A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1626 - 1626: The Ripples of Victory - Part 5

Naturally, losing his ancestral home stung a good bit. But such was war. Stunningly, he was able to make that sacrifice with a feeling of rightness. There was a good deal of necessity to it. Though he disliked the idea of losing his ancestral home, he liked the idea behind the strategy itself, and was pleased to have the option manifest. It reassured him that the foundations of their plan was a good one, for they could not claim the seat of the High King without due sacrifices. And what was the seat of the Blackwell House when compared to the seat of the entire country?

For all his plans, however, even in thinking that he had made use of Oliver Patrick's unpredictability, it would seem that he had failed to predict him far enough. He ground his teeth deeper and deeper as he read further through that letter, and he crunched it more and more in his hand. His face went red with rage, and before he was done with it, he tore his helmet from his head, and set it thudding to the muddy ground beneath him.

"THAT FOOOOOOOOL!" He howled at the sky, attracting the attention of his soldiers.

He rounded on Willem with the eyes of the beast, causing the usually confident Colonel's smile to completely vanish, as he took a nervous step back. "…Bad news, General?" Willem asked meekly, feeling as if by Blackwell's rage, he was forced to speak.

"He can't follow orders," Blackwell growled. "He can't follow orders, he can't be trusted, and I was fool enough to give him such a level of responsibility."

"…Oh, it is bad then…" Willem said. "Is it the sort of thing that we can recover from?"

With every second sentence that fell out of Willem's mouth, the Colonel half-regretted saying them, knowing full well that he'd only be prodding at the fury of a bear.

"No," Blackwell said. "No, it is not. He has taken our efforts, Colonel, and that little bastard has spat on them. For all the work that we put in here, he took a gamble, and he dishonoured us all."

"…I am sure, in the end, his intentions were good," Willem said. "He was a fiery young man, but he seemed passionate in the protection of his allies. Of course, he was flawed… If he had a few less of those flaws, perhaps he would still be with us…"

"Still be with us?" Blackwell said, forgetting his anger just enough that he could raise an eyebrow at Willem.

"…Well, yes, he would be, wouldn't he, if he hadn't taken this battle?" Willem said, confused now too.

"He's not dead, Colonel," Blackwell said.

"What?" Willem said. "I'd assumed from… He managed to get away then?"

Blackwell's anger had faded entirely now, and if Willem didn't know better, he could have sworn that, despite his supposed fury, the General was fighting off a smile. "Get away? For what purpose? He has subdued the enemy."

"…General, do forgive me, but I don't follow," Willem said. "Subdued the enemy? General Patrick has? Which enemy? Was there a force other than the Emerson army that I did not know about?"

"That is the foe that I speak of," General Blackwell said.

"He repelled them from the gates of Ernest?" Willem asked, stunned. "I knew those walls were strong, but I didn't think they'd hold against an army of twenty thousand… Does that mean the siege is broken then? What in Claudia's name made them turn tail and run? The threat of Skullic returning, perhaps..? But they should be well aware that Skullic is pinned firmly in the Skreen. There's no chance of him moving anytime soon."

"If this letter is to be believed, then there never was a siege," Blackwell said. "The Emerson army never made it as far as Ernest's walls. There was no siege to be broken. General Patrick met them on the field of battle, on the very same night that they arrived, and he has achieved victory, along with General Tussel's head, and the capturing of Prince Hendrick, General Fitzer, and ten thousand men."

"You're smiling, General," Willem said, taking a step back truly now. He found that the General was even more terrifying when he smiled. He'd spent his entire career, as a small side quest, trying to get his superior to crack even the slightest of smiles, but now that there had finally arrived one, he wished for nothing more than his usual stoney face. "Does this mean you're playing a joke on me?"

Willem wouldn't have been surprised if, in some insane bout of morbid humour, General Blackwell had finally cracked. There was a degree of manicness to him, following the death of his son. Not enough for him to be a liability, but more than enough for him to be frightening. If Oliver Patrick had truly died, it wouldn't have surprised Willem if it would have resulted in this – in the General breaking entirely, and coming up with some morbid fantasy, in some mistaken jest, to bully his Colonel.

"There is no joke, Willem," Blackwell said. "Or if there is, perhaps it is on us. Perhaps it is on the House of Emerson. Perhaps it is on the High King itself. The one outcome that we failed to consider – that we set aside as impossible beyond all impossibility, that is the very outcome that, Oliver Patrick, in his foolishness, has delivered. He might be the greatest fool in all of the Stormfront. No sane man would take the battle that he had, and think that he could win it."

"Quite right…" Willem said. "Which is why I find myself struggling to believe what you are saying. Could that not be a forged note, General? It seems too great an impossibility. They could have taken his seal, in the capturing of Ernest, and forged that letter to you."

General Blackwell snorted at that. "Not even the best spy could forge that idiot's handwriting. Look at it, Willem. Those messy letters, those impolite sentences. You'd think a peasant had written that, the second that he had learned to scribble."