A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Does he have the authority to do that?" Oliver asked, surprised. "I can't see the local nobles being so quick to leave their cities and hand them over to us."

"Khan can be trusted… I want to think," Blackwell said. "It would spare us the burden of a siege. We could end this campaign far more quickly than any of us intended. We would be done within the year. I am drawn to that conclusion. Being away from the Stormfront for too long wears on me.

I can not shake the feeling that we are in the wrong place."

"They would defend their cities all the more fiercely if they saw what we did to surrendered opponents," Oliver pondered.

"That is another point in our favour," Blackwell said. "However, Karstly sees deeper. Rightly so. His way is not without merit. We could secure far more cities, over the course of the next three years. We could have a quarter of the Verna under our control.

A complicated matter. And it is a boy of eighteen that I am turning to for the slightest slither of advice, hoping that he can hear the whispers of ghosts better than I can. Well, Patrick, what does Lombard say?"

"Lombard would do whatever serves you best," Oliver said. He knew that for a fact. "He would counsel you towards whatever option gave you the least amount of grief. He would know that you wish to be home, and so he would counsel you towards that. But I suppose that doesn't help you make your decision any."

"…He would do just that," Blackwell agreed. "Indeed, without him to bear the decision with me, knowing that does little."

"There is another ghost that I think would have an opinion," Oliver said. "My father."

Such a suggestion brought Blackwell's eyes snapping back towards him. "…I did not think that Dominus concerned himself with matters of rule. But go on, boy. Even I know that Dominus' wisdom is not to be dismissed."

"Indeed, he cared not for rule, but of progress, and he saw Claudia's progress in all things. In the building of strength in the sword. In the flourishing of an ecosystem. Even in the rise and fall of empires. He looked to them all, and he traced the same lines, the same steady sort of rhythm. And he knew that, naturally, before growth, often there is needed to be a culling of old parts.

And to reach too far, at times, was to build a cancer that will have difficulty resolving."

"…Those might be your father's words, but they sound like your own opinion," Blackwell said.

"Perhaps," Oliver admitted. "I know far less of strategy than you, General. And of General Karstly. I have watched the two of you, and I have known that I cannot match you. The only principle I can be confident in is that a strong core builds strong branches. It is too simple to challenge the likes of you with, but it is all I have."

"And the Stormfront here would be that weak core?" Blackwell said, continuing to run his fingers through his beard. "Don't build a castle on foundations of sand, that is what you're telling me… Indeed… Indeed. Old wisdom – not your wisdom… Invoked carefully, it seems like the sort of thing that you can trust. Karstly has the greed of youth. He wishes to grab more.

As aged as I am, I ought to be content with the small victories, until we fix those foundations that I feel fear of."

His eyes drifted up to the ceiling, and he was quiet for a time. The intensity of his thoughts was written on his face.

"However…" He said, without looking down. "It is greed that the Stormfront was founded upon. That we dared to take, when others would have been careful enough to step back. That is what made us such a force to be reckoned with in the past."

That was something that Oliver found he could not argue with. When to take and advance and when to retreat – those were the very essence of the principles of the battle board. As simple as they were, no one had come up with the perfect strategy that could defeat all strategies. It was still a matter of debate.

Those words, spoken by Blackwell as such, radiated an intensity. He flexed those powerful shoulders of his. The lines that spoke his age on his face seemed to grow deeper as well. His clasped his hands in front of him, and the veins bulged with a just barely contained urge, whilst his face sunk deeper and deeper into what seemed to be a calm of entirely the opposite sort.

"He is a furious negotiator, General Khan is," Blackwell continued. "I will be hard pressed to get anything out of him that is worth more than his life, and the lives of his men. You have spoken well enough, young Patrick. I had thought that, if anything, you would side with Karstly. It would appear that I have misjudged you."

"…I very much doubt that, General," Oliver said. "I seem to suffer from the act of saying one thing and doing another. If an opportunity of a similar sort presented itself on the battlefield, I would be much more likely to go the greedy route."

"But off the battlefield, when forced to emulate the role of the governor, you seem to have impressed upon yourself a certain conservatism," General Blackwell noted. "That village of yours has had its walls built high, and its defences increased. Rather than snatching more, you've held to your principle of building a strong core. I find that to be a rather interesting contradiction.

Some might accuse you of being a hypocrite, for that, but I find that an interesting man must be a web of contradictions. He must be at war with himself, more often than not, if he wishes to make any sort of progress."

There was a tone to those words that seemed to signify the concluding of their conversation. It was not long after that General Blackwell rose to dismiss him.