A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1489 - 1489: The Realm's Most Valiant - Part 7

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Blackwell towered over the corpse that had been presented to him, inside his tent. Oliver had taken his party with him for the meeting, all that had been involved. The other men, he'd had gathered up, and messengers sent to. He'd yet to be informed of all that they had achieved since he had last spoken to them, so hurried had the order come from Blackwell's men that they were to see him.

There was a distinct feeling of tension in the air, along with the nervousness that something needed to be hurried. Even though they had managed to catch the killer before sundown, the sense that time was running out still had not faded.

They hadn't presented the killer glamorously. They'd wrapped him up in the scrap of canvas that Blackwell had sliced from the tent, and dragged him to their liege Lord as if he were nothing more than a scrap of meat. That was how he was treated as well, as Torin threw down the corpse with distaste, causing the head to roll out of the canvas.

It was Colonel Willem that kicked it back in. Even he, who Oliver had always seen with a smile on his face, had the sense to look grim now. General Karstly had wormed his way in too, for the affair. His look was more muted, but it was impossible to tell whether he was amused, or sad. He didn't make the distinction particularly clear. Samuel – who he'd brought with him – had the grace to look morose for the both of them, with his arms folded sternly in front of his chest.

"And you are certain this is the man?" General Blackwell asked of Torin.

"I am, my Lord," Torin said.

"…Very well," Blackwell said, folding the canvas back up. "Willem, see the body burned."

"At once, my Lord," Willem said, hefting the canvas over his shoulder, and making for the exit with a strange amount of urgency.

"You have accomplished the task that I set you, Captain Patrick," Blackwell noted.

"With the assistance of many," Oliver said. "If not for General Blackthorn, in the final stages, we might have struggled. I am told that the killer bore a Fragment of Nocturna."

Those that understood those words stirred when Oliver spoke them. It went over the heads of the younger retainers, for whom the idea of Fragments still remained taboo, even though they were permitted to speak of them, now that they had come of age.

Blackwell did not seem particularly surprised by that announcement. He did not let the slightest flicker of emotion show on his face. "Assassins are known to," he said. "If you struggled to this degree, you had better take precautions, Patrick, lest a mere Second Boundary man embarrass you in future, as this one came so close to doing today."

"I shall endeavour to do as you say, my Lord," Oliver said, dipping his head.

"The killer has been caught," Blackwell continued, slowly clenching his fist. "But the fact remains, that the ingrate killed my son. Whatever the incompetence of his retainers in allowing it to happen, it was this fool that struck the blow – and, it was another's words that whispered the order in his ear. You understand what I am saying, Ser Patrick."

Oliver nodded. It was the sensation that they'd all felt, with that sense of constriction still bound around them. They'd caught the killer, but they hadn't solved the problem. Far from it. It had taken them that long to exact a petty act of revenge. As far as the Battle board went, they were in an even worse position than they had been before. Strategically, the only thing they had going for them was the perimeter that they'd set in place, and the extra security that they had employed.

"Killers and arsonists of the numbers that you have reported require a weighty amount of coin," Blackwell continued. "And weighty coin is often attached to a weighty name. You gentlemen gathered here, you follow what it is I am saying, do you not?"

He turned around to look at them all. The handful of his own retainers. At Oliver's gathered men. He spent a particularly long time glaring General Karstly down, and Ser Torin.

"My Lord Blackwell, if you are asking me whether I wish to involve myself with this matter—" Karstly said.

"I did not voice the question," Blackwell said, with a strange amount of aggression.

"Do you not seek the answer nonetheless?" Karstly said.

"It should not need to be spoken," Blackwell said. "If you had honour, and if you had loyalty."

"You have denigrated me on such things in the past," Karstly said with a shrug. "Certainly, you carved at my honour a sizable amount when I suggested our little strategy in the Verna. But you ended up doing it anyway, did you not, my Lord? Is that not because you recognize there are more important things than loyalty and honour? It is my competence than you seek, my Lord, is it not?"

Blackwell growled. "I know what you wish for, Karstly. The same thing every talented youth wishes for, when he has no attachments."

"Well, yes," Karstly said. "But if you invite flames, then surely I will encourage them. The more chaos there is, the more the strong receive the positions that are naturally owed to them."

It was quite clear that the Lord of Blackwell was not happy. It wouldn't have been all that surprising to Oliver if he had reached for his sword, and pointed it the way of the General there and then. His aggressive Command leaked out of him like a bad smell, enough to put a strain on the faces of the Second Boundary retainers that were present. Nila took a step back, unused to it. Oliver had to put a hand on his shoulder to steady her.

"Oliver Patrick," Blackwell said, managing to calm himself to a degree. "We have an enemy. A common one, I do believe. You understand me, even if I am not more direct than that."

"I understand you, General," Oliver assured him.