A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1551 - 1551: To War - Part 4

Oliver listened to them talk, his fear swelling his heart, war beating more loudly in his ears with every passing step. He was being forced to take in more information than he could possibly bear. The more frightened he became, the more he drank in. He could hear the feet outside, moving in unison. He could hear the tents collapsing, and the spears being gathered, as men joined their ranks for their march of war.

He could hear General Blackwell shifting in his chair, and he could feel the man's irritation. He felt it so strongly that he did not even want to look in the man's direction. He felt small, and unwelcome in that room of giants. He kept his eyes on the table in front of him, trying to hide the shake in his hands. Even Volguard, he felt unworthy of looking in the direction of. He felt as if he were a criminal of some sort, a trespasser in the land of grandness, and he had no place there.

Hearing them talk on his name, discussing his future, with Asabel fighting to see the promises that they had made yesterday fulfilled, Oliver's fear only grew worse. It stirred in him, until it crossed a line, and almost made him dizzy from the thought. And with all that fear, when the moment suddenly seized him, he reached out a firm hand, and grasped it in anger.

He pointed his eyes up with, with all the confidence of Karstly. He leaned back in his stool, and made a declaration in firmness, something impulsive, something that he could believe in. He looked up and down the table as he made it, as if no man there were truly his equal, as if he could subordinate each one of them, should he so wish. For the span of thirty seconds, Oliver spoke as if he were the most ancient and most powerful of dragons.

"Give me the peasantry, Blackwell," Oliver said. "All thousand of them, and all that come after that. I will build my army from them. You need not sully yourselves with giving me troops trained by better men."

"The peasantry?" Blackwell said with a frown. "Out of the question."

Oliver was strong enough to hold his gaze, smiling as Karstly might – for it was Karstly he borrowed the question from. But his confidence was already running out, the fear was threatening to return, and he didn't have the will to stop it for a second time. He saw the man himself, to Karstly's right, who he had attempted to imitate. Karstly was grinning at him properly, in a way that Oliver couldn't intimidate. Oliver tried to feign a lack of care, but Karstly truly did not have one. The joys that Karstly saw in the world went far beyond the material and the understandable. He was an enigma, taking pleasure in every second of their discomfort.

But, to Oliver's fortune, his suggestion was not met only with resistance.

"That is a rather quick dismal," Minister Hod said, with a tilt of his head. "Did you evaluate the suggestion properly, Blackwell? I cannot see why you would turn it down. You solve more problems than one by allowing it through."

"The thousand peasants will be necessary," Blackwell said. "I would keep them in reserve."

"You yourself said that they could not yet be counted as soldiers," Hod said, as quickly as ever, staying on the attack, in the suffocating way that he was known to.

Blackwell twisted his lips. "As soldiers, no," he said, using the rest unspoken.

"Ah, as sacrifices then," Hod said. "You would use them as distractions. Rather cruel."

"They dedicated themselves to the war effort. They wished to play a part. This is their part," Blackwell said.

Oliver's anger found him again, overwhelming his fear, burning even more fiercely for all the fuel that the fear gave him. He pounded his fist on the table, as fiercely as Blackthorn might, and he merely pointed at Blackwell. "That," he said slowly, and carefully, "is something that I cannot abide. I drew them to our cause. I would not see them tricked, as used as fodder, for men that you claim to be better."

"They are untrained," Blackwell said, unmoved. "They are fodder, until it comes time that they are proved not to be."

"Short sighted," Oliver declared with a sweeping hand. "It would not take long to have them useful."

"How long?" Blackwell said.

"Whose hands would those peasants be better placed in that Oliver Patrick?" Hod said. "He has not properly earned his position as General, as we all agree, he is not entitled to the trained troops that we have so few of. Why see the peasantry wasted then, when no one in the realm has better experience commanding and training peasant troops than him?"

Where Oliver's anger had created room for refusal, it was Hod's chilling calm that saw the logic of it cruelly pointed out. No one was quick to raise an argument.

"It bothers me that this is even a point of discussion," Hod said scathingly. "You have declared war on the realm. Each of you. Do you forget its significance? You quarrel, and you fight over position, whilst ignoring the strategy. What better precedent has been created for the commanding of peasant soldiery than through Oliver Patrick? Lord Blackwell, you should be better informed of the sort of troops that he commands than any – and you, Lord Blackwell, seem to acknowledge the strength of his fighting five hundred more than any. It surprises me that you would refuse this."

Blackwell snarled. "You would have me give a thousand men, to Oliver Patrick, when there are other Generals in this room with decades of experience, who ought to be giving the same honour. What of Skullic? What of Blackthorn? What of Broadstone or Rainheart?"

"I will be making my return to the Skreen," Skullic said. "I have no need of further men than the ones that I have already brought."

"I have no use for peasantry," Blackthorn said, waving his hand. "You insult me by offering it to me."