A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I shall speak something, and I shall… hope for you to be calm," Lasha said. "A letter came for you. Verdant said that I should be able to open it on your behalf, given the seal."

"What letter?" Oliver said. "What news has come for me?" He was not the largest of men, but in his dread then, he towered over her.

The woman shrank back by the slimmest of degrees, and then she locked her feet, forcing herself to stand firm. "I should not be the one to deliver this news to you. I am not good at such things. But I opened it. So I will bear that duty. News has come from Solgrim – it has been attacked."

Oliver lifted his eyes. He could look at her no longer. He found comfort in the blue of the sky. That comfort lasted only for the barest few seconds. Then that blue looked sickly. He began to wonder why it was that the Gods had picked that, above all shades.

The black of the night was something he longed for instead. Anything to escape that overwhelming brightness.

"They have been marched on by a thousand Yarmdon," Blackthorn told him. "But Nila… She promises that she and Greeves can hold against them. She urges you not to worry. She says she's done as you told her to do, and she's sent word for aid to Queen Asabel."

"As I told her to do?" Oliver said quietly. "Indeed… Indeed, I did say that, didn't I? But that was for… Not this. I wouldn't have left if I'd expected this. A petty manoeuvre from somewhere. Political levying.

Not all out war. How did a thousand Yarmdon make it that far? They couldn't have. The patrols are too frequent these days."

Blackthorn's silence only encouraged him in that. He clenched his fist, and he found the answer himself. His teeth were gritted with years' worth of anger. It was a wonder that they didn't shatter from his mouth.

Seeing that look on his face, Lasha had to turn away. Her palms sweat. She fought against the sense of duty that bid her to look her Captain in the eyes, but with the increasing speed in the beat of her heart, she found that she could not summon the courage.

"I'm wasting my time here," Oliver growled. "This battle is already won. I'll take my horse. If I rode quickly, I'd be back within a fortnight. I'll relieve them of the Yarmdon threat. And then… And then, I'll root out that old poison."

"And you would do it all alone?" Lasha asked, daring to contradict him in the heat of his anger.

"Why I ought I not to? These aren't foes of worth. They hide behind their devilish little manoeuvres because they can no longer face us," Oliver said.

"Do you look down on Nila Felder so much?" Lasha said, throwing cold water into the ever growing fire. "Do you look down on Greeves Golfinger just the same? Do you look down on all of us?"

"What?" Oliver said, taken aback. "I never said anything as such. Why would I wish to protect that which I looked down on?"

"You treat them like children," Lasha said. If the disgust in her voice was acted, then she would have been a fine actor indeed. Now she met his gaze. Now there was fury in her dark eyes – the icy fury of a Blackthorn. "Did you not leave Nila in charge? You chose her, didn't you?

You did her the honour of trusting her, when you could have chosen anyone else. Did that honour mean so little to you?"

"You don't understand, Blackthorn," Oliver said, finding the saddle of his own rage once more, and climbing back into it. "You've not been hounded. You don't know what they're like. This is a sword filled with decades of bitterness. Whatever they throw at us, it'll be the most devious thing that they can dream up. They have no morals.

He's a cancer that should have been burned a long time ago. He distorts—"

"The foe has no bearing on this!" Lasha said, shouting loud enough that now Amelia and Pauline were looking their way. "You knew your foe all this time! Is your miscalculation so fatal, that when the expected attack comes from the expected foe, you throw away everything that you have tried, and you upset all the plans that you have committed your people to, and you flee, fearing failure?"

"This is not the expected attack!" Oliver thundered. "A thousand Yarmdon. Did you think I expected that?"

"You yourself said that they're not true Yarmdon – even if you didn't say it outright, you keep saying whence they came from. They can't be both," Lasha countered. "Your anger is making you blind and foolish. The worst of you is showing. I won't stand to see it. Don't trample on the respect that I hold for you."

The golden flecks in Oliver's eyes began to grow larger. He could hear the creaking of chains in his ears as a heavy door strained to get open. "I will not be denied this," he declared. "If you stand in my way, Lasha, you will wish that you hadn't."

"You threaten me now?" Lasha laughed. A laugh mocking enough. But her teeth dug into her lip, and her dark eyes held the slightest film of moisture.

"I can't lose, do you understand me?" Oliver said. "Not again. Hah. What am I saying? Of course you don't understand. You don't know the first thing about me.

Do you think I gathered strength just for glory?" He gestured around him. "What is all this for, if I can not use it? It's wasted. With our victory here, we are all quite ready to crawl into the belly of hell itself, and all the while, my foes will be burning what is mine."

Lasha struck him then.

Her hand moved without thinking.

It was a blow that he ought to have dodged, but his eyes were so firmly fixed on her, and he leaned in so close in his intimidation. He saw not the slightest shred of her intent.

He heard, more than he felt it.

"Fool," she told him. "You fool upon fools."