A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"You didn't need to do that," Oliver said. "You've collected enough scars for my sake."

Blackthorn snorted. "If I had attacked her first, I would have been labelled a murderer. There can be no denying it now. And like I said, the wound is shallow."

"It had best be," Oliver said. "When the guards are gone, I will check it, and if I find out you've lied to me, I won't be able to trust your word regarding your status again."

"One rule for me, and another for you," Blackthorn said. "You're always hiding your wounds. But fine. It's shallow. I said so, and you'll see that it is so."

Oliver nodded, turning once more to the Sergeant.

"Now, do you understand the magnitude of the situation here, Sergeant?" Oliver said. "Our passing through here has been met with a degree of unrest. The organiser of these attacks is unknown to us, as is the reason behind them. However, it still seems to stand that they will stop at nothing to take our lives. Including, I'd assume, the blackmail of the Lady Snowbloom that you were so fond of.

If you have a fondness for the rest of your city folk, you had best apprehend them if they come too close. Once they attack a Lady or a Lord, they can be shown no mercy."

There was implied, in that, the course of action that the Sergeant ought to have taken, when he saw that friend of his – not that a noble lady could ever truly be the friend of a Serving Class Sergeant. If he had performed his duty more seriously, she would not have hated him for it, and he would have been able to keep her well out of harm's way.

The marred beauty of the woman, scattered against the cobbles, in part, he realized, was his doing. The emotion that led to the twitch of his eyebrow, it was hard to tell quite what that was. Anger at the perpetrator behind it all, or self loathing at himself, for not having acted sooner.

He was forced to give an order nonetheless, pushed on by the air of expectation that was coming off his men. He was the Sergeant here, the man in charge of this entire squadron. It had just so happened that, under his watch, tragedy had occurred. But the tragedy could worsen. The storms were whipping, and though they had been damaged, they were not entirely sunk yet.

The protection of the Lord Idris and the Lady Blackthorn was still a task that he was duty bound to uphold.

"We will see Lady Blackthorn and Lord Idris safely to the city gates," the Sergeant said firmly. "We do not know the cause of these attacks, but their existence has been made clear. We proceed quickly now. Anyone nearing the carriage, we'll treat with suspicion. Keep them at length with your spears. Forward now."

The carriages were blood stained as they were set to moving again. The soldiers, for all their seriousness, already seemed damaged in part. The city around them was marred. The perfection that they'd set out with, without a flaw to mention, had been pierced straight through, and by the second, they were taking on water, being threatened to sink.

The crowds were thick, and the soldiers were serious now. They had to assume that every man that came close was the enemy, and they treated them as such. "AWAY NOW!" They shouted, with lowered spears, thoroughly on edge.

The folk of the city flinched from the undisguised aggression, now seeming to understand the source of it, but being on the receiving end as they were, they were quick to get out of the way.

They sailed through the city streets with a swiftness, now that the purpose of the soldiers was united with Oliver's own purpose in seeing the gates reached. The archer atop the roofs did not send another arrow their way, nor did another man manage to get close enough that they could have been called a threat. Their security, it seemed, was watertight.

The gates soon enough were in sight. Relief began to permeate the group. All that the soldiers needed to do was ensure that the visiting Lord and Lady were sent safely out of those high stone walls, and their job would be done. Anything that happened beyond there was not their responsibility.

The passersby gave them curious looks, and the blood-covered carriage trundled past, and the soldiers thrust the crowd out of the way with their spears. But none tried to stop them anymore. All the way to the gate, they found themselves pushed through without problem. The storm, it seemed, had very much passed.

"HALT. Sergeant, what's the meaning of this?" The officer on duty asked, the mirror shine of his breastplate reflecting the Sergeant's troubled face in it.

"There has been an attack, Captain," the Sergeant said. "On the Lady Blackthorn, and Lord Idris… And Ser Patrick. We've had to escort them from the city centre to here. There still might be unknown assailants about. Even the minor nobility, it seems, have been roped into the threat. Lady Snowbloom… Somehow… they managed to put a knife in her hand as well.

Blackmail, I'd think."

"Lady Snowbloom? You're not making sense, man. What's been done to her?" The officer aid.

"She's dead, Captain," the Sergeant said bluntly. "She put a knife in Lady Blackthorn's shoulder, and she was killed for it."

"…Madness," the Captain said, shaking his head. "In my streets. "Very well. We will inspect the carriages and see them sent through. You have done well, Sergeant."

That was it. They'd made it as far as the gates, and it ought to have been the end of their plight. And yet, Oliver could still feel a coldness like rain pattering against his skin. He could still feel the swell of a restless sea, swaying back under his fate.

The waters were still black, and full of unfathomable happenings, and creatures large enough to see the small vessel that they were swallowed up. One such creature had already put a hole in their sails, after all.