A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1902 - 1902: After Victory - Part 5

"I dunno…" Judas said.

"It's something different, I reckon," Greeves said.

"You're not really yourself," Nila seconded. "But then, you have been fighting for a long time. You really ought to be resting… It's not fair that we get to stay here, and have a quiet few days, whilst you're away fighting for your life once more."

"You're carrying out a duty that I could not copy," Oliver said. "Something just as important. If we don't see the trade routes opened again, and the city back to what it once was, we'll have a bigger enemy than simple soldiers to defeat. We'll starve to death."

He noted movement from by the gate, and could see that Hod had appeared without his noticing, and was already mounted, ready and waiting on his horse.

"It seems like it's time to depart. Look after yourselves, you three. Rest well, and I apologise for asking so much of you."

Nila dashed after him, grabbing him in the saddle before he could get any significant amount of speed. She looked at him imploringly.

"What is it?" Oliver said, looking down at her. "I really have to go, you know."

She studied him, and the lines of worry on her face only continued to grow. "That's what I should be asking you. You're really not yourself. Is it Tavar? Or is it something else? You should be here, resting… We didn't get time to talk properly yesterday either. Oliver, promise me – don't let things get as bad as they were before. Verdant, or even Queen Asabel if you get the chance to talk to her – they'll know what to say if it's a hurt that you can't manage."

The height they were, with just the slightest lean in the saddle, was the perfect placement for Oliver to put his hand on her head. He afforded her the best smile that he could. "When peace comes, there will be more than enough time for deliberation," Oliver said. "I will be back before you know it, and then we can finally rest together. A day in the forest, or two. A hunt in the snow, and a camp away from these city walls. I long for that – that freedom."

"We'll do that," Nila promised, forgetting how much it was that Oliver hated to be trapped inside a city. A siege, in that sense, was a particular kind of torture that wore on him. Though she knew in her heart she was not much better. When she was giving her mission to hunt deep in the Black Mountains, in truth, it had seemed more a blessing to her than a task. "...Please promise me that you'll come back."

Oliver tilted his head, almost uneasy at the question. Nila's worry was even stronger than it normally was, enough to make him start to doubt himself properly now. He wondered if there was something that he was not seeing, for the iron grip that he had on his heart. But he gave that promise regardless, feeling the fire of it, the strength of that will, and the true want that would see the word kept. "I'll come back, Nila. I'll be back before you know it."

…

…

The first day, they made good speed. The man at the head of them in Hod was glum and quiet, eternally pondering. The men seemed to think that to be the normal thing for the Minister of Logic. After all, wasn't that his post at the Academy? To be the man of thought, and to use the sharp scalpel of it to cut through weak arguments. But Oliver knew Hod better. Even for the Minister, it was worse than normal. How could it not be? Victory had been achieved, only for him to lose that which mattered most to him.

Oliver rode by him for the first half of the day, in complete silence himself. He looked for the right words to say to offer him comfort, though he could find them not. To speak honestly, and truthfully, with the sort of emotion Oliver usually demanded of himself, so that he would not be speaking merely for the sake of making sound, that would have required for him to examine his own heart, and the building pressure there. He could hear it squeaking. That which he hadn't properly reconciled in the siege. His doubts as to who he was. His growing strength, and the nature of the battling that he now seemed capable of. The head of the King that he'd taken, and its consequences. The death of the mentor that had seen him so well cared for at the Academy.

There was much to deliberate, but there was a trick against all that. For there existed a problem that was still larger than those that sought to tear his heart apart. That was the problem of the war, and the increasing significance of it, as more men died for its cause. A war that was still yet to be over, and the strength of their opponent that they were to face in order to ensure it done.

A great trick – and one that compelled Oliver to speak to Hod, forgetting his original purpose for riding beside him all day. It was just before they retired to their tents for the night, after seeing their men debriefed and fed, that he shouted to him, almost excited. "Minister, we've found ourselves to be in a spark of fortune, haven't we?"

Hod turned to him, an eyebrow raised, and his eyes as cold as the snow that he stood upon. "In what fashion, General?"

"You said it yourself, the matter of the fortune of our timing. That letter from General Blackwell – if we assume their marching speed based on it, and we assume that they stuck to their strategy of engagement as they planned, we'll arrive just in time to reinforce them, before they can be dealt true damage at the hands of Tiberius," Oliver said.

"Indeed," Hod offered, though he seemed not quite as excited as Oliver by that fact, and Oliver could not fathom why.