A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 345: The Will of Men, The Will of Gods - Part 6

Lombard glanced at him, as though only just noticing his arrival. The Captain said nothing about his presence there. The single look that they shared said all that it needed to. For a time, Greeves' captivity had proved useful to Lombard, and now, the opposite was true. "…I do not think our future to be so bleak."

Tolsey looked up at him. He hadn't given voice to the words yet, for he didn't feel he was allowed to, but now that Lombard had brought it up himself, he dared to ask. "The boy's master?"

The Captain nodded in response. "Given enough time, I do not doubt he will show his face… But, I suppose, he has never been one for timeliness."

He felt a hint of guilt saying such words, as he realized how unfair they were. To say that Dominus' timing was poor, because he arrived to the battle with the Pandora Goblin long after Arthur was slain… It didn't quite tell the whole story. As a knight, Dominus was far more conscientious than that.

"He'll help us?" Greeves said, in a rasping voice. Both Judas and he had met him, as had Nila. Lombard could tell such a fact by their eyes, and how they reacted to the news. It was realization, rather than wonder. "I would have thought he'd have joined in earlier, had he had a mind to."

This time, when Lombard spared Greeves a look, he did so with considerable coldness. "Imagine a man so vastly beyond your comprehension, that every outcome you wrestle your way towards, he knows long in advance. That boy's master is such a man.

You do not know his name, and I have been forbidden to tell it, but there lives a man in these Black Mountains that would cause half the King's Court to tremble in fear if they knew he was still alive. That boy that you bow to – he calls that man Master."

"I wouldn't say I bow to him—" Greeves began out of habit. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself. He looked away, already aware that in doing so, there came a hint of self-admittance. He found himself hating that fact.

"The boy will do well for himself," Lombard said quietly, causing Tolsey to look up sharply – it was rare that the Captain praised anyone. "He has accomplished deeds today that show a talent deeper than with his sword. He has a glimmer of that which the Great Generals of the past had. To lead a soldier is one thing, to lead an untrained man and turn him into a soldier is quite another.

His master's eyes saw this, or they sensed it. If he survives here today, a great man will be birthed from the ashes.

Greeves was quiet. Lombard turned to speak to him.

"A whole village of people has sensed it in him, merchant. You are not the only one. It leaks out of him. He cannot contain it. Should that boy be allowed to live, should the chains that limit him be cut away one by one, he will leave a mark on this land that the sage's label 'greatness.' I find myself willing to die for that reason, as do all of you," Lombard said.

"If he lives, we all live, for eternity, within the deeds of his, respoken far into the bowels of the future," Lombard said. As he spoke, none was more stunned than Tolsey. Lombard noted the look. "Do not look at me like that, boy," he said. It was the first time in a while he had called Tolsey 'boy', but this time he did it with a weary smile. "In everything we do, we all betray the same intention.

Do you think me so different?"

His soldiers were looking at him too. Hard soldiers, soldiers that had fought by his side for many years, and soldiers that had endured that bloody battle with the Yarmdon. They were each terrifying men in their own right, to have lived through that. Their Captain's words tore them away from the site of Beam slowly creeping his way towards the frozen mage.

"Do you not see a man relax when he has his first child? True, he moves forward with a different purpose, just as eagerly, but there's no longer the same anxiousness in his eyes. His name is continued. The soldiery are the same. We fight for a cause, or at least, we used to. In that cause we write our names.

In that cause today we find a simpler answer. Only one of us needs to live – and that's him," he pointed with a finger, just as Beam leapt, closing the final gap between himself and Francis.

Francis acknowledged him with an icy look, before releasing the binding on ten of his monsters: two Hobgoblins, a Half-Titan, three Konbreaker and five Gorebeasts.

Beam's sword bounced off an invisible wall. He felt as though he'd struck a rock. The recoil made his elbow ache. He fell to the floor, and the monsters rushed to his location eagerly, the Gorebeasts far faster than the rest, hungry for potent flesh.

He was on his feet a moment later, his sword swung, and he drew blood – more than blood, with a single slash, he severed two of the Gorebeast's limbs. It felt as though he was cutting through straw. After the harsh battle against the elite Yarmdon, to have all those shields in his way, and all that strength holding them up, to once more be relegated to mere Gorebeasts… It felt too easy.

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Within the span of a few short seconds, three Gorebeasts were dead.

With them, three Gorebeasts disappeared from the three other armies that surrounded the village. Everso slightly, their opposition dropped.

The villagers were watching Beam's approach even more carefully than the commanders. In madness, and in hell, Beam had become their core – he'd become the most important thing in the world to them, as everything else clouded over with despair, they found themselves cheering.