A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1682 - 1682: The Coming Storm - Part 6

"And incur the disgruntlement of your young ally?" Fitzer said. "I think not. If you have any sense, you will have learned enough to realize that you shall be needing him. And you had better pray that you can make proper use of him."

Blackthorn scowled at him, but said nothing further to the man.

"Will that be all, my Lord?" Reid asked him.

"It will be," Blackthorn said. "See Oliver Patrick summoned."

"Oho! So you sense the danger?" Fitzer called after him. "But it isn't enough! It's too little, too late! His victory was your one shining star in the void! You won't see it twice—"

The door slammed shut, obscuring whatever words he might have said afterwards.

…

…

"You brought my daughter," Blackthorn remarked when Oliver Patrick arrived back in the rooms he had just vacated.

"As you requested," Oliver said. "And Lord Idris, as you also requested."

Blackthorn grunted. "So you have no issue with the idea of following orders, just at times with the execution."

Oliver smiled by way of agreement. "I had heard that you went to see General Fitzer. Were you satisfied with his treatment?"

"Sit," Blackthorn said, ignoring Oliver's remark, and pointing at the table in front of him. A Battle board was already set up on it, and Oliver had seen it from the moment that he had entered, but he had made a point of not acknowledging it.

"You must know that I'm not going to be your equal in Battle, Lord Blackthorn," Oliver said, taking a seat regardless. "You saw my performance at the tournament. Only barely did I manage to secure my little victory."

"I will be the judge of that," Blackthorn said, hurriedly making his first move with the same aggression that he would on a normal battlefield, pushing a spear unit deep into no-man's land.

Oliver responded in kind, exchanging the first few moves with Blackthorn quickly, and wordlessly. The two of them waded straight into the part of the game where the tensions began to grow, with numerous troops facing off against each other, and cavalry hovering on the edge of engagements, threatening to spring up game-winning tactics.

"Armies from the Capital are likely on the march," Blackthorn grunted, not raising his eyes from the board.

"They likely are," Oliver agreed.

"How long will it take you to train those men that you've been given?" Blackthorn asked.

"A few weeks, at least," Oliver said. "Though, I imagine I'll be able to use them less harshly than I had to with my previous comrades, given your presence. I would prefer not to send men into such harsh conditions again."

"Your preferences will not be taken into account," Blackthorn said, playing a few more moves in silence before he spoke again. "…Neither you nor I will have much choice as to how we engage our enemy. We will be outnumbered heavily again, when they do arrive."

"Have there been scouting reports?" Oliver asked.

Blackthorn didn't reply. Reid seemed to know that he was being nudged to reply on his behalf.

"None as of yet," Colonel Reid offered. "But my Lord's instincts are rarely wrong about such things. Ernest is likely to see further battling."

"I suppose it's difficult to ignore the ten thousand men that we have prisoner," Oliver mused.

"That, and I doubt it's easy to ignore a crushing defeat," Colonel Reid said. "They'll seek to crush the name that you're beginning to make for yourself, before it can blossom."

"What is this?" Blackthorn said, frowning at the board, quite clearly angry.

"What is what, General?"

Blackthorn picked up his cavalry unit, and swiped through Oliver's back line of archers, pinpointing a hole in Oliver's defence that he'd missed. Oliver's eyebrow twitched in a brief instance of irritated surprise, before he settled again and shook his head. "I did warn you that I was unlikely to stand a chance against you."

"Weak," Blackthorn said. "You call that strategy? I had heard talk that you'd been training with Volguard. Yet you still make such rudimentary mistakes?"

"Indeed," Oliver said. "It is something I endeavour to work on, but progress is not coming as swiftly as I wish it would."

"And yet you defeated Fitzer and Tussle and their Emerson army," Blackthorn said, folding his arms, and adding to his disgruntled glare, as he stared Oliver down. With a swipe of his arm, he knocked their Battle pieces off the board, and sent them clattering to the ground. "If you aren't going to play properly, then such games are a waste of time. Do you not take competition with your superior officer seriously?"

Oliver twisted his lips, just barely holding back his irritation. He stooped to pick up one of the pieces – a spearman – and he toyed with it in his hand. "I do not enjoy losing, General Blackthorn."

"Then play better," Blackthorn said. "Reid, set up the board. We'll do it again. This time, fight me as if there was something on the line. Don't give me another pathetic display. I'll hit you."

They plunged straight into the heart of another battle, this time with Oliver concentrating fiercely, taking long minutes at a time in between each move in order to calculate a better course of attack. But twenty moves in, again, he aroused General Blackthorn's fury.

"WEAK!" The General fumed, standing up from the table in his anger, tossing the entire thing. His fury was not light then. He seemed possessed, something other than himself. He barely had the slightest glimmer of control. The steps he took towards Oliver were the aggressive steps of a man inclined to swing. "Where's your skill, boy? Where's your talent!? Why don't you fight?"

Oliver, by now, in response to the General's rage was beginning to grow rather angry himself. "I don't enjoy losing," he said again, practically growing the words up at the General, as the two spat angrily at each other with narrowed eyes.

"Now, now…" Reid said, sweating nervously as he attempted to get between the two of them. "I think it would be unwise if the two of you came to blows on the very first day of your defence together…"