A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1201 Candles in the Wind - Part 9
1201: Candles in the Wind – Part 9
1201: Candles in the Wind – Part 9
Tens of blows fell upon him, but Zilan was unable to knock the boy from his saddle.
He showered him in wounds, but none were quite enough to take his life, or force him out of the way.
A frown began to grow on the man’s face, and the furrows of impatience dug trenches upon his brow.
He too had more weight that he could find within him, and gradually, that weight crept into his blows.
Bit by bit, their intensity increased.
Sparks of metal crashing against metal filled the air.
None of the lesser Verna troops dared to come close to lend assistance to their General, nor would Zilan have wanted them to.
They had another foe, still remaining on the edge of the battlefield.
The few hundred men of Oliver’s employ that had managed to defeat their share of the chariots.
Though they were few in number, their very existence pervaded as a problem.
“Move, boy!” Zilan shouted, using the Stormfront tongue to lash at him.
“Move, I tell you!” He said again.
Oliver did not move.
He could feel the current of the rivers of progress flowing so strongly against him, and yet he could not give in to its whims.
All that Dominus had taught him about following its path, he was forced to reject it.
To accept all that it foretold would be to lose.
Destiny itself pushed him towards that loss.
It was unbridgeable.
“MOVVVVVVVVE!” Zilan said, pulling his arm back for the mightiest of blows, taking just an extra moment to ensure that his blow could not be parried.
CLANGGGGGGGGG!
And yet it was.
An unwavering gaze met his.
The glaive sank deeply, as the sword attempted to parry it, falling all the way down to the shoulder.
With a rush of blood, it left a fresh line through the armour.
For all the effort that Zilan had put in, though, that was far too superficial a blow to give him any sort of delight.
He didn’t understand it.
This wasn’t a Boundary Break, or anything of the like.
The Gods did not dwell within the boy’s eyes.
He didn’t sense anything beyond what was in front of him, and yet his glaive would not deal that finishing blow.
He was being held, under the beating heat of the sun, unable to go even the slightest step further.
It was he that yielded first.
Zilan’s eyes, inevitably, had to drift to the state of Rainheart’s battlefield.
Even though his men were holding up, General Rainheart himself was soon to appear at the castle’s gates.
When he did, the situation would change.
A path that should have been straightforward for him now required the slightest detour.
He put a hand to his reins, and he sent his horse around Oliver.
‘There’s no need to kill him,’ Zilan thought, trying to reassure himself.
‘If he uses the last of his life force to hold that position – so be it.
He is as good as done already.
The wounds that he bears will not allow him to march freely forward.’
It took Oliver a moment of recognition to realize that his mortal enemy had fled from his path.
To him, that man was not General Zilan.
He was the worst of all things.
Beyond even a Dark God, beyond Ingolsol, he was a statue of misery, of stagnation, of loss – of all the things that had crippled Oliver’s heart over the years.
For all the hatred he bore that creature, it was a symbol of salvation for him.
To slay that would be to find his peace, and to make up for the earlier wrongs that he’d committed.
In its absence, in that world of darkness, his body dragged him back towards it.
He did not need to see it to know where it was.
In the same way that fate had pulled him in countless directions so many times before , it pulled him towards this man now.
It demanded that one of them fall.
With a speed that such an exhausted horse should not have been able to muster, Walter dragged the two of them in front of Zilan once more, snorting fiercely, and pawing at the ground, declaring it on behalf of their master – the two of them would not budge.
…
…
There was much to be lost, and much to be given.
Oliver had lost the most trusted of mentors, and as the whims of fate were want to, such losses rarely came alone.
The existence of one loss seemed to create a reason for further losses.
He was not to know it, but thousands of miles away, such losses threatened an even more important place for him in Solgrim.
Rivers of blood covered the tops of the wooden walls around the village.
Corpses from both Yarmdon-dressed men and from allied soldiers alike were strewn all over.
Those still fighting did so with the most exhausted of breaths.
Nila’s fingers bled from the repeated strumming of her bowstring.
She knew not how many arrows she had let loose, only that her quiver had emptied itself several times over, and still she hardly seemed to put a dent in the enemy’s numbers.
They’d been at siege for over a week, and it was beginning to wear on the defenders.
Exhaustion mounted, and morale was beginning to drop.
“There’s been no reply,” Greeves said grimly.
Their call to aid, nearly five days before, had seen no answer, as he had expected there would not be.
Of course, he took no pleasure in that fact.
Just like the rest of them, he was doomed to an untimely death.
“We’re at the end of our rope here, Nila.”
The walls of their town had been scorched.
Day after day, the invaders had afflicted a certain section of it with fire, trying to burn away the flame-resistant coatings that they’d covered the wood in.
And now they were beginning to see success.
Smoke haunted the air, and made the fighting atop the walls even more miserable.
The defenders could barely see in front of them.
The wind wafted it, making matters even worse.
Even the most resilient amongst them were soon to lose their stamina.
“No,” Nila said firmly.
“No – we will hold out, Greeves.
Not here.
We can’t afford to lose.
We made a promise.”
