A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1911: A Timely March - Part 8

"MY LORD! STEADY YOURSELF!" Verdant shouted his warning, pulling Oliver’s attention back to the left of them. Another army gathered, infantry and cavalry together, perhaps ten thousand strong, perhaps more. These plodded forward, slow and sinister.

There was a man amongst them, that pulled the eye more than any other, on account of his glittering crown, and the many bannermen that surrounded him. "Emperor Tiberius..." Oliver murmured, seeing him, but not truly understanding what it was that he was looking at. He felt not the danger of the situation, only a deep, inexplicable, overwhelming sadness.

His Emerson allies were already being slaughtered in a display of carnage, and yet he felt none of the urgency he usually would, when was cornered in a trap. He felt only that deep overwhelming sadness, and he pulled his eyes back towards the hill, and then out beyond them.

"Oh... that was why," he said, suddenly understanding, and almost laughing at himself, as the tears came maddeningly down his cheeks. "Oh, that’s why... yes, I had forgotten just how cruel the Gods could be."

"My Lord..." Verdant said.

Five heads, staked upon pikes, thrust right in the centre of the battlefield, amongst another mound of corpses. Blackwell, Broadstone, Karstly, Skullic, and... Queen Asabel. With each face that he recognized, even on account of their grizzled, frozen, horrifying expressions, Oliver’s heart, like the broken Blackthorn next to him, felt itself tear.

He breathed in a deep breath, and shook his head. "I think this might be it for me, Verdant," he said, with an almost shocking degree of calmness. "If I dwell on this for even a moment, I will lose myself entirely. I am well aware of that."

It frightened Verdant to see his Lord like that – that dead certainty. The calmness that came now, even with tears on his face, from that unbelievable tragedy.

Verdant wished for the same thing – he wanted to curl up into a ball and die. He did not want to drink in what was in front of them. The harsh process of coming to terms with it. What sorts of Gods would have allowed the scene before them to take place? And then, what sorts of men could see it, and then come to terms with it?

But Verdant had a duty, even if it was a cruelty. There was an image of Oliver Patrick that he believed in, more than any other.

The man had suffered, true enough. One could tell that in any moment of quietness spent with him. Those eyes that were so full of life, as soon as Oliver allowed himself the vulnerability of letting his thoughts drift, they were filled with an incredible sadness.

Even the many scars that decorated his body were insufficient to tell the extent of Oliver Patrick suffering. But that was what made the man as great as he was. He was the living embodiment of Claudia’s promise – that their suffering would be rewarded. His bravery, despite that suffering, was the very reason that he could command that army of fifteen thousand, despite his immense youth.

It was likely the cruelest act that Verdant had ever done, and he’d delivered it to the man that he loved best of all.

He struck Oliver across the cheek with the back of his hand – anything to wipe that smile off his face. And then he felt his anger rising, to combat that immense sadness, and he spoke with more rage than he had ever felt.

"You coward," he growled, not even believing his own words, but saying that nonetheless. That cruelty beyond all cruelties. "You speak of not being there to defend your family, of your lacking strength..." this too was something that Verdant half believed Oliver to have conjured up in a fit of madness. "And then you will stand here, and take the cowardly path once more? You will forsake your men, to dwell in your own suffering, like a child? With so many lives dependent on you, you will allow yourself that indulgence?"

"Verdant..." Oliver said, the pain was obvious on his face. Those words dug even more deeply than Verdant had intended them to. Right where Oliver was weakest, a dagger straight through the heart. But Verdant could not help himself. He had to say it.

"What would you father say?" Verdant said. "Dominus Patrick who gave his life in defence of others? Who lived for all those years with poison in his body, do you think your suffering to be equal to his? What would Tolsey and Lombard say, who died on account of our failings. Indeed, what would Queen Asabel say?"

Oliver shook his head, and he bit his lip, his expression was not heroism. It was a frightened, terrified child. "Verdant, don’t say any more, please... Don’t say anymore." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"What of Tavar, who we just slew? What of Germanicus? These men that we respected, the justice we aimed to inflict, would you allow it all to fizzle out to nothing?" Verdant said. "If you will give up, then do at least one thing – go and gaze properly on the faces of the dead, and apologise to them, before you collapse to your knees, and surrender yourself to the monster that slew them."

Verdant would brook no argument. As vulnerable as Oliver was, he might have listened to anyone there. Anyone with enough cruelty to take advantage of him. He slapped the rear of Nelson, and sent the horse galloping down the hill, trusting him to take care of his rider.

"Forgive me, my Lord," Verdant murmured. "Please, indeed forgive me..."

He lamented the unfairness of it – the unfairness that he had inflicted. Of that boy, so much younger than he, hardly yet a man, so much had already been required. The Gods asked of him, again, and again, and each time, did Oliver show his bravery. This, however, this even for them, was too much. For all that he had suffered, could the Gods not show him the mercy of a reward? Could they not gift him the peace and happiness that he so deserved?

Verdant wished that they could, more than anything else, but even at his worst, he could not allow Oliver Patrick to sully himself with inaction. Even a broken man, dealt a blow that no man could ever deal with, he had to trust that Oliver Patrick could find himself. Else they would all die, they would all end up like those great men, and that great woman, on the ends of stakes jammed into the ground.