A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1455 - 1455: The Grand Strategist - Part 1

"Damn… That is a shame," Oliver said, feeling it for the young man. "He was putting on a good show."

"He took his attention off his surroundings," Firyr sniffed. "If this was the battlefield, he'd have been killed for it."

"In his defence, rarely, if ever, does our Captain allow enemies to assault us from the rear," Verdant said dryly. "I think he was doing well enough in defending his front and his sides."

"I wouldn't have been caught like that," Firyr said.

"Commander Firyr, I know of no other soldier who loses his head as much in battle as often as you do. Before you make such boasts, I would like to see you hold rank for just a single battle, without descending into a melee practically by your lonesome surrounded by the enemy, forcing us to rush after you and drag you out," Verdant said.

"Yer both so harsh today, Lord Idris," Firyr said, looking wounded, knowing very well he wouldn't be getting any assistance from Blackthorn, after she'd already taken a jab at him earlier.

The round ended with Kaya and Jorah managing to scrape through, but along with Karesh, they'd lost their other two Patrick men. It wasn't just the harshness of the opposition that had gotten to them. As Patrick soldiers, they had found themselves increasingly surrounded by groups, and were having a harder time just picking off individuals.

"Well fought, gentlemen," Oliver told them when they came back.

"Sorry, Captain," Karesh apologized, hanging his head. "We should have more people in the finals than just two."

"We're sorry as well…" The other two burly Patrick men added, with a similar level of remorse.

"There's nothing to be done. When you're fighting multiple enemies at once, as you men were, you need to be able to give a wound at times in order to go on the counterattack. This tournament was simply a poor match for our battlefield strategies. Think nothing on it. We'll still have a Patrick man in the final, I do believe," Oliver said.

"I am increasingly thinking that I might have to place my bets on Kaya, Captain," Jorah said. "This round was a strain… I can't help but think that I'm making it through by the skin of my teeth."

"I think for the two of you, you will find greater ease when the tournament folds down into the duels. You're no weaker than the men around you. You're just finding yourself as targets of the masses – and still you're surviving."

"I do hope so…" Jorah said. "We still have another round to survive before we get there, though. Gods willing, one of us shall make it through."

"I'll make it through," Kaya said. "I feel particularly confident today, not sure what it is."

"I think I know," Karesh said, pointing in the direction of Amelia and Pauline, just a short distance away along the ropes. They'd taken care to set themselves a distance away, so as not to infere with their Lady's duty as Oliver's guardsman, but apparently they'd still be unwilling to let her too far out of her sight.

"Shut up," Kaya said, flushing in an instant. Pauline too turned away, slightly red, when she realized that they were looking in her direction.

"Hoh…" Blackthorn said, with a sudden realization. She leaned in to whisper to Oliver. "Are those two..?" She began to say.

"You just realized!?" Oliver said, horrified. "Gods be damned, Lasha, there ought to be a limit to your lack of awareness."

"…I think the same had been whispered about you more than once, before you finally decided to court the Lady Nila, my Lord," Verdant said with an amused smile. "I think we are least able to see those things that we know will be most troubling once we admit them to ourselves."

"Was I that bad..?" Oliver said, not quite believing it.

"I am afraid that I might have to agree with Lord Idris on this one, my Lord," Jorah said, a little ruefully.

"You were terrible," Blackthorn joined in, clearly just doing it for the sport of it.

"Excellent," Oliver said. "Well, I suppose I'll be counting on the lot of you to correct me if I should make such mistakes again. Because apparently, you see far more than I do."

"I will ever be your eyes, my Lord," Verdant said, with far too much seriousness given the lightness of the situation.

There lay a question, at the heart of all the tournament affairs. Not a question that was bidden immediately to mind by the most casual of observers, but the sort of question that would take the fancy of a man with his ear to the pulse of power.

Lord Blackwell, naturally, had his ear right on the heart of the pulsing power that had helped to build the tournament into what it was. Being right there, as the facilitator, ought to have been enough for him to understand how it had come about. after all, he'd been privy to all the organization. Even more so when his son Ferdinand had lowered himself, and admitted defeat, so that he too might be involved in the business.

And yet, there was a quality to it that he still did not understand. He had the vague feeling, a dazed whiteness in his mind, that what they bore witness to around them ought not to have been. And that, in accepting it as it was, they were all part of some sort of strange hypnosis. It seemed to him that they were far too accepting of the strangeness. But then, once again, he had to acknowledge that he was the facilitator of such strangeness, so he ought not to have been a man in a position where he needed to be asking questions.

The sheer bustling of the activity, despite the coldness and wetness of the weather, with the soggy mud coming up to a man's ankles with every single cautious step, it made for a remarkable thing. There ought not to have been so much energy to be had, in the pre-winter air, when there was quite firmly the promise of snow by now, and the leaves from all the trees had vanished, with only the trusty evergreens reminding them of what the colour had once looked like.