A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1620 - 1620: The Fingers of Man - Part 7

"They brought their own supplies, Greeves, you know that well enough," Jorah said. "Keeping them alive puts no further strain on our resources. And you know as well as I do why Ser Patrick has left them be."

"Lulling them into calmness, aye, I know," Greeves said. "But they could have been the ones to toss their weapons in a ditch… We shouldn't be wasted on this."

"Are you still going to question the General, after all he's achieved?" Jorah said. "Could you have won that battle, in his shoes? Why do you presume that your mind is greater than his?"

"…" Greeves twisted his lips. "Yer not wrong, but I don't like the way you've started talking, Jorah. You're sounding like Lord Idris. Am I going to be having a hard time talking with you as well in future?"

Jorah whipped his head toward the merchant. "Do you understand what we've just overcome, Greeves?"

Greeves met his gaze. "Aye. I do. And if I stop to think about it, it'll drive me mad, so you'll forgive me if I don't do the same song and dance as you. We should be dead. I know that as much as you."

The intensity with which Greeves said that made Jorah pause. He had to acknowledge that himself. They all reached for mundane, normal conversation as if to defend themselves. The victory that they'd achieved wasn't something they could process in an instant. Though they were exhausted, there was a feeling of lightness in their every move. The night had greeted them with a fresh blanket of snow, making their work all the more difficult, especially when the winds began to whip, but they had worked all the way until the dawn light now began to peak up over the horizon with nothing but the most minor of complaints.

"Huh," Firyr said, seeing the light of the sun, beyond the last few bits of lightly falling snow. "Morning already, is it? Didn't bloody expect to survive that night, I can tell ya. I said goodbye to the sun when it went down. Thought that was the last time I'd see it."

"You're not the only one…" Jorah said, slowing his own work so that he might take a look to admire the sight. Its red rays found their way past the clouds, and made glitter of the laid snow. "Gods, it is a beautiful thing, ain't it?"

"…It's not bad at all," Greeves agreed. "Aye, that's something worth staying alive for."

…

…

"Golden sunshine, my Lord, heralding our victory," Verdant said, as he watched the coming dawn from atop Ernest walls with his General.

"Indeed," Oliver said. "…Indeed. A victory that I did not deserve. A defeat that I had in advance. I'm quite sure that I'm a ghost of a man after all, Verdant. Could it be that I'm dead already?"

"Would you like me to check, my Lord?" Blackthorn said, pulling out her rapier with an alarming degree of speed.

"Do you think you could manage?" Oliver said. "The two of you, quite frankly, should be in bed. A few bandages aren't enough to make your wounds go away. Especially you, Verdant. Tussle wasn't exactly gentle with you."

"And miss out the best part of this ordeal, my Lord?" Verdant said. "…Or was it the best part? I do wonder. Now that it is gone, I suppose I might miss the profundity of such a battle after all."

"Don't say that," Oliver said, slumping. "I never want to do that again. That was far too much. It was miserable. We should never come that close… We really, really, should never come that close. And the cost, Verdant?"

"Indeed, the cost my Lord, it was not pretty," Verdant said. "And yet, is your heart not too lighter than it otherwise would have been? I have not seen you look this chipper after such harsh fighting, and such heavy losses."

"…You will think me insensitive if I were to say why," Oliver said.

"Not at all, my Lord, how could I ever? When you were a Captain, you would mourn the loss of a mere single infantryman. No one could ever accuse you of being heartless," Verdant said.

"That is not an awful lot of comfort, Verdant," Oliver said. "It seems to imply that I have changed, and that I have become more heartless. My goal has never been to become a stone, and to take my men lightly."

"But I would never dare say that you have become a stone," Verdant said. "Something has changed though, hasn't it? Volguard, and Yorick. We saw their bodies ourselves. There can be no denying it."

"…It might be madness that keeps my heart steady," Oliver said. "Perhaps I'll wake up tomorrow and find the tower of cards that I have built has finally received enough wind for it to come crashing down."

"That could well be. We could all find ourselves in the midst of an illusion," Verdant said. "But let us assume it is not so."

"If we assume it is not so… Then I would say, the reason I do not drift into despair, is because… because I was already defeated," Oliver said.

He frowned as he said it, as if he didn't truly understand himself. Then from around his twisted lips, he worked his way to his own sort of answer. He lifted his fist towards the sky, as if to capture the sun's rays, and hold it within them. "I've always tried to solve it by my own might, Verdant. There was a feeling in my chest I'd get, as if I needed to dominate the world personally… Or something like that… I've had the sense, all this time, that I haven't been making proper use of my men. But then, I don't like the idea of that. I don't want people to become mere tools for me to use. I don't want to be a tyrant, and lose myself towards tyranny."