A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Then there was Yorick and his men, looking lost. They saw the interaction, and they could hardly even smile at it. They were strangers here still. It was likely not the place that they wished to die.

Those were the men that Oliver needed to keep alive. Seeing them, he felt that resolve renewed tenfold. He felt his powerlessness, as he needed to exist within several frameworks of authority, but he also reminded himself of his dull throbbing confidence. The likes of forty-four victories were not the sort of momentum that could be defeated with ease.

"Shall we go, my Lord? I imagine we have some thinking to do," Verdant asked.

"Yeah," Oliver replied, unaware that Lord Karstly's gaze was pinned so thoroughly to his back as he went.

…

…

In the realm of the heavens, Ingolsol flicked a ball with his finger. It rattled around a bordered tabletop, bouncing off each side, until it came to the halt in the middle, on a single circle that stood out amongst thousands. He flicked it again, and once more, it rested in the same place.

"My servant," he said, his voice deep and gravely. The horn-headed woman was at his side before he could even look up. "I am impatient."

"…I see," the woman replied. She wasn't a woman of many words. In the typical sense, she couldn't even really be described as a woman at all. No woman had horns on her head, after all, and no true woman could exist in the realm of the Gods. Though, even if she wasn't such, there was something expressly feminine about her, with her silver hair, and her violet eyes – a figure that so resembled Claudia.

Once, she had been scantily dressed. Ingolsol had delighted in that, knowing how offended Claudia would have been if she'd laid eyes on the demon that was meant to represent her, but these days, that same demon was clothed as well as any noblewoman in the mortal realm might have been.

"You've no words for me, no grand speech?" Ingolsol said. He looked up, his golden eyes filled with enough menacing to make a village burn.

"I thought you were content," the woman said quietly, turning her head to avoid his gaze. "The years have been good to you."

"…You gaze into the mortal realm as well, do you not, demon?" Ingolsol said. "And you've looked upon all manner of beings, as I have. If you were to look upon a slave, and see that his chains had been sawed at, what do you expect you would see on that man's face?"

"Joy?" The woman said, as if the very emotion was foreign to her – though she would have protested that if anyone had claimed it so.

"Indeed, joy," Ingolsol said, flicking the ball on the table once again. "Joy, he would feel, as I felt joy. And if he were made to wait three years after that initial sawing of his chains? Would he still feel the same joy?"

"…I think not," the woman replied cautiously.

"No, I think not," Ingolsol said, taking the same ball and crushing it. "That wench… how does she have such patience?" The sharp fangs of his teeth protruded from his mouth. He was devilish, in the truest sense of the world. Both handsome, and overwhelming in one go. "The power that the mortals bring us. I was never interested in it.

Never. Until now. Until… Until oh–so recently. A mortal heart could never stand what I am, without being corrupted… Now I see a seed grow, and the plant has forestalled me. I am impatient, and my impatience spreads."

Even his conversations with Claudia had grown to be a thing of the past. She'd hardened her walls against him, and Ingolsol's voice could no longer reach her. Ingolsol knew not what went on in the heavens, but he could guess their thoughts. Ingolsol was chained once more – they had no reason to fear. Claudia's concerns were overwrought, and overrun, stability had come about, peace had returned.

His fist went through the starry table next, shattering it. He snarled like a wild animal. His impatience wasn't merely an emotion, it was a weapon as heavily as a sledgehammer. Had his chains not bound him so tightly, he would have burned the world with it.

"But my Lord Ingolsol," his servant said gently, daring not to fear the bestial look in his eyes, as she put a hand to his shoulder, and bid that he look in the cup. "You need not wait much longer, surely…"

"Since when do you claim to predict the future, demon?" He said, snatching the goblet off her, and looking into the depths of the red liquid. Only then did he see the black mass moving across the landscape, and did his lips curl up into a smile. "…But in this, maybe even a demon's eyes are enough to see. My seeed has found fertiliser – it has found fire. Grow, my weapon, and dash away these chains!"

He howled it with a manic laughter, and collapsed against his throne.

"Soon," he assured himself, looking at his palm, and clenching his fist, searching for the power that he once had. "Soon."

…

…

After an hour, the signal was given, and the army once more began to move.

It was a tentative movement, however. By now it had spread through the ranks what awaited them beyond the hill, and none were eager to be the soldier that gave their position away to such a large enemy force.

Oliver doubted that he was the only one who had seen through the enemy numbers, realizing that they were hardly fifty thousand, and much more like a hundred thousand. Only a man like Verdant would have been able to accurately put that number at eighty thousand though – or so Oliver supposed.

He knew that there were other Captains and Colonels amongst the ranks who had most certainly come to the same conclusion as he, and yet that information did not trickle down to the soldiers. They were tense enough already with such a massive enemy so close. They didn't need the likes of such an inflated number to spur them to even greater tension.