A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1468 - 1468: A Struggling Heart - Part 7

'You're no Oliver Patrick. If there is something going on, what could you do to solve it?'

He clenched his fist, thinking that. It was certainly true. He had no prowess in the fight. If it was the clang of steel that he heard, then he would just be adding another dead body to the pile. He was a diplomat. It was his role to use and negotiate with men. But when he looked around him now, there were no men to use. They were already acting on his earlier orders. There was none but him. 'Do I still cling to the role of the diplomat regardless..? Surely, even I can do something as simple as scouting? Oliver Patrick is so much younger than me. Perhaps on the normal metric, through normal training, I could never match him. What made him what is though, could not have been normal. Why must I assume a normal metric for myself? There's surely something else, some power I can reach for… damn it all.'

He hated the fact that he'd stood there for as long as he had. Irritation began to swirl about him. The fact that a youth, nearly a decade younger than him, occupied such a large space in his head was infuriating. The fact that the idea of the young Patrick limited him infuriated him as well. He bet on the idea of that 'something else', knowing that he could not believe in the normal route. He dared to force his feet into action, as sodden and wet as they were, and as shaky as the rest of his body was. He strolled in the direction of the clang that he'd heard, step by step, his heart thudding against his ribcage.

He'd made an assumption before the tournament had even begun that it would be a target for something. With as many enemies as Oliver Patrick had collected – and the High King in particular seemingly being one – Ferdinand had thought it to be an impossibility that the tournament could escape some form of plot. He'd certainly considered enacting such plots on the tournament himself, when he was still determined to compete with Oliver Patrick in some form or another. And, given that, the setting of a fire had been the chief scheme that he'd had in his mind, it was almost prophetic that someone else might choose to act in the same way.

The fire and the noise had caused a small degree of commotion. The noble quarter was less populated than where the peasants strolled, so it wasn't quite as loud as it otherwise ought to have been. But peasants that had been left behind to perform their duties inside tents, and the few noblemen and women that had looked for a reprieve from the stresses of the crowd, now all gathered outside to see what the fuss was.

Their gathering left the other parts of the noble quarter suspiciously empty. Ferdinand was able to cross through the rows of tents, and back onto the main thoroughfare, without seeing a single face nearby, nor even a single guardsman. His footsteps began to slow, more and more. He knew that sound could not have been far away now. If it was, he wouldn't have heard it in the first place.

He paused, just a distance after crossing the main wood-chip covered track, and he looked around himself, feeling the sweat build on his forehead. He licked his lips, and reached for the sword at his hip, the tension building, and his eyes flickering ever more quickly by the second. He tried a guess at where the sound might have come from. There was only one tent that truly caught his eye, with the flap on its doorway partly open, after it had been crudely tied in place in a hurry. Whoever had done it had not had the time to ensure that the job was done properly.

He took slow steps towards its entrance, each slower than the last, and each time the dread growing in his heart. He did not know how he could be so certain of the danger that lay in front of him, but every instinct that he had told him that he ought to back away. The only thing that kept him moving forward was that irritation. He knew Oliver Patrick would not have felt the slightest drop of anything. He knew he was insignificant in comparison to the man, he knew it was impossible to do anything that he did – but his irritation made him try regardless. The sheer impossibility of it made it all the more worth trying.

He paused in front of the tent's flap, pointing his sword towards it. Whatever came out of that door, he was determined, he would skewer on sight. Nobleman, noblewoman, or unarmed servant. He didn't have the chance to discriminate.

WHHHHHOOSSSSH!

The suddenness that it happened with was terribly cruel. It was as if the Gods, once more, were determined to make light of Ferdinand's steadfastness. A split second after he'd made the decision to cut down whatever came into view, the tent flap exploded outwards, and the sharp blade of a longer dagger flicked out through it, with the figure that wielded it still being disguised behind the canvas that covered him.

"GAHHH!" Ferdinand howled, as the dagger ran straight through his shoulder, and the canvas covered figure landed heavily on him, pinning him to the ground.

With an almost irritated shake, the assailant freed himself from the restraint, revealing himself. "Hm… Well I never. Didn't think it'd be the Lord Ferdinand himself. Lucky me, I do suppose, eh?"

Filthy black hair, wild and long enough that it came down to his waist, along with a shaggy black beard to match it, and a half-filled mouth of brown teeth, with a good amount of them missing. The sheer stench of the man was enough to make Ferdinand squirm. He smelled worse than any stable hand that Ferdinand had ever passed. There was a thicker quality to the stench that surrounded him. An iron-like smell. It was only when Ferdinand looked at the blackness that had seeped into the man's shirt that he was properly able to recognize it for the scent of blood that it was.