A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

A hand from Oliver halted the attempt. "You have already given far too much," Oliver said, fighting to keep the sadness out of his voice, and failing. "Rest a while."

She understood what he was asking, and she fought it even harder, freeing herself from the arm that supported her. In doing so, she only made the state of her wounds all the more obvious. She staggered.

"What will Amelia and Pauline say when they see how I've left you?" Oliver said.

"You can not choose this moment to see me as a woman, just when it conveniences you," Blackthorn said. "You treat me as casually as everyone else before then – and now you dare to look at me with pity? I will not accept it, Ser Patrick. If you attempt to take responsibility for all that has happened to me, you reduce me, and I will not have it. You're far too arrogant in doing so."

Oliver had to nod. He supposed arrogance was something he could be accused of. Knowing what he knew of Ingolsol now, he supposed that arrogance was likely one of the many roadways in which he and the Fragment of the Dark God had met up along.

"All the same, I will push it," Oliver said. "You can scold me as much as you want later. I will not fumble one more important thing today – not when we're already so close to seeing this done. Verdant, if you would."

"If I would..?" Verdant said, slower on the uptake than he would have usually been. He'd been listening in on their conversation – Oliver had thought he'd have known exactly what he was getting it. But now that he looked closely, Verdant seemed no better in his saddle. His wound, if anything, was worse than Blackthorn's, but he was as stubborn as the sea.

He would not yield if he did not have the will to.

"Damn it, Verdant, you ought not to be in saddle either," Oliver said. His curse was more for himself than his retainer. "The two of you – you've done enough. You ought to have been resting from the moment Zilan caught you. I order you both, take fifty of our most wounded men, and make your way from the battlefield. Begin the setting up of a camp to receive us, if you have the energy at all."

The two of them were silent, and the two of them looked likely to resist. Blackthorn even more strongly than Verdant, from the piercing look in her dark eyes. When she adopted silence, she did it like a sword, waving away any attempts at further conversation. When Verdant drifted into silence, it was of a thoughtful sort. There was room for negotiation there.

"I ask this of you Verdant, because few others would have the heart to obey," Oliver said. "I know you both wish to see through the battle to the end, to see our total victory from up close. But you will see it and you shall feel it from a certain distance regardless. And I promise you that there will be more battles than this, and even greater victories."

At that, Verdant inclined his head, ever so slightly, and the smallest of smiles twisted the corner of his mouth. "Now that is a promise of the sort inclined to move me, my Lord… If you can promise me a victory even greater than the one you have stolen today, I would endure centuries of torture to see it.

Perhaps a few moments of quiet might be better spent for me after all – so that I can process what it is you have allowed us to see, and I do not forget its magnitude."

Oliver winced at such a line, but he waved his hand regardless. "Thank you, Verdant."

With the Idris man on his side, there was no resistance for Blackthorn. She swallowed her fate with a bitter look, and her eyelids began to droop. Before they could even gather up the fifty injured that Oliver had tasked them with, she was already stooped against the head of her horse, unconscious. One of her Blackthorn men had to lead her steed back on foot.

'And now to see this battlefield to a close,' Oliver thought.

He pushed his soldiers forward just a fraction more. Rainheart's advance had hit the slightest of walls. The Verna resistance was growing fiercer near the centre, where the officers gathered, and the momentum was beginning to die out. They needed just the slightest prod.

With fewer injured under him, and the short few minutes that they'd had to rest, Oliver dared to risk exposing them to more engagements.

With the Patrick men all but breathing down their neck, the nearby Verna soldiers couldn't help but stir.

With his sword, Oliver strolled forward almost lazily, picking off a handful of men. It wasn't enough to be called a charge, but it was enough to increase the pressure all the more, and let the Verna know that they were being squeezed in more than one direction.

Soon enough, a Violet Commandant emerged to deal with the trouble. That was about all they could spare. Every man of a higher rank was needed in the centre, hoping to stem the overwhelming force of a Fourth Boundary General, such as Rainheart.

The moment that Violet Plumed man revealed himself, three ranks deep in, Oliver was upon him. With the shortest burst of speed from Walter, and three swift strikes to clear the way forward, he was in front of the man.

He saw the mouth fall open, and he tracked the raising of the half-moon sword, but all of them were done moments too late. After having all his instincts primed to deal with an enemy of Zilan's magnitude, such a soldier appeared as if he was moving in slow motion. It was almost shocking to Oliver how weak such an enemy was.

His sword freed the man's head from his shoulders with the most frightening of ease.

Jorah took up the cry, bellowing the victory, even without the men having been committed. It was another jab to the Verna morale, and with it, Oliver took his exit, once more standing at the edge of the army.