A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1573 - 1573: Where The Dragon Lies - Part 3

Since that day, he'd learned to blanket his worries to a degree. He would not say it aloud, but that one little glimpse from his General had filled him with a sense of trust. The man saw so much more than Torfus would think was conceivable. The other men seemed to realize that too, and others had tried, just a little harder, to be seen, and more Sergeants had been selected. The men were bigger for it, more passionate, more ambitious. It had come to the point that it was almost a bad thing.

Violently, did they compete with each other, for the sake of those ranks, simply to see them found somewhere. For a couple of days, General Patrick's eyes had seemed approving of their competing. And then, all of a sudden, when Torfus had looked, they were not.

The only constancy, in all their world, as they threw themselves into a chaotic sea of the true unknown, a world that was like a dream, for it was so different from how they had lived before. The only constancy, indeed, was General Patrick… and he was far from being constant. They all worked according to his whims, whether they wished to or not. From afar, without saying a single word, they all worked eternally for his approval. At all times of day, it seemed likely that they might be able to catch his eyes. Hardly a day went by when Torfus was not quite sure that he had been seen.

It was as if they had a God to watch over them, but this God was a being that they could see. For that reason, they almost worshipped him. Not almost, in fact, they did. He was as unpredictable as a God. As vast in his moods. As confusing, as difficult to pierce. The first instance of his speech that had won them to his cause had been an entirely different man, and with each week, Torfus did see him change.

Now, when he looked at them, it was as if he was trying to dampen their spirits. As if their fire had grown too heated, and he was to tell them off for it. When he saw the men fighting for mere position, Torfus could practically feel his disapproval, even when it wasn't directed at him. Not a single command, not a single order was given, and yet it was felt, and it was changed.

Another change went along with it. One that, in part, served to allay a fear that Torfus had. His whole worry – and his worry that he did not worry enough about it – of the battle to come. It ought to have filled his every waking moment with fear. It had certainly lent him a degree of desperateness to his actions, in the few days since the news had come of the size of the army that they would be facing. He tried harder than ever before. He gritted his teeth, pushed his muscles, and eyed his men with sternness. He even lost his temper with them a few times, realizing that, as they were now, they would all die when the battle was to come. That they were far from being sufficient the way they were.

That slightness of anxiety – and indeed, it was slight – was enough to leave him exhausted at the end of each day, and with each morning that followed, he'd woken up worse, performed worse, and been even more miserable for it. He was not the only one either.

It was hard to tell exactly what the expression was from their General that made them change their tune, but there was a sense of his deep disapproval, emanating from atop the wall. They'd been harsh, and unyielding – as had their officers above them – for a number of days, and none of them seemed to be happy, or performing well for it. Torfus had almost expected for General Patrick to come down to speak with them, for he had before, when things had grown as tough as they had in recent days. But instead, he simply watched them from atop their wall, like a disapproving deity, and somehow, there had been a change.

If he had tried to explain it to them in words, it would have been impossible to wonder what it was that General Patrick wanted from them. But without words, there was this constant pressure, that once they gave into, seemed perfectly obvious as to what they might do.

The change, once more, was hard to define. It all was. For they were the whims of another man, so deeply buried, that the General himself likely could not have expressed it as conscious thought. It was that mere whim that allowed their army to blossom.

Now, when Torfus sparred with a giant Patrick soldier, far greater than him in size and weight, he did so with an eternal sense of exhilaration.

He thrust out with his spear, and with a mighty swing, the soldier bellowed, and knocked it aside with his axe. Both their weapons were wrapped and padded so that they would not deal serious damage to each other if they collided, but that didn't take away the fact that it hurt.

Objectively, if Torfus had wished to tear himself apart, he could have found all sorts of reasons that such a spear strike had failed. He could have told himself that he ought to have stepped in faster, he ought to have waited more patiently.

Instead, it was a laugh that it drew out of him, for the spear strike had felt ridiculously good. It hadn't looked good, and there was nothing about it that ought to have been deemed praiseworthy, but the mere feeling of the wood in his hand, and the spear point whipping through the air, as Torfus' back twisted, it came with a feeling that bordered on ecstasy.

His opponent laughed too, a deep bellowing thing. When he laughed, it sounded like wind whistling through a cave. Torfus still didn't know his name, but the two of them had been seeking each other out as sparring partners for a number of days, and there was a feeling of camaraderie between them. Torfus didn't quite understand why the soldier selected him, just as often as Torfus selected the soldier, for nine duels out of ten, it was the soldier that won.

"A good day for it, no?" The soldier said, grinning. "Brisk air, cold feet. Icy. Big sliding. I like it, I do, oh, Gods, do I love the fight."