A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1467 - 1467: A Struggling Heart - Part 6

He was secretly pleased to the see the young Turin take quicker charge of that matter than any of the others. Ferdinand had begun to lead them in the wrong direction, and Turin had quickly led them back to where they ought to be going, not realizing that he'd been contradicting his Lord in the process. He did so with his mind fully on his task, running as swiftly as he could to where he knew the nearest watering point to be.

'There's another thing that Oliver Patrick most certainly wouldn't have got wrong…' Ferdinand thought to himself as he ran, sweat beginning to sheen on his forehead. 'But damn it, would he really? Does he not make small mistakes too? I've seen him do ridiculous things. Father has pointed out several. Why could I not match him in matters of the small at the very least?'

Turin quickly saw his bucket filled, and went rushing back past the rest of Ferdinand's men towards the direction of the fire. "Come now, don't stand there watching. Move! If that fire spreads, mere buckets aren't going to be enough to put it out," he told them, bringing the whip down on his slower men.

Ferdinand's hands were shaky as he went to fill up a bucket of water for himself, from the massive tarred wood bath-like basin that they'd seen filled with it. The water was icy cold, and made him gasp the second it touched his fingers. His adrenaline was spiking, and he found that he could not think as clearly as he normally did. Even his breathing was coming more rapidly. He knew himself not to be a man of impeccable athleticism, but he'd hoped that, at the very least, he wasn't unfit enough that he couldn't deal with something like this.

He ran back the way he came, struggling with his bucket, having to switch arms more than once, leading to a good amount of the water splashing against his trouser leg, and running down into his boots. He didn't have time to spare that more of a reaction than a wrinkle of his nose, however. By that point, Turin had already passed him on his way to fill a second bucket, and Ferdinand hadn't even reached the fire yet.

"How bad is it?" Ferdinand shouted to the young retainer as he went.

"Not too bad, my Lord," Turin said. "But if we let it go any longer, it will be!"

"You heard him!" Ferdinand said to the rest of his men. "Get a move on, before this gets any worse."

The tent in question had already seen its sigil charred. If Ferdinand had wished to identify its owner, the fire had already done its work in ensuring that to be an impossibility. One side of the tent was completely drenched in flame, rising up high, to twice the height of a man. Ferdinand threw his bucket of water on top of it almost recklessly, when a sudden gust of wind startled those flames to life, and flicked them in the man's direction.

He quickly felt foolish for that, recognizing that his bucket would have been far better spent thrown right at the base of the fire, where it seemed to be burning the hottest. He frowned, scolding himself once more, reminding himself that he needed to get a grip, and inevitably, comparing himself to Oliver Patrick, who, no doubt, would not have failed to retain his calm, and who certainly would not have been so slow in seeing the buckets filled.

By the time Ferdinand rushed back and arrived at the fire point again to fill his bucket full of water, they had some Blackwell guardsmen rushing their way, having heard the commotion. There were only four of them. Ferdinand would have wished for a bigger group, but he could not deny how relieved he felt to have the extra sets of hands.

"The fire hasn't spread too far yet," he told them, filling them in on the parts that Thomas had been unable to. "But we need to control it before it does."

"This wind is only making matters worse, my Lord," one of the guardsmen noted, pulling a frown, as another vicious bout of wind made its way through the rows of tents, and set canvas flapping.

Ferdinand had to nod seriously at that, feeling a distinctive chill. He'd seen how just the slightest bit of wind had whipped the fire up into a frenzy. It made him glance back nervously in its direction. Such a strong gust of wind would surely be enough to set such a big bouquet of flames licking at the nearby tents as well, wouldn't it?

CLAAAAAANG!

The sudden sound of steel robbed Ferdinand of his attention. He looked behind him, by his lonesome, for no one else had seemed to hear it. He frowned. They'd left the blacksmiths' stalls behind long ago. There ought to be nothing that could bring the ringing of that noise, so similar to what he'd heard on the training grounds of the Blackwell estate since he was a boy.

The rest of his retainers, and the guardsmen included, saw to it that their buckets were filled, and they were soon enough racing towards the fire. Ferdinand, however, stood locked in place. He was certain the noise hadn't been imagined.

With his adrenaline so spiked, it was hard to think, but he forced him to anyway. The fire was on the side of the tent… That was not where they'd expected to see any flames emerge. It was the opening about the chimney that they'd feared most. No matter how reinforced the different tent owners made it, if the fire beneath it grew hot enough, it would certainly be enough to see it set alight.

He didn't think it to be likely. Or at the very least, he hoped it wasn't. He hoped that the possibility of there being a grand scheme of some sort was basically zero. But he could feel that nagging in his stomach, urging him to trust that sound that he heard. An even louder voice, however, said that he had just imagined it. That voice spoke with a cowardly tone. It sounded more hopeful that what it was saying was true, rather than believing that it was.