A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1695 - 1695: The Cause of a Tempest - Part 3

They made better time then, when the horses did not shudder so much in the wind. It was as if that weather was all that they were in pursuit of.

"Why are we passing?" Blackthorn asked, as they skirted around the first of the villages that they'd spied. "Wasn't the plan for you to go there, and ask the peasants to join us?"

"It was," Oliver said. "And it is. But I would lay eyes on our enemies first, and gauge their position, before we start moving masses of men on foot."

"Hm… Well, that sounds sensible, I suppose," Blackthorn said, saying no more than that, though there was a degree of suspicion in her voice, as if she suspected another reason for Oliver's wants.

Being that their group was only small, and they were mounted, and pushing as hard as they were, it was on the fourth day already that they began to feel the presence of that grand army that they expected to be marching towards them. Even before they could see it, they could feel it, in the lack of birdsong, and in the emptiness of the horizon, as if it were pointing to something grand.

Before they made contact with the enemy, Oliver had them camp again, this time, by sunset, with their fires once more. A more comfortable camp than they had experienced the previous night, but nonetheless just as cold. The men were growing just the slightest degree weary from all that time spent in the saddle. Oliver didn't have to strain his ears particularly hard to hear the riders complaining of their saddle soreness. The relief was palpable when they were allowed to rest early.

They were quick to turn into bed, once they had done what they could with the thin layer of snow, to erect small barriers from the wind. Oliver stayed awake for a while longer, however, feeling his heart beating ever so slightly faster, with the close proximity that they sat with their grand foe.

He stared into the fire, and saw to it that it was kept well tended, refusing the other man on duty when he started to get up to see the job done. It was only a few hours off dawn when he finally allowed himself to sleep, and even then, it was fitful. His hands twitched, as if he were already fighting.

By the light of midday, on the fifth day, Oliver took his thirty men closer to that enemy army than any man should ever dare to. It was reckless already, to get within the distance that they had, just the day before, but Oliver pushed them further, until they were skirting through the forests, just to the right of the enemy's marching column.

"I will warn you, General Patrick, that this forest is littered with scouts," the Minister of Blades said. "General Tavar would not make such a rudimentary mistake as to march blind past such an obvious point for ambush."

"I am away, Minister," Oliver said, though he'd taken them right into the heart of danger nonetheless.

The fact that they'd even managed to make it past the head of the marching column, supposedly unseen, to enter into the forest seemed a feat in and of itself. But whether or not they were truly unseen was another matter altogether. When Oliver focused, and he trusted his instincts to Ingolsol and Claudia, he could well feel the presence of those scouts that the Minister had alluded to. He could practically feel their eyes bulge when they caught sight of him, and then he could feel them rushing away.

The danger twirled, a magnificent storm of it. Oliver held on, just a few moments longer than he ought to – just long enough that he could catch sight of Tavar, riding by horseback, with a grim look on his face, and a giant of a man beside him.

That giant turned his head in Oliver's direction, seeming to sense him too, despite the grand distance that lay between the two of them. It was only then that Oliver turned his mount around, and bid to the rest of them that they flee. His men followed only too gladly.

Their hearts pounded as they threaded through the trees of the forest. It was a reckless thing to ride in such dense brush in the first place. In summer, it might have been worse, given that they couldn't have easily found their way. But on the way back, there was the slightest little cheat that could be had in the form of the trail that they themselves had set and could so easily follow. The dusting of snow that bore their footprints was light, but it was more than sufficient for them to track.

"We're being followed," the Minister of Blades warned, as they picked their way through the trees. "There's a good number of them."

"How many would you say?" Oliver said, asking out of curiosity. He could sense a mass of men with his own instincts, but he wasn't certain on the number. It might have been between fifty and a hundred.

"A hundred mounted men," the Minister of Blades said. "That is what Tavar would send."

"…Is that instinct speaking, or experience?"

"Both," the Minister said. "He knows the game you're playing. He won't overcommit, but he will seek to punish you if you make a mistake."

"I shall endeavour to avoid doing that, then," Oliver said. "Faster, gentlemen. We'll make it to the plains, and then see what it is that races after us."

Around the thick trunk of a giant cedar tree they went. They had to duck the lowest of the branches. Oliver went first, showing them the maneuver, and like a signalling game, each consecutive man after him copied it. He picked a new path then, different from their old trail. A way that he thought to be faster towards the open plains than the previous one.

He pushed his mount up a thin trail. Its hooves slid on the icy mud, struggling to find purchase, but in the end, it grasped it. The outcrops were rockier here. The ground was far from flat. But Oliver's men kept pace with him.