A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1788 - 1788: By Claudia's Will - Part 4

"Damn it, Arthur, why must we fight here? My King, why must we fight here?" Blackwell said, losing himself. The sternness of feeling that he was sure of seemed to evaporate. That was the King that Blackwell had wanted. He had longed for the day that he could bend the knee towards Arthur. He would have given life and soul for the man. Every time Arthur had spared him a word or two, Blackwell had felt the most blessed man in the world. "We were robbed… Robbed a thousand times over… We would have won under you – and now we lesser men carry a banner beyond us."

The last of the candles snuffed out, and the church fell into a complete darkness, lit only by that single candle hidden behind glass, at the very top of the altar. But that was not enough to cast a light far. Not even enough to see the walls around it lit.

There was something standing right in front of Lord Blackwell, in the darkness, he was certain of it. The creature loved him not. It glared at him with angry eyes. It dared him to glare back, but Blackwell did not have the heart to. He felt himself cowering. He'd come in here looking for something, but instead he'd found his pride taken. Darkness snatched it from him. The fog of war, the uncertain future, and now his own courage, all snatched away within the same day.

He begged it of that King of times past, to give him the answer to that question at least, before he was robbed of his position as a member of the living, or whatever it was the darkness wished to see done with him. He wanted to know with a desperateness that he did not himself understand.

"We've all been living in a shadow like this since you left us," Blackwell said meekly, his eyes lowered. "Dominus too – for him to have lived those last days of his life in mere shadow. And then for him to give himself to a cause that was so beneath him. The mere defence of a village. Both of you… Gods be damned, both of you committed a suicide. You betrayed all that you left behind."

He said it again, feeling more anger coming over him "You betrayed us all, damn you! Why is it me? Eh? You saw what I was back then. General, perhaps, but not grand leader. I ought not be here. It's anger that pulled me all this way. Where is justice when anger carries it?"

The shadow seemed to lunge at him. There was no physical sensation around Blackwell's neck, but he found himself unable to say anything further, for a choking in his throat, as if something wished for him to speak not.

He tried to spit it out regardless, once more, his anger outweighing that which he found uncomfortable, in true House Black fashion. "Anger… you fools! That is all we… of House Black know. And now I know not what to… where to… I KNOW NOTHING! MY INSTINCTS BETRAY ME! Where art thee, Arthur, Dominus… cowards… this is your destiny, not mine…"

'I lost my son,' he continued in his head. 'I lost that damn boy… We had our fights, our conflicts… but death? I never imagined it for him. A long life away from the battlefield. It was almost a relief for him to be that… The poison you left behind saw him slain. Your fault, Arthur, as much as mine. I blame thee.'

He could speak no further, for how the air swirled with disagreement. In the church of Claudia, Blackwell laid his resentment bare. His bitterness swam out of him, more strongly than any emotion ever could. Now that his momentum had found its stopping point, only hatred remained. Hatred had paved the road this far, and now the instinct of hatred could go no further. It pointed to no true direction. Only the darkness of an uncertain war, as dark as the very church that he knelt in.

No answers were forthcoming, only an oppressive and dark silence. He came in with wanting, and was instead only taken from. He stood up, forcing himself to, despite his trembling legs, and the fear that he still felt. That which was beyond natural, and human, Blackwell feared. The supernatural and the realm of the Gods, that was for other men. The closest he could come was to the fragment of Claudia within him. It was her world, not his, and he left it to her alone, and when it did so, it was she that spoke, as if it was she conquering the darkness around him.

"Dear Lord Blackwell, how much do you suppose you ought to know and understand?" She said. "You give yourself responsibility beyond even the one that has been placed on your shoulders."

If she would have said more there, Blackwell might have found himself at ease, but her voice was as fleeting at the wind that kept finding cracks to run through the place. It came and went, and even when he beseeched her, Claudia would say no more. He stood, as if waiting judgement from the Gods for all that he had done. In a sense, he wondered if that was the very reason that he had walked into that place. Out of guilt for that which he had plunged the realm into. The innocents that had been displaced, and the innocents that would again be slain, whether they won or lost.

That guilt was intensified by the fact that he knew not where to point his forces now, as they sat in their stagnant position. To him, that seemed to point to his incompetence as a leader. He'd led them thus far, but now when the world had grown tight with tension, he was immobilized, and incapable of doing anything further. Perhaps his mind could see the course in front of him, he supposed, but it was mere cowardice of the heart preventing him from committing to it. Perhaps he doubted the very cause that he had plunged his way down.