A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1557 - 1557: Protector of the West - Part 6

Oliver pretended not to notice the traded whispers that went along with the other stoically standing soldiers. His Sergeants soon saw to it that those men were quietened, and the Patrick army resumed their standing like sentinels, staring down the disorganized and rather ragged looking mass of peasants that were beginning to gather on the snow in front of them.

After a time, the two hour mark passed, and barely half of the peasants had arrived. There was an uneasy shifting amongst those that had managed it, fearful of their brethren that would follow.

When the peasants arrived from then on, they cast hopeful looks to those that had come ahead, the question written on their faces. But the only response was muted shakes of the head, leading to an overwhelming degree of fear. Those men collapsed in the snow, beaten.

Another hour it took before the last of them had arrived. Those that brought up the rear were in the poorest physical condition, as one might expect, with a few of them, somehow, being overweight, despite the measly peasant diets that they endured under.

Oliver watched them all come with harsh eyes, and they hid from him, as best they could. The Patrick men that stood watch with them only added to that fear. It was like a board of judges, and each and every one of them seemed to have deemed that they were guilty.

With a sigh, Oliver shook his head. "We're over three hours, gentlemen. That isn't good enough. It isn't good enough at all. I believe I told you what the punishment might be, if you failed to do as was required of you?"

A whole bunch of them stiffened. The fear was stiff enough to make them freeze up. They didn't budge. Oliver went to one of the last men along the line. An older man, who must have been pushing fifty, for the grey in his hair, and the wrinkles on his lip. He cowered before Oliver, and cowered again when Firyr barked at the man to stand in front of his General.

The man needed two others to help him to his feet.

"Apologies… Apologies," he whimpered. "My legs, they've gone, they have… I can't move em'."

The man thought it to be fatigue, but Oliver knew it to be fear. It immobilized him, just as it immobilized the others.

"You did not do as was required of you," Oliver said harshly, standing over him, giving him no room to flee from the fear that he felt. "You understand that, do you not?"

"I do, m'Lord, I do…" the man said, his head dipped, not meeting Oliver's eyes.

Oliver nodded to Firyr. With a great heft of his arms, Firyr dropped a barrel in front of him. Inside, one could hear the metallic ring of a dozen different clattering tools.

The fear intensified.

"I said that you would be whipped," Oliver said. "But I am a merciful man. It need not be a whip. You can choose the tool that will do the deed yourself."

With his words, Firyr upended the barrel in the snow. Out fell swords, axes, bludgeons, maces, shields, pitchforks. All different tools of war, along with the long-spear and short-spear that Firyr threw amongst them. In amongst it too was the whip that Oliver had promised.

"You are soldier snow," Oliver said, pretending he did not notice that the soul had already left a hundred different bodies. "These are the tools that you will be punished with on the battlefield, for your lagging strength. I will give you the choice now, for you will not have it then."

"D-do I--?" The man stammered, biting his lip.

"Choose," Oliver thundered, intensifying his glare.

The man quivered, not moving, entirely frozen stiff from the cold and the fear.

"Choose," Oliver said again, without the command in his voice to make him more. It was only fear that he allowed the man. "Choose, or it will grow worse for you. Your punishment will be doubled."

The man's arm twisted finally at that. He fell upon the spear, and quickly – mistakenly – pointed at it. "That, then! That! If it must be, then that!" He said, daring not spare it any more thought, for to think about it would be to consider the pain.

Firyr fetched the weapon, and handed it to Oliver. Oliver considered it in his hands, and turned it around. "Have you seen what these are capable of doing to a man?" He asked of the peasant. "A single thrust, and you'll take a man's life, his soul." Oliver jabbed at the air to demonstrate, causing a loud whoosh with his thunderous speed. "If this is the weapon that you choose, then I suppose it is not a bad choice. We will see in time whether it suits you. You will have to again earn the right to choose, so go harshly with your experimenting."

He handed it to the peasant, forcing it into the aged man's cold hands. The peasant looked at him in terrified confusion. Oliver gave a smile to him in return, his eyes that had been golden now seeming to be filled with purple.

"You failed to do what I asked of you," Oliver said. "But you think of me wrongly if you think I would punish you for that. You will learn, in time, to carry out my orders, not out of fear for the punishment that you will be met with, but out of respect for yourselves. Your bodies will grow stronger, just as the bodies of the men in front of you have. You will train in harshness, and in fear, and you will cast aside your weaker selves."

Even saying that, the peasants still didn't start to shift, so intense was the fear that Oliver had to work with. Ingolsol had bound them all up, in threads that were as strong as steel cables, and it was only Claudia that could thaw them out of it once more. He reached with her gentleness, and her warm strength, to thaw out those that he had frozen.