A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The bandits fell one after the other, pierced by spears and then finished by swords. There was no resistance to be had. Their insufficient training, despite their superior numbers, plus Oliver's assault from the side, and it was all over from them.

They died without feeling the slightest shred of fear. Discover exclusive tales on My Virtual Library Empire

The soldiers joining in Oliver's envelopment managed to move beyond the flank all the way to the rear. Now the enemy was attacked by spears from two sides. Already there were less than a hundred men left, and with the help of Oliver, that number was dropping by the second.

"FINISH THEM!" Cormrant called, thick in the bloodshed, his sword going wild.

"GIVE THEM NO QUARTER!" Northman echoed.

The soldiers that had been so nervous before were invigorated by a morale that even seemed to rival that of the bandits, though theirs was of a far purer sort, for they were still themselves – they were merely the best selves that they could be.

Few of them had fought with such prowess as they fought then. It was the tiniest glimmer of what Oliver had felt back in Solgrim, when he'd connected with the villagers, when they'd surrendered command to him.

These soldiers weren't his. But they were almost his, and by Claudia's power, he kept them alive.

"Gagh!" He heard one soldier cry out, as he took a vicious hack to the arm. A deep wound from the look of it, but where he dropped back, there were three more soldiers to fill his place, trampling out that spark of resistance as though it was no more threatening than a weed in the garden.

Oliver felt an exhaustion beginning to mount as he cut down one enemy after the other. Claudia's power had left, and he was too exhausted to use his agility as he had earlier, but with the overwhelming positional advantage that they had, it didn't matter.

He still looked as mighty as a giant to the enemy, as each strike claimed yet another life, and the encirclement grew tighter and tighter and enemies fell at the ends of sword and spear.

"NOOOO!" The man atop the platform called, his eyes wide in horror – so too were the eyes of the bull atop his head. "NO! NO! YOU VILE FIENDS! YOU MURDERERS!"

His accusations did not slow their weapons though. They crippled the bandits, one after the other, in a display of slaughter as overwhelming as what they had inflicted in the woods.

The number of soldiers getting wounded continued to fall, as the enemy's position continued to worsen. Eventually, there were only ten men left, at the centre of a ring.

One after another, those men were jabbed straight through. They couldn't even get close to the soldiers any more, not with the length of those spears. They fell, confused and disoriented, in utter disbelief that they lost, still not feeling the fear that one would expect with death.@@novelbin@@

"Come! COME!" The bull-headed man shouted to himself, as he rushed down the steps. The soldiers pointed spears towards him, preparing to jab him through, but the man ignored them, and instead grabbed two corpses by the arms and began pulling them back to the top of the steps.

He was a stronger man than Oliver had first given him credit for being. Now that he was up close, and shirtless, his bulging muscles – covered in blood though they were – were more than obvious.

He tossed the corpses atop the fire, and then rushed down to get some more.

It wasn't that he was ignorant of the situation he was in – surrounded by soldiers, as he was – but it was more that he believed whatever task he was doing could overturn that threat. That was the dangerous part, that more men than Oliver felt.

As the man came for a second handful of corpses, spears met his way. He tutted in annoyance, and dodged free of them, hissing like a cat as he stood on the outside of the range.

"Not enough," he murmured. "NOT. ENOUGH."

He was stomping his foot like an angry child, thoroughly irritated by his predicament. He was looking at Oliver with especially hateful eyes.

"INCOMPLETE! YOUR FAULT!" The man said. "All your fault! If you'd given us another week… Yes, yes. Another week, and your corpses! Oh!

OH! WE WOULD HAVE MADE THE NOBLES KNEEL!"

"The nobles?" Oliver murmured.

"A class uprising or something?" Northman guessed, joining him when he was sure that the last of the bandits were dead. "He's all that remains regardless. Ser Patrick, what do you wager…?"

"I wager I will kill him before this gets any worse," Oliver said. He was tired, true enough, but not tired enough that he could not overcome the likes of the bull-headed man. He seemed to be a normal man, in everything but his appearance. Well, his strength was certainly above average, but it was not the strength of the second boundary.

Oliver hopped onto the steps with a pounce. The man staggered backwards, almost falling. With a whimper, he was sent back towards the fire and towards the corpses that he so coveted.

"Fire! FIRE! MISTRESS PANDORA! PLEASE REACH BEYOND YOUR DOMAIN, FOR THE OFFERINGS THAT THEY LEAVE YOU!" He begged. The fire enlarged at his words, and wispy tendrils of flame erupted off it, stretching further down the steps – but these too flickered out, their longevity no longer than that of a spark. They failed to reach the outer steps, where most of the bodies waited.

It seemed that Northman's supposition had been right. The fire's reach didn't extend much further than the first few steps around it. Not when it was dealing with organic material.

"Yes… That is true," the bull-headed man murmured to himself, nodding vigorously, tossing the bullhead back and forth with his own head. It was hard to tell who or what he was talking to, but whoever it was seemed to be quite convincing. "I should have enough… YES! YES! Me. I'll be the chosen one.

I'll do this again. I'll be greedy here – since the mistress Pandora demands it… I'll take a taste of the forbidden sweets jar… I'll dip my fingers in."