A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"A tempting dream," Oliver said, smiling. Verdant almost sounded like Ingolsol the way that he dangled it in front of Oliver – though Verdant's temptation came from an entirely different direction than that Fragment of Despair. "One that is out of reach for now. There are things that we can improve, and they've been made obvious enough, thanks to both Karstly and Khan.

I am far from being of their level. My battle style needs to change. There was something there, in the fighting with Amion, when I finally began to make use of strategy on the field, rather than just my sword…"

"In the end, it did end in such a way though," Verdant remarked, his lips twitching as he threatened a smile. "A fact that Lady Blackthorn was not too pleased about. I do recall you making a promise to stay a distance away from the front lines, now that your hand is hurt."

Oliver laughed. "Old habits. You would forgive me that, though, wouldn't you? Given how different it is from my normal style. I ought to have been there myself, beside Firyr, carving the way forward."

"Indeed. It was the taste of something greater, my Lord. I could feel myself as a part of it. I shall be excited to see in what direction you can push it," Verdant said.

"If only there were more battles to be done…" Oliver lamented. "More opportunities to test this newfound style."

"A wish I'm sure few other men share at the moment, my Lord," Verdant said. "As excited as General Karstly managed to make everyone, the exhaustion of the troops still hangs in the air like a bad smell. Speaking of which – we have been drafted in as part of the corpse burning team. Karstly was not lying when he said he wishes for them to be disposed of by sunset."

Oliver grimaced. "Another little punishment, I wonder?"

"Who's to say?" Verdant shrugged.

The fire raged taller than any building that a peasant would be lucky enough to see. It went higher even than some castle walls.

It was a thick smoke that such a fire gave off. At first, it had been a pleasant smell. That of resinous wood, so easy to light, and so quick to get going. Then, when the bodies had been added, it started to lose any trace of pleasantness.

The first scent they were hit with was that of meat cooking – it almost smelt tempting, but the fact of its temptingness only made it all the more likely to sicken and upset the stomach.

At first, the work had been slow, and it had been grizzly. The men had approached the pile of corpses with tentative expressions and shaky hands. The dead had been left to stew in the fluids of the deceased for the length of the night, and the morning. There was not a single one of them that was dry, or anywhere close to clean.

It had taken shouting from more than a few Sergeants before the first man had pulled a corpse from the pile, and thrown it onto the fire, a disgusted look on his face. After that, the others had been forced to copy, still moving slowly, still showing hesitation and wearing grim expressions as their uniforms were sullied by the filth.

After the third corpse, though, even that feeling of disgust started to wane. The laboriousness of the task set in, as did the amount of work that they would have to get through. It became something as straightforward as field work. Something that the mind lost interest in, and the body knew to perform without the mind's input.

They pile that fire up high with the corpses, until they could fit no more on it, and then another fire was started. And then another.

Amongst those men, the Patrick men worked, as did Oliver Patrick himself.

"Set the weapons down there," the Sergeants ordered, piling up piles of equipment. It had been judged to be dishonourable to rob the dead, but so too would it have been difficult to burn all that they owned, given the metal that it was made out of.

And so the decision to take their armour and take their weaponry was made as a practical one, rather than one of greed, for the Verna supplies had already seen them well stocked.

"Gurghh… This is fuckin' grim," Firyr complained. "I thought I was a Commander."

"You aren't a Captain, I can tell you that," Karesh told him, carrying a body on his shoulder. His clothes were already filthy, and he'd declared that he would burn them when the matter was over. After shifting so many corpses, he'd simply fall to moving them whichever way was easiest.

"He shouldn't be doing it either," Firyr said. "None of the other Captains are. They'll be looking down on us."

"Will you not listen to them, Oliver?" Blackthorn said. She was standing a short distance away, with a handkerchief to her nose, as she watched Oliver work amongst the bodies with everyone else. "Your hand – you shouldn't be doing this work at all. What if it gets infected?"

"It's well covered, do not worry," Oliver said. "Besides, there's no open wounds on it."

That was a fact that had only become true that morning, when he awoke. The day before, a little bit of bone had indeed pierced the skin. From the look on Blackthorn's face, she remained unconvinced.

"Do you not wish to get better?" She asked, seeming cross now. "Do you simply try to push yourself at every opportunity you get? Do you know nothing of rest?"

"I am not pushing myself," Oliver told her mildly. Even with one hand, the work was far from beyond him. He found that using his forearm to steady the weight of the body was enough, and then his left hand was more than sufficient for flinging it onto his shoulder.

'In fact, I think this is exactly what I need to be doing with it,' Oliver thought. He wanted to gently try exercising it, since it was far from broken. A principle that he'd learned at the Academy, in his field medicine classes, was that of the importance of blood flow in recovery.

Not that it was particularly profound, but simply because it was something that he could do, when he was out actually in the field.