A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

By now, the other men of the Patrick forces had learned of the attack on Solgrim, and as they marched – and even in the days before the march – they had come to offer their condolences, and to reassure him that the men they left behind would have kept it strong and safe. Oliver wanted to believe them. In his moments of doubts, he had only needed to think of Nila.

Her face came more vividly each time he thought of her. Strong with her bow, confident despite her age, as fierce as the fiery red of her hair. That was a girl that could surely not lose to anyone, and so he dared to hope.

Even the men that had been so strong in their reassurances had begun to grow quiet the further to the west they came. Since arriving in the Pendragon lands, their army had begun to dwindle. The forces were split, in accordance to the directions that they needed to travel in. General Rainheart himself left them after a time for his residences towards the south.

It was only a thousand men that they were left with then, and a handful of Colonels to lead them.

The further west they went, the more those numbers dwindled. By the time they had begun to near Ernest, it was only Blackwell men that remained, and their number was barely a thousand in total.

Over the course of the week that it took to travel from Valance to Ernest, they had ceased to become an army, and now seemed to be more a gathering of men. Though there were indeed two Colonels still amongst their number, the men that they drove did not belong entirely to them, and they could not unify them properly, nor did they attempt to. Their march grew more disorganized and listless.

It was only the Patrick men that kept motivated in their formation. Their speed quickened at the head of the marching column. They were forced to remain under the Colonel's command until Ernest, but as soon as they passed those city walls, it was a fast jog that Oliver thundered his men to.

"Solgrim stands attacked!" Oliver said, relishing the opportunity to finally draw his sword, and confront the subject of his worries that had plagued him for so long. "We make haste for it, no matter how our exhaustion might afflict us. The cavalry will go on ahead with me. Firyr, Jorah, your infantry shall follow along behind with as much speed as you can muster."

"Understood, Commander," Firyr said. There was no room for jokes from the man for once. Even he understood the gravity of the situation.

They were all battling their anxiousness at what they might find across those long stretches of dark green Stormfront grasses with an almost mad urgency. Logic told them that even if they rushed, after so long had passed, they would not be able to do anything. Whatever the results of battle had been, they were already finalized. And still no one protested as Oliver gave such unreasonable orders.

Even the Blackthorn troops that still survived – their number had dwindled all the way down past fifty – seemed as eager to advance as if it had been their homeland. Lasha herself gave those men a nod, indicating that she would be riding on ahead, and that she wished for them to follow with as much speed as they could muster.

And then all their horsemen were sent on their way. It was a far cry from the cavalry company of a hundred that Yorick had commanded when they had started, but they'd still managed to keep it from dwindling to a pathetic size, given how freely they were able to get new horses, rather than new men.

The force that galloped towards the aid of Solgrim was no larger than seventy, but as he rode at the head of it, his sword still flashing silver from out of his scabbard, Oliver could not have imagined a foe large enough for him to yield towards.

The Black Mountains were to his right, ever watchful and wise, they were the wildlands that had seen the rise of everything that he now had.

He felt comfort in their closeness, just as he felt comfort from the comparative mildness of the Stormfront weather, compared to the Verna, and from the darkness of the green, and from the height that the trees were allowed to grow to, now that they were given water to support their efforts.

It felt like home, all of it did. There was a time when Oliver might have believed that he would never know the feeling of home again – and yet this place had managed to nestle itself that firmly within his heart. Still, that was a feeling entirely contingent upon Solgrim.

The sky was clear, and Oliver kept looking to it, expecting to see smoke rising up to tarnish the blue. But he saw none of that. Somehow, the lack of information was more ominous.

They rose up over the smallest of hills in those grassy plains, and finally, before them, they could see the small settlement of Solgrim in the distance.

Oliver squinted, pulling his horse to a halt. He could see no smoke, nor could he see damages, but it wasn't as if he could properly make out all that he cast his eyes towards. He wasn't sure if it was a good sign, or bad. Would he have been able to tell from a distance if the supposed Yarmdon had indeed ransacked his home?

His heart beat just as frantically as it had not being able to see it. Perhaps even more so. He urged Walter back into a gallop, and closed the distance bit by bit.

The gates were firmly closed. That was the first thing he noticed. For this time of day, for Solgrim, that was most unusual. If they had been in good condition, those doors would have been wide open, to allow for the new wealth of traders that passed through its market square.

The closer he came, the quieter he found it to be. That quietness was more eerie than any smoke billowing fire could have been. It was hard to slice apart silence with a sword.