A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The young Jorah who'd been forced to take command of so many men prematurely found in himself a renewed spark. He'd had doubts in his position, and with every fresh group of soldiers that fell, those doubts multiplied. He could feel his position crumbling, and he had not had the mental energy to see it rectified. Now he gritted his teeth, and dug his heels in.

He barked his order, and his men dispersed, their timing impeccable. The chariots rushed forward, straight into a half-square encirclement, and were finished in due course.

The bloodied duo of Verdant and Blackthorn had been beginning to encounter their limits, as their energy sapped from their wounds, and their previous spark ran out on them. Then, just as Blackthorn's sword was beginning to dip, she heard an order muttered on the wind like a whisper.

Her heart stirred with a suddenness that brought her eyes to a momentary dampness, and then she found her place and her mark, and she pierced a Violet Commandant straight through with her sword. In Verdant, Bohemothia's words found resonance, allowing the Sea God to build up a mighty wave. Against a head on charge, standing alone against the chariots, Verdant did not crumble.

He instead repelled the unrepellable.

The army found it in themselves to hold the foes back, even without Oliver's presence directly on the battlefield. Zilan was forced to watch, his eyes betraying his unsureness. Around him, Oliver could see the aura of Command begin to tremble.

Instead of looking towards where General Rainheart was busying himself, the great General of the Verna was preoccupied with a mere battle amongst hundreds. That inattention focused his Command in the wrong place. He sensed that, if left to their own devices, his chariot men would fall – and so he redirected that Command elsewhere.

"SOLDIERS OF MINE, STAND YOUR GROUND!" He said, his voice deep and resounding as he spoke the almost lyrical Verna tongue.

The effect was immediate. The tide of battle was curbed in an instant. Swords that were posed to find flesh instead found steel, and were defended against.

It didn't seem quite enough to instantly win the battle for the Verna – but it did enough to keep them in the fight. Any extra time was time that could be spent for the chariots to prepare another charge. It all worked in their favour.

However, in doing so, Zilan had split all the Command that he had to offer to twenty thousand to a mere few hundred. The red aura of Command around him thinned to a noticeable degree. The man himself did not seem to realize his blunder. He could not see it as obviously as the outline in which Oliver saw. The smile he turned to the boy was a victorious one.

"No longer shall you trouble me," he said.

Oliver did not mock him in his lack of understanding. He could not gloat in his victory, despite his anger, and his hatred for the man. He knew what his eyes saw to be unnatural. For he knew, in part, the truth that was Ingolsol.

His sword slashed across Zilan's torso, the weightiest blow of their fight together. The thick bronze-coloured chest plate that attempted to hold the man's massive size beneath it split beneath the blow. It ran all the way down his chest, deep enough to expose that white of the bone.

The blood rose up to the corners of Zilan's lips within seconds. The bloody lipstick that it forced upon him made obvious the blows seriousness.

His shock continued to indicate his lack of understanding. Had there been fewer changes in their fight, Oliver thought a man of his quality would have been able to put the pieces together. He would have realized his misplaced Command. But there were too many variables for him to eliminate. He had not the time. He only had his glaive.

His return strike came quicker than it could have from a lesser man. He dealt with the pain better than any man could hope to. No matter the adrenaline helped in that regard. But there was a deeper thing that drove him – the fierce pride that came with those that stood atop the mountain. They would not crumble so easily. They were as immutable as the laws of the world itself.

Effort on an almost godly scale needed to be expended in order to replace them.

The strike of a Fourth Boundary man beat down on Oliver's sword, supported by the Command of a few hundred men flowing into him. With all the experience he had in that Boundary, he ought to have been ahead of Oliver, who had just newly entered in. The God Icaron that had given him his Blessing ought to have had more in store.

But against men of the same level, and even men just a Boundary above him, Oliver had long since found himself to be a match.

The strike that landed was not a strike that could steal his attention for too long. He could see the majority of it merely on his left hand. The right hand still sat on the guard, supporting the left, but it was free enough to pivot, and allow for the swiftest of return strokes.

"Gods are not made equal," Ingolsol said, his voice changed now. There was a regal quality to it that enhanced its deepness.

It was with such a statement that Oliver took Zilan's head. The sword crept up, just ahead of the glaive, as it attempted to draw back just a fraction too late. It traced a line along the shoulder, and dug into the fat around Zilan's neck, traced the barest crack that separated his neck guard from his chest plate.

All the way through it went, and in a single blow, Oliver severed the great General's head.

A sensation ran through him with the blow, and with the blood that inevitably followed. It wasn't a sensation he'd had killing any other man before. It was a rush of the highest exhilaration. A freedom that he'd never experienced, like a bird's first time wearing wings.

"…You have passed into the Upper Boundaries," Claudia said. It was impossible to tell exactly what the emotion in her voice meant, though it was quite clear from the sound that it was laden with it. "Congratulations, Oliver Patrick."