A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Little by little, more villagers gathered. The driver turned his horse away, ploughing it further into the village, looking for someone with authority that he could declare his task done to. Oliver didn't watch to see him go. His gazes were focused on the people of the village, as one by one, they gathered.

Not all of them came to grasp his hands, as the first couple had, but all of them reacted with the same amount of awe, as they could hardly believe his existence. It was the boy that they remembered, but alive and well. No, more than that. The last they'd seen him, he was pale white, covered in blood, unconscious for hours.

Now, here he was, a handsome knight, dressed in a noble's finery, a glint in his eyes, a warrior's posture to his shoulders. A transformed man – their man. His achievements were their achievements. Theirs were his.

"My children breathe thanks to you," a man told him, his nose running from his tears. Oliver noticed he was missing a hand. "I breathe because of you. Because of your father. If only we'd known that there were Patrick's looking over us… Fools that we were, treating you like a normal man."

"I am but a normal man," Oliver assured him.

The man shook his head, smiling. "Not anymore, you ain't, not anymore."

There must have been more than a hundred of them gathered by now, young and old, children and farmers. Those that had been strong enough to fight beside him, and those that they'd fought to protect.

It was those that he'd done battle with that he felt the strongest connection to, as one might imagine. His heart was raw at the sight of them all. Seeing so many tears, his own eyes were beginning to mist up. It took a hearty gritting of his teeth to stay their cause.

They made him proud the way they looked at him. No – they were proud of him. That was the sentiment that he got. They were proud to see the way that he had returned, and the way that he presented himself, because they knew that boy – that man – was theirs. He was the Oliver Patrick of Solgrim, and their protector.

"Goodness," an elderly woman said, raising her hand to her mouth to hide her shock. He recognized that face. Even if he'd lived a hundred lives, he likely wouldn't have forgotten it. A mundane face to most, for they only met under the most mundane of circumstances, but he'd seen her often enough that it was a face engraved on his heart nonetheless. It was the woman that ran the bakery.

She gave no mind to the distance that the others were showing. She grasped a hand, and when that wasn't enough, she startled him with a wide hug. "Goodness," she said. "Goodness, goodness – there is good. By Claudia's will, there's good in this world. To see you so well, so strong, and so tall.

There's goodness. It must have been terribly difficult, without your father… You've done well, Beam."

That broke the dam of tears that Oliver had been trying to hold back. He hadn't expected a low blow like that. It was two fathers, really, that he'd lost. Two families. Hard? 'Don't say it was hard, damn it,' Oliver murmured to himself.

If she said it was hard, then Oliver would be forced to catch a glimpse of all his life for what it was. He'd feel the sadness then, just like them.

As a tear drifted down his cheek, a merchant's voice ran through the crowd.

"Foooollllssss!" He called, with musical assertiveness. Oliver heard and felt the presence of several sets of feet appearing from behind him.

"You've left him in the snow for a good half hour, and no one thought to warn me? What are the lot of you doing? Wipe those tears from your godforsaken eyes, and welcome the man properly," the voice said.

"Greeves…" The old woman murmured, freeing herself from Oliver. Despite the merchant's reintroduction, she didn't say his name with an excessive amount of distaste. Oliver found that part, in particular, to be curious, for it was a reaction reflected on the faces of most of the villagers.

Greeves had been a thoroughly disliked man by many before, but now, even calling out to them as he did, they didn't seem to hate him for it.

Oliver turned to see the man, and was struck by the weight of familiarity. He had to grit his teeth from it. It hit him like a sledgehammer. It was one thing seeing the villagers that he didn't know the names of, and quite another to see so many people that he'd been close with gathered all at once. Explore new worlds at My Virtual Library Empire@@novelbin@@

Of course, it wasn't just Greeves. Judas was there beside him. Unexpectedly too, in a bundle of well-tended red hair, there was an even more familiar face amongst the approaching group.

"Greeves… Judas… Nila…" Oliver said their names, one after the other, as he looked them over. Gods, the three of them looked good. Greeves had always dressed well, but he looked even better than he had before. He'd lost some of the extra girth around his midsection, and his tanned face had a more angular look to it. It made him seem a younger man.

Judas was dressed like a high-class retainer at the Academy, with polished high boots like Oliver's, a thick coat to keep out the cold, and a waxed cape that hung from his shoulders for the rain. From the smile on the man's face, he must have known just how good he looked, for there was a smugness there. His short beard and hair too looked freshly tended.

But the real star of the show was Nila. She looked no inferior to Greeves in terms of the wealth that her clothing seemed to display. It was shocking to Oliver to see just how much someone could change in a few short months. She wasn't the plucky girl he'd remembered. She was truly starting to blossom into a beautiful young woman.