A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Some even called out their accusations to Lord Blackwell, in their Verna tongue. Others did the same for General Khan.

Oliver did not have the slightest idea of what they were saying, but he could guess. 'Is this what your surrender bought us? Would we not have been better to die fighting?'

General Khan was no longer able to look quite so dignified. His thick black eyebrows were knitted as tightly together as they could go. He looked a man to be making every effort that he could to restrain themselves.

They were brought before General Blackwell. There must have been ten thousand of them, just in that first group. It was like seeing shepherds herd particularly worried sheep. There was an industrial nature to the process, something that shouldn't ever have been involved with human lives.

With a harsh finger, General Blackwell gave his point. General Karstly gave the smallest nod of approval from behind him.

To the very edges of the first pit, those ten thousand were taken. Soldiers and civilians. Men that had come there to fight, and men that had come there to do trade. The women amongst them who had come for similar purposes. Some for coin, eyeing opportunity, and some for love, daring to keep a family together, and taking their children along with them.

Several villages they could have populated with that number, and that range of ages. It really was no different than if they had gone to the nearest village and they had captured everyone within sight. It brought Oliver in closer contact with his past as a slave than he had been for the longest time.

He felt his fingers begin to curl. A greater distance for every step that the Verna prisoners took towards their graves. By the time they had reached it, his fingers had gone past a fist, and his nails were digging into the flesh of his palm.

His stomach was awhirl with sickness. He'd slowly come to terms with the fact – or he thought he had. He'd kept himself measured over the past few days. For Solgrim, and for the injustice that he knew they were about to commit. Blackthorn had praised him. This was part of war, was it not?

He looked up for reassurance amongst the faces of his men, but he could not find the slightest whiff of it.

It was they that were looking to him.

Jorah, ever mindful of his manners, ever careful to keep his expression under control, had a distinct look of desperateness contorting his face.

Kaya looked angry. He wasn't hiding it well. Firyr was next to him, and their rage brewed as one. The glance they gave Oliver was one of expectancy, as if they supposed that some sort of order was about to be given.

Then there was Verdant, right by Oliver's side. He'd sworn that he'd watch, as the deed was carried out, and that he'd make sure that he knew he was a part of the atrocity, for he'd been unable to act to prevent it. But his shoulders were trembling now, and his eyes were fixed firmly to the floor.

For all his strength, and his moral character, it seemed even he wasn't able to bear that burden, when he confronted it so directly.

To Oliver's right, he hoped to find salvation. Blackthorn had counselled him well, just days before, and she had kept an eye on him. They hadn't spoken of the Verna matter. Only of the Solgrim one. But Oliver had dared to assume that, in her words, there was something else implied towards their current situation.

He hoped for that same post that he could lean on. Some measure of sense, and discipline. The willingness to obey the absolute authority that reigned over them as Commanding General.

He found none of that.

She'd kept her hands clasped behind her back, but Oliver could seem the quivering. In the past, the length of the braid might have hidden them. He had thought it to be a stance of certainty that she took. Now, with no veil to hide it, he could see a look of nervousness. She was unsure. She could not even meet his gaze for her unsureness, lest she be swept up by it.

As they struggled, the order was given.

All the way down the length of the first pit, thousands had been gathered with their ropes. A loudmouthed Sergeant gave the command, as if he were on the parade ground, giving orders for a march.

The soldiers hesitated, and he cursed them, and showed them what needed to be done. With a boot to a woman's back, he kicked the first of them into that pit, twenty feet deep.

She screamed as she fell, and her rope found a quick tension with the man next to her. He struggled, but he was unable to find enough stability to catch her, with his own hands and feet bound.

He cursed, as he was pulled from his feet, and dragged to the side, and then he started to scream, when felt the tension in the rope grow slacker, as the whole chain of bound Verna civilians collapsed into the pit at once.

With a mighty thud, the first few hundred landed. Just the fall, most likely, were enough to break a few bones, Oliver thought. Especially with the way they were bound, unable to do anything to lessen their own impact.

The wails that came from those at the bottom of the pit were otherworldly. Cries shouldn't have been able to travel that great a distance, but they found a strange sort of resonance, from one man to the next. To Oliver, it felt as if they were standing right beside him, their hands on his shoulders, whispering into his ear, and begging him.

"This is not war," he said aloud. 'This is not war at all…'

Facing against a man, sword against sword, he'd learned to understand the taking of life. There was strength in competition. Here there was no competition, no reasoning, no resistance, just a mindless massacre.

"Would you prefer to face them in the field of battle again?" Ingolsol sneered. "Would you arm them, and risk defeat?"