A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The man didn't. Clearly, he knew the range of Oliver's bows just as well as Nila did. The guardsmen were up from behind their barricades by now, waving their bows threateningly, warning them off.

The long haired man raised an arm. Some sort of signal. Oliver narrowed his eyes, wondering what it could mean.

All of a sudden, the man's eyes were on Oliver's, meeting his gaze from so far away. He felt a shiver go down his back. There was no way the man could see him from all the way over there, could he? Not with so many trees in the way. It was one thing to look out, and quite another to look in, but all the same, the man seemed to be looking exactly where he should be.

The man held Oliver's gaze with such an intensity that Oliver didn't even notice the arrows spring up from the Macalister walls until they were halfway through their flight.

"What? Arrows? That doesn't make any sense…" Nila said.

Her point was a salient one. It was a veritable waste of ammunition. The guardsmen were indeed behind a barricade, but it was a barricade right on the edge of the Macaliter's range. They were so far away that no shot could ever dream of hitting them. Nothing would ever be able to catch them by surprise.

Long before those arrows came thudding down on the barricade, the guarding soldiers had ducked safely behind its wood. By now, they knew to trust its thickness, and they showed no hesitation.

'Why?' A question that Oliver almost spoke allowed, but as soon as he saw the long-haired man shoot forward at a startling speed, all the dots connected.

"NILA! WE'RE MOVING, LET'S GO!" Oliver shouted all of a sudden. He was so shocked by his discovery that he forgot to mention the name of anyone else. Nevertheless, Verdant quickly took the reins, gave the orders, and along with a dispatch of thirty men, he followed after Oliver as he plunged down the hill through the forest.

Oliver ran as hard as he could. He hadn't run in anger like this in a long time. He put so much force in his legs that the muscles threatened to tear. His heart and lungs burned, but it still wasn't fast enough for him. After all, he'd made a fatal mistake. The enemy General had dangled it in front of him, as if to taunt him, and it had still taken Oliver so long.

As he had so many times before, he prayed, against all reason, that his strength might be enough to overwrite that mistake.

He caught glimpses of the advancing Macalister men as he flashed through the trees. They were like phantom images of a terrible future. They would appear and disappear according to the thickness of the foliage in Oliver's way, and each time that they remade their appearance, they would be a little bit closer, travelling at a speed that was shocking.

A miscalculation. Fatal. Irrevocably fatal. His cunning was turned against him. His want to push forward had turned against him. How could he overlook something so crucial in such a mundane position?

Why had he assumed that the enemy had not brought his own attendants? Why had he assumed that they would not hold men that were more capable than the Second Boundary level?

Because of the Macalister intel, perhaps?

"Given your age, we should not talk of such things, but given the circumstances, I will say so anyway. It is unlikely that you'll find anyone of the Second Boundary amongst the Macalister lot. The General himself is another matter altogether, though," Skullic had said.

Was that why the General had not put masks on his men? Clearly, after all, this long-haired man belonged to him. He didn't have the same feel as the Macalister lot. He'd pulled a gambit, apparently not entirely bothered whether he was discovered for what he was or not, and both the Macalisters and Oliver had fallen right for it.

After all, the only person that could best the guarding soldiers at the distance that Oliver had set would be a man of the Second Boundary. He was the only one quick enough and strong enough to advantageously dispose of the foe. All other options would result in too many casualties.

"Damn it, damn it," Oliver muttered to himself, running ever faster, his beating heart a mess. Why hadn't he moved his encampment closer? By this point they could have… No. There was no closer spot as defensible as this hill. That wasn't the problem. The problem had been elsewhere.

Nila hurried to keep pace with him, but even her fleet feet could not hope to. Oliver had been quicker than her for a long time, but since passing into the Third Boundary, his speed had long since eclipsed her own.

The hill was far too steep the way Oliver was taking it. A winding route was meant to be the way down, taking advantage of a path. Oliver, instead, went straight ahead. Had he slowed for even a second, he would have stumbled. He half ran and half slid down muddy embankments of soil and stone steep enough to be called cliffs. Only Nila dared follow him.

Verdant managed to keep his cool enough to lead the soldiers along a different route.

Oliver splashed through a stream that flowed alongside side him as if to mock him. The pull of gravity on him was vicious with that steep incline, and more than once he had to grab a tree to slow himself ever so slightly before the momentum got away from him.

His crisp uniform was left entirely too muddy and wet below the waist. The snow only made it all the colder. How could a forest be both muddy and frozen at once? It defied understanding. The conditions were miserable, as if to echo his mood.

Finally, the incline ended, and Oliver could see the plains stretching out at the bottom. By now the interwoven branches of the pine trees were too thick for him to see the enemy ahead, but by this point, he could hear them, and he could sense them.