A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"You've earned a dishonourable discharge, if anything," Lombard snorted. "Is there no limit to your disagreeability? You've used me as a pawn, youngling, and I've come running to assist with your stratagems. Will you take risks to the very end, even after having incurred the injury that you already wear?"

"But of course," Oliver said. "For there is progress in every risk."

"Somehow, I think your outlook on progress differs to that of Dominus," Lombard said with another snort. "Very well. Do not complain to me when this proves to be the struggle for you that we both know it will be."

They moved together to intercept the blades coming their way. Both Jericho and Amion had targeted their swords towards Oliver, even after having noticed Lombard's presence. The aged Captain had to forcefully assert himself in order to catch Jericho's blade, and draw it towards himself.

"I will not go down so easily, Stormfronter," Amion told Oliver, as the two faced off. "My army has bled too much for this opportunity. We will not throw it away. No matter how many cards you hold."

"Then fight for it, Commandant Amion. I will make no excuses. If your strength exceeds mine, then I have been bested," Oliver said. He stepped in with a lunge for the first time, daring to trust his left hand with a thrust.

Awkwardly, Amion turned the blade aside. The blow landed harder than either of them could have expected. "Progress!" Oliver announced triumphantly, feeling that he had the slightest degree more control over that single left hand. "That is the Goddess that we worship, Commandant! She makes her presence known!"

Amion snarled, and stepped forward, bringing his sword above his head, for another overhead strike of his own, knowing how much Oliver had struggled to deal with such strikes in the past. "Illumination, Stormfronter! The enlightened path! That is the God that we worship!"

The sword came within a hairbreadth of Oliver's neck as he bent his head back. He knew he couldn't afford to catch those strikes head-on with his guard, and now he didn't need to, with Captain Lombard keeping Jericho occupied. He could feel the progress in real-time, and it excited him. For the first time, after all these years, he was getting a true glimpse of what the battlefield looked like.

Khan had delivered him a crushing defeat, but with Amion, there had come lessons, and Oliver swore to learn them all.

"One step," Oliver acknowledged, feeling Amion's blow go off to the side. That was the time that Amion would need to recover from the strike. He went in with another lunge, this time more lightly. It was less a feint, and more a strike that he used to feel the enemy out with.

Amion overreacted to it, thinking that it would carry the same weight as the strike before it did. He twisted his hips off to the side to parry it, putting them out of position.

"One step and a half," Oliver said. Amion could hear Oliver's words, and by now he must have ascertained their meaning. No matter the culture, there were always different ways to measure the advantage that one had in combat.

The Commandant realized that he was getting pressed. He read Oliver's intentions. To accumulate steps of advantage in timing as Oliver was aiming to – those were the movements of a man that was choosing to bet it all on a single killing blow. Amion refused to let him. Even from that off-balance position, he swung again, hoping to break Oliver's tempo.

The sword swung far too wide. There was a whole man's worth of space between them. Where Oliver had been just an instant before, there was nothing. Somehow, the young man had managed to work his way all the way to Amion's opposite side. His footwork was something that the Commandant struggled to follow.

Three steps. This time, Oliver did not announce it out loud. He took pleasure in the contest, but he did not take pleasure in the act of taking a man's life.

Amion presented to him the whole left side of his body, completely exposed and defenceless after a long looping blow delivered far too eagerly, and it was the neck that Oliver went for, intending to finish it quickly, and with all the mercy that he could manage.

It was as precise a blow as he could deliver with his left arm. It was off by a finger from where he had aimed, but it would get the job done regardless.

"GAHHH!" Amion grunted in pain, forcing his free hand between the path of Oliver's blade and his neck.

The blade was slowed by the bracers on his wrist, but not by much. It dug in nearly to halfway, coming to a stop just by the edge of bone.

"Invader," Amion said. "I cannot lose. No matter what it costs. I will defeat you."

His sword came again. Oliver's right arm rose up to stop it. The strike was too slow, and they were too entangled. Even without the use of his hand, Oliver's arm alone was able to knock the strike off course.

'Four steps,' he told himself, gold coming to his eyes, as he began to get the fullest sense of Amion's fear. It was not fear merely for his own death, but fear for what was to come after – fear for his country.

"Invader," Amion said again, struggling to free his sword arm against the lock that Oliver had put on it with his own arm. "I will not… lose."

"Honour, Commandant," Oliver said, as his sword found Amion's belly. The neck was no longer an option. The stomach was the best he could do, with the blade angled upwards, aiming for some even more vital organs.

The Commandant gasped an ice-cold breath, as he felt the steel go through him. It was the closest Oliver had ever been to a man as he took his life. His face was barely inches away from Amion's.

The Commandant looked down, his mouth hanging open, to see the mess that had been inflicted on him. He broke his quiet for one final time, repeating the word that Oliver had thrown at him as if it were a plea to the Gods.