A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 550 The Punishment For Living - Part 1

"You know why we didn't bring you – we wouldn't have had enough retainers to look strong, so we brought less as a different kind of display in strength," Jorah said. "With the idea that even if something did happen, we didn't need an army to deal with it… And Gods, the irony in that being tested straight away. We likely tempted that fate a bit too much."

The boy had tried his best to adopt his usual sureness, that commanding way he served as a support for his two friends, but even he was having trouble processing what had just happened. They all were. Very few within the Academy walls had seen a man die up close, and fewer still had seen a battlefield.

"Poison…" he heard Kaya say, gulping. "Just one slice, and you could have been done for… We could have been here too, and then we surely would have been done for. Maybe this is too much. What can we really do in battles like this..? We're useless, aren't we?"

Jorah's response didn't come quickly. He clenched his fist by his side. "I… feel that Verdant likely got caught as a result of my own weakness. He had too much focus on defending me."

"Fools," came an unexpected interruption. Oliver was surprised to hear it. He never would have thought Lancelot to be the sort to speak to anyone from another faction that wasn't nobility. "This is not the sort of battle to be measuring yourselves by. Outnumbered six times over, against poison weaponry – this is not a typical battlefield scenario."

The three of them looked up as Lancelot cautioned them. They seemed nervous at his presence. The man didn't exactly help them in that. He wore his usual intensity on his sleeve, and all but stared down at them. He was a noble through and through, and didn't attempt to see them as anything other than men of the Serving Class. But nevertheless, his words rang true.

Finally, Oliver shifted himself, he'd sat still for far too long. He had retainers to tend to. If Lancelot was the one comforting his retainers in his place, then he'd made a serious blunder. The princely man stepped pointedly back as Oliver approached, leaving his men to him.

"My Lord…" Jorah murmured, unsurely. Oliver imagined he must have looked particularly terrible, with blood all over not just his clothes, but his face. His borrowed sword was still hanging limply in his hand.

"None of it," Oliver said firmly. "None of it. You did better than I could have hoped, Jorah. I saw you slew a couple of men yourself. Trained and experienced men, far your elders. You did all that you needed to."

"And yet, my Lord, I can't help but feel that I was unnecessary in this," Jorah murmured. "Another thing for you to guard against."

"No," Oliver said. "Fighting twenty men alone would have been far harder without you and Verdant there. The flow of battle would have been hard to rule…" He drifted off, as he noted that they weren't following him when he mentioned the flow. He sighed, and pointed. "Disturbing, isn't it?"

Kaya nodded slowly, and Karesh did so as well, though he did it far more hesitantly, as if unwilling to admit it to himself.

"It should be," Oliver said. "Twenty men, dealt with just like that. No more light in the eyes, no more conversation. Just death. It could have been us, but this time it wasn't. There's glory in battle, somewhere… But when you're part of it, in the moment, it's mostly just blood and fear.

Not so much fun, eh?"

"No," Kaya agreed. "Not so much. I don't think… I don't think I would have been able to stand and fight."

"You would have," Oliver assured him. "You're too loyal to your friends to leave them short-handed."

Kaya did not look convinced. Karesh spoke up in his stead. "It's a grim sight… but I haven't changed my mind. I can still do this – I just have to get stronger. I don't want to be crushed like cannon fodder."

"None of us do," Jorah said impatiently. "But it's not as though you can snap your fingers overnight and you're suddenly stronger. Everyone would be as strong as Oliver if that were the case."

"But he's our Lord…" Karesh pointed out. "If anyone would know how to, it was him."

Three pairs of eyes drifted to Oliver expectantly. There was belief there now, as strong as any he'd seen – stronger than what he'd inspired back in the villagers in Solgrim, for this was belief built up over time, over the course of weeks, as they heard rumours, and then witnessed the deeds themselves. The faintest whiff of Claudia hung off them, as their hearts bled a golden, hopeful light.

"None of mine will die dogs deaths," Oliver promised – a reckless promise, but he was prone to giving those.

Within the hour, they saw the effects of Princess Asabel's messages. Tavar arrived at the corridor himself. He took one look at Oliver, one look at Asabel, and then strode amongst the corpses, dismissing the rest of them. He must have spent ten minutes in there alone, crouched down amongst the dead, going from body to body, picking up on seemingly innocuous details, and making a note of them.

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By the time Tavar was done, other Ministers began to arrive. The Minister of Blades came first, wearing a troubled expression. He inspected the season like a hunter inspected a recent kill. He was done within moments, satisfied, but not happy. He spent far longer in hushed conversation with General Tavar than he did surveying the bodies.

Lazarus, the old Minister of Information, came next. He seemed to be putting on a play with the affected way that he moved, expressing an air of mournfulness. That mournfulness seemed out of place. Was it not meant to be a victory? A plot was foiled, after all. A student was targeted for assassination, and he survived.