A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1509 - 1509: The Banners - Part 5

Blackwell looked at him coolly. "And you did not? I thought you understand, Ser Patrick, why it is that we Generals find our strength? It comes from our men. Our men give us the power to fight like Gods. Without them, we are merely men of the Fourth Boundary. You and our General Rainheart merely duelled as that – as men of the Fourth Boundary. And in an hour, you shall do the same with General Broadstone. You had better steady your heart before then, and wipe that foolish look off your face. You make a far less impressive victor when your door hangs open like a dullard."

"A duel merely between Fourth Boundary men indeed," General Karstly parroted, wearing that smile of his. "So why then, good General Blackwell, did we see such a one sided battering?"

He showed the white of his teeth in that smile, and gave Blackwell his most provocative look. General Blackwell growled at him in reply, and said nothing. "An hour, General Patrick. That is all you have. Carry out your duty."

The General made a swift departure, before the stream of Patrick men could swallow them up with their victory celebrations. They pulled at Oliver's shoulder, and sang his praises, all of their eyes aglow with fierce delight.

Oliver tried to smile, to share in their fierceness. But he was struck by a wave of something that was close to disappointment. Though he had defeated General Rainheart, he had not done so properly. It was more the man himself, Lord Rainheart, that he had bested. A General was a creature that did not stand alone. A General was not a General without his army. He realized with a start, that though he'd barely had an hour or two to prepare for it, he'd looked forward to the duel against the General, thinking that he would get to enter into the same realm of combat that he'd engaged in with Zilan. His hopes in that regard were swiftly shattered.

He had only the time to sit on a stool, and polish off the bowl of soup and bread that Verdant had seen brought for him, and then Oliver was being led back into the arena for his second duel. His armour had been cleaned of mud, and his body had been rested, but the nervous excitement that he'd felt in the fight before had dissipated entirely.

Broadstone stood across from him, with a sword in his hand, and a stern expression on his hard face. His personality was reflected in the way he stood, and his battling, from what Oliver had seen on their Verna campaign, was a mirror of that as well. He had been an ultra-defensive General there, and Oliver expected much the same of him here.

"This is a farce," Oliver muttered to himself. "Beating Generals without their Command. What's the good in it? I'm merely sullying their tournament."

"There are other Swords, in the form of Colonels, fighting in the same tournament," Claudia reminded him. "It is the mere nature of the competition."

"Blackwell has set up these fights in order for me to win," Oliver said. "How can I draw pleasure from predetermined outcomes?"

As much as he might have wanted to complain, he was already caught up in the Blackwell General's grand machinations. The referee called a hasty start to the duel, swinging his spear down, fluttering the flag attached to the end of it, calling for a commencement of the violence.

With that flag, it was like a switch had been turned on in Oliver's brain, for the very instant it came swinging down, Oliver went racing forward, full of misplaced irritation, and rage. He was determined, if these were battles set up merely for him to win, then he'd get them out of the way as soon as possible. There was no enjoyment to be had in them, and he'd take no feeling of pleasure from their victory, for he did not deserve it.

He brought his sword clattering recklessly down on Broadstone's guard, lagging all technique, replacing it with mere strength and speed, and offering up a dangerously looping blow, with a full window for a counterattack.

General Broadstone received the strike well. He brushed it off with one hand, and gave no indication that his wrist was being tilted backwards by the strength of the strike.

That gave Oliver the smallest measure of surprise. For a looping blow, delivered like that, with all that recklessness, was amongst his most powerful and straightforward attacks. It assumed the normal strategy of combat, and just looked entirely towards the Style of Overwhelm – and yet Broadstone stood his ground against it, without any sign of discomfort.

Oliver lashed out again, more carefully this time, with a jabbing blow towards Broadstone's thigh, expanding the range of his attacks, and forcing the ultra-defensive General to spread his rock-solid defence more thinly.

Again, the blow was blocked. The General did not even change the positioning of his feet to deal with it. Oliver's eyebrows narrowed in a frown. He'd expected a quicker victory than that.

With a dull certainty, he dodged backwards, expecting the counterattack that soon enough came. Broadstone's sword went flashing through the air where Oliver had just been. That was the payment for Oliver's straightforwardness – that there would be such an opening that even a hyper-defensively minded man like Broadstone could not fail to lash out in an attack.

If not for his sense of the primitive flow of combat that Oliver had just built up, he was quite aware that, even in being stronger – he assumed – and faster, he still could quite well have fallen victim to Broadstone's carefully placed strike.

He found his mind was too full of thoughts, and his eyes were too easily distracted. He kept glancing towards Blackwell, wondering what the man was thinking, wondering how well his actions lined up with Blackwell's grand strategy, or whether they'd all been factored in so long in advance that it no longer mattered.