A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"To apply pressure is to provoke a reaction. You had your reaction," Blackwell said. "I could not scold you even if you were one of my senior offers. However…"

"However, I lost Lombard," Oliver finished for him.

"You lost a sword that was precious to me. You snapped it straight in half," Blackwell said. "That fool ought to have accepted my offer to make a Colonel out of him. He was wasted until the very end. He told me that no Captain with a single arm deserved the rank of Colonel – that was only the newest excuse. Before that, he would tell me that he wasn't experienced enough.

Isn't it ironic, boy, how one of my best men valued himself so much more lowly than other fools amongst my order value themselves, even knowing themselves to be weaker?"

"He had a strange wisdom…" Oliver said. "I thought him to be overbearing in his discipline when I first met him, but he never disciplined anyone more than he kept discipline of himself."

"That's been said about him before," Blackwell said. "You've heard that from elsewhere."

"I have," Oliver admitted. "From his own men. But it describes him well enough regardless. That was why his men loved him, and why they were proud to be Lombard men, even if it meant sacrificing the pleasures that some other armies held."

"That is one good example less than I had before," Blackwell said. "Youths like you, with potential, I've seen more than a few, though I suppose I can admit that none of them have quite rivalled you. Being the son of a monster, it only makes sense. However, to forge something like Lombard was, it takes far more time. He's a far rarer creature.

To have the personality for this job, and to last as long as he did, the weight of all those experiences… Lombard alone was worth at least five thousand men, I'd put my life on that."

"Five thousand…" Oliver repeated, his eyebrows shooting up. That was an incredibly weighty assessment. It was a fifth of all the forces that they managed to bring. It ought to have been a metric attributed to a General, or something similar.

"He was a symbol, Lombard was," Blackwell said. "Surely you've noticed it, and thought it to be odd yourself. The amount of people that knew that man, despite his rank. He was a hero for the more common of men, something attainable that they could aspire to be… Though he was only attainable because they underestimated him, and Lombard underestimated himself.

An illusion, in reality, but a symbol nonetheless. Vanquished…"

"Would that I could bring him back," Blackwell said, after heaving the heaviest of sighs. "But he'd promised to retire soon enough. And when I would complain about that fact, and ask what I would do without him, he would point to you and say 'there is my present to you, General. From his father, given to me, and now I pass forward that gift.'"

Oliver's eyes stung. He had to dig his nails in his hands to stop the watery film from overflowing.

"Of course, I could see the worth in you. I saw it before I had you sent to the Academy. However, whenever he said that, I would laugh at him. You two are in different realms. You are no replacement for him. I would ask him, where would I find the wisdom that he has to offer in the mind of a boy as young as you.

Lombard would come as close as he ever did to laughing at that, and he'd tell me that as old as I am, I should have wisdom enough already. What I need is strength," Blackwell said. He wrinkled his nose. His own eyes were watering to the slightest degree. "That damn retainer of mine was planning his passing years in advance… He always seemed to just know, more than any of us could.

I could have used his wisdom now… Gods, I could have used it."

He stroked his black beard with a giant hairy hand, ruffled the hairs back the wrong way, before straightening them down again the other way. "The battle, at the very least, is won. You could go as far as to say that we've won the war. And by some trick of the Gods, you've had a hand in that. How you slew Zilan, I hardly even want to ask. I am too exhausted for questions of that nature.

The fact that you've entered into the Fourth Boundary is problem enough. Who would have thought competence would turn into a poison at some point? You are owed celebrations, but I am not the man to do that… The faster victory that you had a hand in ensuring we've achieved is a tainted thing. These peace talks…"

"You have a hundred thousand soldiers that you need to bargain for…" Oliver murmured.

"Quite so," Blackwell said. "We have spared the lives of Khan's men… temporarily. General Karstly argues that we should see them all killed. He does so right in front of Khan himself. As savage as it might sound to kill civilians, his argument isn't without convictions. An army of a hundred thousand can rise and fight again.

An army of corpses will struggle to do so. Whilst they are alive, they are a constant threat. General Karstly's opinion isn't one I can outright ignore either, given the achievements he has scored for us on this campaign… however…"

"This is where you were looking for Lombard's counsel?" Oliver asked.

Blackwell nodded slowly at that. "I try to imagine what the man might say. He was ever seen as being cold-hearted, but I do not think he would be so quick to murder soldiers that had been reduced to civilian status."

"I do not think he would either," Oliver agreed. "I think he would place the lives of our men above all that though. He would have considered how many lives of our own we might be saving in sparing the enemy."

"There we find our place of negotiations with Khan," Blackwell said. "He understands that a hundred thousand men will not be given back lightly. We came here to conquer, and we will not leave without doing so. For the lives of those men, he will cede to us several towns and cities, and he will guarantee a treaty, to give us time to see them fortified."