A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1526 - 1526: A Tiger - Part 5

For himself, he quietly added. "We should all be so lucky," in just the smallest murmur, with his eyes pointed to the ground, betraying the regret that he felt, beyond the mask of Ingolsol.

That same mask was beginning to waver, and Claudia returned to herself, and the balance came with it. The energy that Oliver felt in his poetic declarations began to slip, and he found himself speaking far too frantically. "We are at war, gentlemen," he said tiredly. "A man that ought not to have fallen into any of this has been assassinated. Our rage can lie dormant for no longer. Whether we will it or not, justice forces us forward, and our hands are no longer our own."

"Turn your eyes to the ground, if you so wish," Oliver said. "None shall blame you. Choose relative safety over an impossible cause, and indeed, none shall blame you. You raise your fists in agreement with me, but when the truest reality is presented, I do expect more than half of you shall remain. Such is the nature of all things. No country could ever devote itself entirely to justice, and I very much doubt ours will be doing the same either."

He curled his lips, with the look of disgust. He pulled at the sword at his belt, and looked entirely dissatisfied. Hod felt his heart beat a rhythm of alarm. 'It's right there for the taking, boy… What are you doing?' He thought to himself. Oliver had built the grandest of fires. The eyes of the crowd had begun to light up. 'If you pushed further, you could have convinced them. You needn't have fallen short,' Hod thought in his fury.

From his scabbard, Oliver dragged his sword, with the contemptuous gesture of a man that would rather have been doing anything else. That charisma that he'd spoken with seemed to have vanished by the time he said the all important words. "War is what I do declare on the High King," he said. "In the name of justice, for the injustices that he has committed. Those that wish to fight with me, they can say what they will—"

It grew worse by the second, the more that Hod listened. For a short handful of moments, Oliver Patrick had stood larger than any man in recent years. He'd built up a fire hot enough to whip thousands of misaligned men into a frenzy. But just as quickly, he had lost it, as if to do so had exhausted him, and now, in his tiredness, he seemed to swing firmly in the opposite direction, undoing all the work that he had done.

If Lord Blackwell had not acted, Hod might have moved himself. It was too upsetting a spectacle to watch – to see all that magic go to waste.

'The damn youth,' Hod cursed to himself. 'Follow it through, damn you! You have not the slightest inclining of the magic that you brought about yourself.'

"War shall be declared," Lord Blackwell seconded. "War with every intention of victory. My son was murdered last night in cold blood. Our integration of the killer revealed in short order who's hand was behind it. We have a High King that has been at odds with his military for far too long. Our expansion into Verna lands ought not to have been made more difficult by our own ruler, and yet he did. He denied us the necessary resources, and he aligned himself better with the prospect of our defeat than he did with our victory. That is not a man of the Stormfront. That is a man that has already been taken by the enemy – he fights the wars of our enemy nations before they know even to raise up their swords themselves."

Hearing Lord Blackwell say it, so suddenly, was like cold water to the very fire that Oliver had started. A change in Command so suddenly wasn't something that most people could easily overlook. When Oliver had spoken, even as he started to extinguish his own fire towards the end of his speech, he had painted a dreamy picture in front of all their eyes. Something that moved their hearts, beyond the reality before them.

Blackwell's words, however, fell cold and hard like steel. When they spoke of war, one could already see the blood that was to be spilled. One could hear the screams, and feel the hardness of harsh encampments, and cold weather sieges. One knew the tragedy that war would bring, beyond its beauty. There was no poetry left in it, and the crowd's reactions were grim.

There were those that knew loyalty to the General that they had fought alongside, and who sought further glories with him. Through the likes of General Rainheart and General Broadstone, they could be seen nodding to themselves in their approval. They were one of the many that the crowd looked to, in order to gauge how they themselves might need to react. There was a sense of danger in the air, but also a sense of shifting currents and opportunity. It was a hall of gamblers, and no one quite knew yet where to throw the dice.

"For the memory of my Uncle, Silver King Arthur Pendragon, I do the same," Queen Asabel said, her voice a blessed relief from the harsh grimness that had begun to sit in the air like silt in a river. "The circumstances around his death, I am sure, are not news to you. He was denied a throne that was rightly his, and our country has been worsened for it. But even if I am to overlook that, I can not overlook the injustices that have been done in his absence. The exile of Dominus Patrick, my Uncle's dear friend, and the inquisition that has been quietly lead against his son Oliver Patrick in the shadows – they are just some of the many crimes that our High King is guilty of. I do not call my banners without certainty. I do not delight in this prospect of war. I long for the peace that is to follow it. But I cannot overlook the necessary carriage of justice."