would be able to lead it to the trees again, only the beast had tossed up to the other side of the plateau, and reaching them again would involve getting past it.

The creature rushed him again, and again Oliver attempted to feint for the eye, and instead go for the joint. Had the creature been lesser, that would no doubt have worked a second time. But as soon as it detected that it wasn't going for its eyes properly, it moved its closest leg out of the way.

That move cost it time, preventing it from following up with a rapid attack, but the same was true for Oliver. His sword had tasted its blood – broken sword though it was now – and that no doubt worried the beast.

He wasn't sure if he could sense it truly, or whether it was the reformation of a slight connection with Ingolsol, but he could have sworn that the scent he was beginning to catch was fear. The slightest, mildest form of it, but fear nonetheless.

"That tastes good," Ingolsol murmured. "A hearty meal."

His voice sounded stronger from that.

"If you would but feed my such beautiful fear, we could throw off the binds of Claudia, and begin anew, you and I, freshly unchained and free," Ingolsol tempted him.