A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1515 - 1515: The Unexpected - Part 6

Once more, he dodged backwards, it was the only thing he could do. A blow from the front was almost certain to come, so he lunged at empty air to stop it, despite his vision being too blurry to see. Once more, however, Gar had chosen to seize his opportunity. Once more, he opted for the poor strategy of letting Oliver lie, and doing nothing.

With a violent pull of his hand, Oliver cast the helmet from his head. "Damn thing," he cursed. Seeing through the slit of its mask reduced his vision to such a degree that he had no idea what was going on. He supposed that was Gar's strategy – dance out of range of the helmet's vision. With the helmet gone, however, that strategy wouldn't account for much.

Oliver didn't have time to take note of the condition of the helmet as he lay in the mud, but Verdant's sharp eyes, as he returned with thirty more soldiers, did not fail to miss it. The dents that had been left in the steel weren't the sorts of things a normal man could impose with the single-armed wielding of a sword as Gar did.

"Stuppppiddd," Gar said to Oliver all of a sudden, as he stood there, staring at him. "And weak. Weak weak weak!!!"

He cried it like an angry child, to the point that it made Oliver frown. "What?" He muttered. He didn't get the sense that he was talking to another human being, or even to another entity. Gar saw right through him, as if there was someone behind Oliver that he was more interested in fighting than him.

"Not helmet," Gar said. "Fast."

He proved those words in a single instance. He flitted in close to Oliver once more with a speed that Oliver would have called impossible. Only with his helmet free from his eyes could he track it, but that didn't allow him to move nearly in time.

Gar's short sword cut across Oliver's armour, drilling through plate, through chain mail, through padded gambeson, and then finally through flesh. It was so much force delivered from such an awkward position. He'd struck entirely opposite the angle that his momentum had leant him, forcing a great strain on his shoulders, but still he'd managed to draw blood from Oliver, and run his sword along his ribs.

That blow gave Oliver the understanding that he needed, or at least, the lack of it. He understood that he didn't at all understand. He understood that the creature in front of him wasn't a rock, like a General, for him to overcome. Gar wasn't overwhelming, he was something else entirely, something that Oliver couldn't even grasp. He tore him apart without Oliver even truly understanding why he was being beaten.

Nila had to stop herself from calling out when she saw that sight of blood. The uneasy foreboding that she'd felt seemed to be coming true. Verdant was next to her, nodding, as in agreement. He was a normally serious man in his expressions, but the look he wore then was unusually grave.

"…Lord Idris," Blackwell said ominously, drawing near the pair. "Your Lord seems to have mistaken the plan that we had set out for him."

"Or else, his opponent has mistaken it," Verdant replied dryly. "Your protestations will not be of any benefit to us, Lord Blackwell. I do believe you can smell just as well as I the scent of a trap."

"My, it's far too sweet to be called a trap," Karstly seconded. Though Blackwell had not called for him, Karstly had followed anyway, knowing quite well how interesting things would set to be. "Our noble little Sword, and all the plans that you had to make a figurehead out of him… Well, it would seem someone has struck them down with a strategy intended for other circumstances. Amusingly, one might assume that you even made way for i—"

"I think that to be enough, my Lord," Samuel said, pulling Karstly back, before he could say anymore, and risk earning more than just the glare that he was currently enduring from Blackwell.

"A trap, you assume?" Blackwell said finally.

"Everyone has a weakness," Karstly grinned. "Oliver Patrick has not exactly been quiet in his competence. There are those with calculating enough eyes that they can watch and analyse and properly understand in a way that our enemy has not before. This here does seem to be a poison designed exclusively for him."

Something about the way Karstly said that made Verdant narrow his eyes. "You speak as if you would have no trouble with such a poison, General."

"Naturally," Karstly said. "For I see that creature for what he is. A Sword of the Fourth Boundary. Apparently, you gentlemen, do not?"

"…" Verdant found himself suddenly silent.

"Tut, tut," Karstly sounded. "Ser Patrick is so very proud of your eyes, Lord Idris, but it seems that your eyes see differently to mine. You look at the thing directly, do you not? I look around it. The poetry isn't in the thing, it's in the effect it has. The fact that you gentlemen can not see it in that boy, it does twist my mind in wonder."

"If you had known it, you ought to have stopped it," Blackwell growled.

"Who's to say I saw him before today?" Karstly said, but he quickly relented, as Blackwell glowered at him in silence, and he gave his confession. "Well, indeed, I might have… But why would I stop it? I thought it was set to be interesting."

"You damnable fool," Blackwell cursed. "Are you an ally of our cause, or aren't you? I've given you the highest responsibility that I am capable of in this coming war, and you show your immaturity through actions like this."

"How was I to know that you would all be so blind to what I see so clearly?" Karstly said, though he said it with an even broader smile than the one he usually wore.