A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 317: The Strings of Fate - Part 16

He had a feeling that the enemy would not be kind enough to let him get there so quickly though. They had their weak to protect, after all. The second Jok destroyed what was important to them – their women, and their children – their reason to fight would die.

His men shifted uncomfortably as they advanced forward, their steps slow and deliberate. The darkness was oily. He was sure the light of a fire used to reach further than this – it was as though he had to physically beat back the darkness with each step for each time they advanced forward.

He heard a man's stolen chainmail clink as he turned rapidly at his neck to look into the shadows. The twitchiness of his men reminded him of dogs brought for the hunt whenever there was a dangerous enemy nearby.

He began to scan the shadows with them. One of his men held out a torch to alight the thatching of the next house. Jok caught the glint of steel. A pair of golden eyes stared at him. He froze in place, unable to give the order.

And then, just like that, the torchlight vanished, along too with the man's head. He fell to the floor in a pool of his own blood, clutching the wooden shaft that remained of his torch.

"It's the boy!" Jok realized, recognizing the eyes. They didn't feel like the eyes of the boy, they felt closer than they were, but it was the eyes of the boy nonetheless. "In the gap between the two houses!"

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It wasn't an order that he gave them, it was merely an alert, warning his men against the danger. They didn't realize that though. A group of five dispatched from the rest, daring to plunge into the shadows after him.

Jok heard the sound of fighting a moment later. Followed by the sound of screaming, and then bodies falling… And then there was nothing.

Beam withdrew back into the shadows, his eyes fully golden by now.

'It's as effective as we thought it would be,' a part of him thought. He could feel the fear in the air so strongly that he could almost taste it. It was like the salty air of a sea breeze, but heavier, more tangible, as though there was weight to it.

In these shadows, alone like this, that gift that Ingolsol had given him, that gift that had scared off even Titan's, it worked its magic, and Beam had known it would.

The second the Yarmdon men stepped out of their torchlight, they were half-blind. Their eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness like Beam's and the villagers had. They had no night vision. It took them a few moments before they could even make him out. By that time, the first man was already dead, and his sword was barrelling towards the second.

They caught sight of half his form. He wasn't human then, but a monster. Their eyes couldn't tell the difference, nor could their bodies. That aura, that strength, there was no difference to them. The first hardy heart of a Yarmdon warrior crumbled to fear.

Beam muttered an order under his breath. "Kill," he'd said, hiding his intent in the word. He'd wanted to see if he could make the Yarmdon man turn on the enemy.

He'd seen the man's sword hand twitch, but that was the best he could achieve. That, and freezing the man entirely in place. The human soul was far more balanced than a goblin's, after all.

He wasn't displeased by that fact. His analytical mind hardly noted it. There was only one word that met it, and that was 'good'. Things were proceeding as they should be.

All three men that were left were easily dispatched of. Here, in the ark, not only could he wield his skill freely, but there was no one else to see the effect he was having. Though, such concerns were further from his mind than they had been before – even if he didn't want people to see that he had such a skill, as per his master's warning, it was still a lot more preferable to being dead.

But in the midst of battle, outnumbered, with plenty of allies around, there hadn't even been the slightest possibility of activating it. One had to truly disturb a man's heart for him to be completely overrun by fear like that, or so Beam was learning.

He killed those five men, and once more retreated back into the shadows. He circled around the edge of the house on quiet feet, set to choose his next target.

The whole Yarmdon army was frozen in place. They were still eyeing that gap between the two houses, the gap where darkness reigned.

"Get some light over there, damn it!" Jok ordered. One man came rushing over with one of the few torches that they had left. He slowed the further he came to the gap. Another ten men went with him, penetrating the darkness.

The whole army was forced to watch and wait.

"There's… nothing," the man called out. Jok twisted his face, he had expected as much. No one would be fool enough to stand in one place after an attack like that. His whole army was halted. His mind was halted. He felt like he'd been plunged into a bind.

Those damn eyes, they'd frozen his mind half in place.

He nicked his hand on the edge of his sword, drawing blood. The pain stung. He'd sliced deeper than he'd expected. The blood ran warm over his hand. But it had served its purpose. With the pain, he freed up his mind once more, startling his nervous system out of that cycle of fear.

"This is it then," he realized, his mind calming. The boy had revealed his hand with that first attack. He had no intention of letting them march deeper into the village. He meant to do battle here.

To accent that thought, just as Jok's man was about to alight the roof of that house, having failed to identify a target… an arrow went flying, punching him through the back of his head, and coming out of his eye.