A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 618: Skullic’s Mission - Part 4

Oliver did nothing to offset that, though. He’d chosen to sit outside merely to give himself a better chance of defending himself should anything go awry. This new, more cautious side to him was something that even he was having difficulty explaining to himself, but it seemed like a wise enough idea nonetheless and as he saw the scenery begin to unfold before them, he was glad he’d done so.

The driver’s seat afforded a view of the world that the carriage window just couldn’t match.

They travelled through the snowy wilderness, along roads of ill-tended cobblestone, leaving the Academy – and the city of Garsh which loomed behind it – far off in the distance.

That was not to say the world was empty, though. They passed the occasional hamlet, with an inn and a farmhouse where their animals were stabled for the winter. Whenever they passed such places, the driver would give a name and only then would he earn a grunting acknowledgement from Oliver.

He wasn’t trying to be cruel to the man. He hardly noticed how on edge he was. Or at the very least, he hardly paid it any attention. With so many angry eyes cast his way, even Oliver was beginning to lose his calm. It took him nearly an hour of watching the scenery pass before he was ready to entertain even a passing conversation with the man.

"Will you be driving me back as well?" Oliver asked.

The man flinched, surprised by the question that punched through the silence that had been hanging in the air for a while. The last hamlet had been fifteen minutes gone, and when the shouting of the butchers and the gleeful laughs of playing children faded into the background, it had merely been the wheels on the road and the sound of the horse’s hooves clopping that had filled in the silence.

"Huh? Oh! Yes, Ser, I will be," Petyr said, nodding his head vigorously. "I’ve been instructed to stay no matter how many days it takes."

"They expect it to take days?" Oliver asked.

"Well, no, but… I am unsure, Ser. I think the General was just making sure that it wouldn’t be a problem even if it did," Petyr said cautiously.

Oliver turned to him. "Do I frighten you, driver?" He asked suddenly. With so few words passing between the two, that question had all the weight of a sledgehammer as it hit the poor man.

So caught off guard was Petyr that it would be hard to call the noises he made stammers. It was almost as though his soul had fallen out of his ear and he was engaged in a mad scramble to get it back. He blinked several times, his mouth flapped open, his hand twitched and he ignored the road entirely. The horses steered them in the driver’s place, as his reins went slack in his hand.

"Not… Not frightening, S-ser," the man said. Oliver had to laugh. Never before had that claim been made less convincingly. The driver’s voice cracked as he said it.

"Not frightening, terrifying, is it?" Oliver corrected with an amused smile. "Lighten up. I’m not going to kill you. What’s the worst that could happen?"

"I s-suppose… Ser," Petyr turned his attention back to the road. They could already see the tents rising up in the distance. Petyr pointed them out with a shaky finger. "Our destination."

The horses fought to bring the carriage uphill. It had been growing considerably more mountainous the further they went. Towards the east, where they were headed, it wasn’t true mountains, not like the Black Mountains were, but it was hilly nonetheless and there had cropped up the occasional grey cliff like a giant’s forgotten tooth.

Now they saw more of those giant’s teeth, as the road turned them towards what seemed to be a valley. The small nearby river had frozen solid and snow had settled on top of it. If not for the slight depression in the sea of white, it would have been impossible to find.

Despite being able to see the soldier’s encampment – smaller than the encampment Lombard had made when he’d visited Solgrim, given that there were fewer men – he still couldn’t see the target. It was meant to be an old fort, wasn’t it?

"Petyr," Oliver said, finally calling the driver by his name. It wasn’t as though he’d hated the man personally, or anything of that sort – he’d merely grown sick of all the disdainful looks that he’d been receiving and had needed that near hour of quiet. Despite needing it, he almost felt a little guilty for inflicting it.

Not truly guilty, but enough so that he made an effort to put the driver at ease, for he seemed amiable enough. "What do you know about Dollem Fort?"

The driver perked up. It seemed almost typical of their profession that they had something to say about most places. Few travelled as much as they, after all. Petyr was no exception in that. "The fort, Ser?" He said, nodding his head, collecting himself. "Well, I can say that I can I understand why bandits or outlaws might want to make their home there.

It’s meant to be well enough defended."

"Oh?"

"Yes, Ser, it’s built with the line of these, valley, see?" He made a gesture of cupping with his hands. "And where the cliffs come together, just so, you get natural walls on all three sides. A bowl of rock – you only need to build a wall of wood in the front and you’ve got yourself quite the military encampment," Petyr told him.

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Oliver nodded, this time without humour. That was genuinely useful information. Though these missions weren’t something that he’d decided on himself, he wasn’t about to take them lightly. He didn’t think that he could afford to, as strong as he’d become.

He thought back to his strategy lessons with Volguard as he reflected on that information. They’d done a little bit of studying on the proper way of attacking fortified encampments, but most of that was theory, discussing the merits of a siege, the demerits and what was necessary to make a siege successful.

The primary thing there was to ensure that the fortress was surrounded on all sides – barring that, an attacker would need to make sure that every route to and from the encampment was cut off.