A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1701 - 1701: To Poke a Bear - Part 3

The sun finally rose, and its rays, though diminished by strong cloud, did much to warm up the riding men. It warmed them up, and it cheered them. It was reinvigorating to a degree that at that point had become most necessary.

"There she is," Oliver said, spying the village first, being at the head of the party.

"I saw it fifteen minutes ago. You should have said you were looking for it," Blackthorn boasted.

"Yes, yes," Oliver said. "The sharpest eyes in the Stormfront I'm sure. And I've the foggy eyes of an old man."

"That's what Nila says," Blackthorn agreed.

"I'm glad to see you've joined her little alliance in agreement."

They came into the village almost alarmingly quickly. It wasn't a large settlement by any means. It might have been half the size of Solgrim, and it had not the market square that saw Solgrim interest merchants that usually would have turned their nose up at such a small venue.

Their village square was a thing of piled up snow, and many little tracks of footprints. It was more a meeting place than anything else.

Oliver tried to drink it all in, and get a sense for the people and the place. Though it was something that he had to do with some degree of haste. Hearing horsemen arrive in the village at such a gallop, men were giving out cries, and they grabbed whatever they could to arm themselves.

"INVADERS! INVADERS, OR RAIDERS, OR THE LIKE! GATHER YOURSELVES!" A panicked old man cried, rushing back inside his home to fetch a long knife.

Oliver allowed them their panic for a little time, taking in as much information as he could, as hundreds of villages rushed around in desperation. He'd spoken of disturbing a beehive when he was bothering Tavar, but he had to admit that the village seemed more like a beehive than Tavar ever could have.

"I do apologise for startling you," he said, when he and his men were practically surrounded by a mob of angry villagers. "I don't suppose you will have wished to have been greeted by armed and mounted men before midday."

"To bloody right we didn't," came the cry of a man, as he pointed a rusty old spear Oliver's way. "What's your business? And what bloomin' sigil is that you're wearing there? I don't recognize it."

Oliver had not expected him to. He smiled as he looked down on his own surcoat. He'd taken care to make sure that was prominently on display, and he'd told Yoreholder's men to do the same, though the point of that too could be questioned, given that the peasantry rarely had time to educate themselves on the sigils of anything other than the noblemen that governed their town.

"That is the sigil of House Patrick," he told them. "And in its name, I do greet you."

"You speak to Lord Oliver Patrick," the Minister of Blades told them, introducing him.

"And you stand before Lord Yoreholder, and Lady Blackthorn," Oliver said. "On the honour of our three houses, I do swear to you that we mean you no harm."

"…No harm?" The same man said, his spear shaking with uncertainty, as he recognized two of those names. "But we're bloody at war with you, ain't we..? Oh, I see now – I see it. You're not able to fight the soldiery, so you come here, to take it out on us peasants? Is that it?"

There came a chorus of agreement, and the wailing of two women, who seemed to take such a statement as truth, and they were all ready to break down in tears at the very sound of it.

"Not at all, good man, not at all," Oliver said. "Why would I take it out on you? Your own noblemen have taken it out on you already. The winter is harsh, and look how they have left you. Where goes your supply of wood, to see you through the season?"

"We ain't got no local wood to fish through," came the cry from another man. "Where are we meant to get wood from, eh? Where? From those bloomin' merchants that would charge us an arm and a leg for it? All the wood we've got is indoors. Wouldn't be wasted out here, would it? See you noblemen, don't know shit, do you? You don't think."

"They would leave you with so little wood that you could fit it inside your homes?" Oliver said. "That's no way to live."

"That's how we live regardless, I tell you," the peasant said. "So if you've come here asking after wood, we ain't gonna shelter you. You can make your own bloomin' fires."

"Oh, I intend to," Oliver said.

"You ain't camping here, neither," shouted another man. "You've come here looking, sniffin' for something. We can all see that. But you won't get a fleck from us. Not even if you threaten us with those men there. We'll chase you off. We've got you outnumbered."

"Aye! We'll chase him off!" Came a chorus from another man. "You'll bleed, just like the rest of them, they'll see. We ain't scared!"

"You are aware that there is an army marching this very way, numbering in their hundred thousands?" Oliver said.

"Eh?"

"I never heard nothin' about that."

"Ohh, must be… Must be something from the Capital, aye? The High King. Wasn't there a big fight about to happen?"

"That Emerson Prince… Hendrick, was it? Oh, aye. The Patrick General must be here, 'cos he was gonna fight him."

"Have you not heard the news?" Oliver said. "The battle with the Emerson is week's past."

"Eh?"

"Week's past?"

"No one passes through here in winter to tell us nothin'. No merchant is gonna come this way when the snows are this bad. How are we meant to know?"

"So what happened then? Is this all that's left of his army?"

"General Patrick confronted a force of twenty thousand with two thousand men of his own, half of which were peasantry, and he achieved overwhelming victory," the Minister of Blades informed them.