A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1341 - 1341: The Young General Slayer - Part 7

The most impressive thing to Oliver though – rather than the fact of his subterfuge – was that he'd managed to force his way through the crowd without leaning on his noble title. He'd played the same game as the others, jabbing out his elbows, and entering in through whatever gap he had made, and he had still managed to climb higher than all of them.

There was a great stir through the crowd at the sight of him. His deeds had spread throughout the kingdom already. News of the uprising of a young General always brought with it waves of excitement. Especially when that General had achieved what Karstly had.

The main entrance, and the grand attentions of the crowd, when the time came, seemed to have been reserved exclusively for Blackwell. He came to the outer palace gates without a carriage, on horseback, snubbing the rule that had been imposed onto all the others.

He wore not his armour, nor his sword, and was dressed only in the refined clothes of his civilian life as a Lord, with a dark navy blue being his primary colour – however, Oliver fancied, that one could tell without looking too hard that he was well and truly a man of the battlefield.

The cheers rippled through the crowd, as men and women raised their hands to greet him. Blackwell glanced over them, ever so briefly, with the most serve of expressions written on his face. Then, he swung a leg over the side of his horse, and jumped down with a heavy bending of his knees.

Through the crowd he marched, surrounded by Blackwell men, and surrounded by the king's guards in their gold armour.

He was the man of the hour, the hero that they had waited to welcome. He had ushered in a new era for the Stormfront. A country that many academics had said was in the midst of a grand decay – and yet, by Blackwell's hand, they'd pushed so far into the Verna as to beat even the efforts of their ancestors. And they had even managed to set up their pieces in checkmate.

The possibility of conquering the entirety of the Verna now began to seem far more like a certainty.

It brought to mind, for Oliver, the heroes of the past. He wondered what their motivations what, and what it was truly like in their time. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, with the likes of the First King, one could think that they were destined for greatness from the start… but was that really the case?

Would Blackwell, like the First King, but written down in the history books, as a figure that seemed as if they had been blessed by the Gods from day one – or would they remember the odds that had been set against him, by the very High King that should have been empowering his efforts?

The nobles welcomed him almost like a God. For the Stormfront, the worship of war heroes was something that they were deeply accustomed to. War heroes, in some ways, went above even the actual King, for the First King had been a hero of war first and foremost, and then only a King later, as a result of his deeds.

It was a strange line of enquiry. It was the sort of thing that a man had to watch, and drink in all he could out of, for no answers would truly be immediately forthcoming. It was in memory that he had to trust, knowing that he would not be able to put all the pieces together exactly in that moment. He could only do his best to make sure that he didn't miss even the smallest of details.

To that rumbling of cheers, without any true unity to them, with the noble masses just calling out whenever the fancy struck them, Blackwell made his way unmolested to the very top of the stairs, following along in the path that his Generals had cut through for him.

Then finally, with the trumpets blaring, it was time for the High King to come.

A bout of childishness almost made Oliver want to look away. He needed to be childish in his repulsion, he felt, for if he allowed the anger of a man to take hold, with all its dangerousness, then he would move with the same sort of impulses as Ingolsol, without regard for those around him. He would believe himself to be mighty enough that no matter the situation, he could have his will felt.

The excitement that they offered for the High King, Oliver liked to think, was lesser than what they offered Blackwell. For the High King, it was servitude. It was the bowing of hips, the hoping to catch his eye, so that he might bestow the noble men and women with their favour. This is what they had jostled for, and now they jostled still for better viewing points.

They were animals, creatures of want. What they had been when Blackwell had wandered through was something else entirely. They asked for no favour from him, for unlike the High King, they did not think him to yet be in a position to give it out. They were content merely from the sight of him, to call out their thanks to him, for the opportunity that he had brought the country.

The Stormfront excelled on such opportunities. A warlike nation was home to merchants, and members of the aristocracy that knew how to benefit the most from war. It had been a long time since the country had felt the boons that had come with a successful invasion, but even if these men and women had not had the benefit of feeling its practice in their lifetime, their Houses did not forget.

It was written into their ancestry, into their very customs.

It was times like this, when the old Stormfront, the Time of Tigers that Minister Hod and so many other believers of prophecy had spoken of. It was times like this, when one could look beyond the beastial ways of the nobility, vying for position and favour, and they could catch a glimpse of what was indeed a beautiful whole.

It was basking in the light of Blackwell's victory that made such a whole present itself, however. The High King could do nothing for them, it seemed, but bring out their worst. He was not the symbol of opportunity. He was only tradition.