A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 420 Where Danger Lies - Part 8

But in a moment, he was gone.

Blackthorn watched – she watched closely, more closely than the rest, and she could not see how he'd done it.

That irritating boy, with that confident smile sitting on his lips, all throughout the time they sparred.

And yet the man was a liar. She could see that. No man would smile with that sort of pain in his eyes. The way he fought now, it proved it. Trickery - a trickery that betrayed even the onlookers. He brought the lumbering beast that was Bournemouth in close, offering him his head, lowered and ready, as if on a platter…

Then in the next moment, he was gone. Blackthorn looked, but she couldn't see. She couldn't understand. She didn't have the ability to. More than anything, that frustrated her. She couldn't see how she could get stronger.

She'd practised harder than anyone and yet—

CRASH!

A strike from a wooden blade, weighted though it was, brought forth with the fury of a man that had climbed out of the pits of hell.

Bournemouth's armour deformed, the breastplate cave on itself. An impossible feat. Impossible. Blackthorn – quiet, expressionless, Lasha Blackthorn felt her jaw hang open, in surprise, as though she were just another girl, so easily impressed.

BANG!

Bournemouth had tottered on his feet after the first strike had landed, his anger had saved him, his simple, childish anger. He'd gone for another sweeping strike with his mace – it was undignified, and primitive, but that didn't matter for a man his size. Blackthorn had learned that the hard way.

She knew that against a man's strength, she had to be much more than she was… and yet Bournemouth was far more than most men.

On that very same man, Oliver's sword landed again. He felt a fury in him. An unhinged sort of fury, dangerous, biting, one that tore at his soul. He did not even feel such anger on the battlefield against Francis. This was a beast that was not him. It ate him apart from the inside, and it so easily destroyed that which was in front of him.

A weighted sword of wood slammed into Bournemouth's chest plate for a third time, yielding another massive dent. Had Oliver's anger been lesser, he might have swept his legs. He might have gone for the unprotected joints at the elbows, and at the knees. But as he was now, he merely crushed that which was in front of him. He had might, the might to blow it all away, and so he used it recklessly.

He struck again, and this time blood came from Bournemouth's mouth. Finally, the force of the strikes had made it past the man's padded shirt, past the crumpling of his armour, and past that layer of fat. It had struck something more important, but still, Oliver did not let up, even as he saw the man's simple expression start to transform, from one of simple anger, to one of fear.

Being the dullard that he was, kept more as an oddity than as a person, the man had likely never experienced a true losing fight. Not from one other than his masters, who chose who to set him against.

But the boy in front of him was angered so. That reckless rage, that abundance of power, those golden eyes that saw straight through him…

Bournemouth started to turn. Not for another strike, not to lend his mace more weight, but to flee.

Oliver noticed the gesture in distaste. That was weakness. Weakness from a man that was meant to be a test. Oliver's sword crept out again, and he hit the man's raised leg, hard, sending him off balance, crashing in a pool of dust on the floor.

With a kick of his boot, Oliver took the helmet from his head, sending it crashing a distance away, and then he brought his sword at the man's neck.

'Another, another, another…' his mind murmured to itself, falling into the rhythm of battle. 'There are others… so many. Faster! Deal with it! We'll be surrounded!'

"Halt! HALT! LEAVE HIM BOY!" Heathclaw roared, recovering his senses, the first man to speak in a crowd of two hundred, that had all turned to watch, their duals forgotten, to see Oliver pound Bournemouth into a messy pulp with a mere training sword.

Oliver looked off to the side, regaining his senses, somewhat, enough to see Bournemouth quiver. Enough to see the blood about his face, and the fear.

"If you're so frightened, run," he growled.

And then the man did. He scrambled to his feet like a beetle, and then began to half-run, half-trip away.

"BOURNEMOUTH! BOURNEMOUTH! GET BACK HERE YOU USELESS LOUT!" Heathclaw called after him. But the man merely kept running. The professor rounded on Oliver, grabbing him by his shirt. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SOLDIER, BASTARD?

WHAT DID YOU DO? YOU'RE LIKE YOUR FATHER, AIN'T YA? YOU TOUCH WITH THE DARKNESS?"

Oliver's fist swept about before he knew what he was doing. It crunched into Heathclaw's face. His anger hardly abated as the man went down. Oliver's breathing came rapidly. He felt like a wolf with the scent of blood in his nostrils. Everywhere he looked, he saw a foe.

He couldn't calm himself. A rational part of his mind told him to slow, that he was safe, that these were merely the grounds of the school, but another part barked at him that he was weak, that these people were weak, that he needed to find foes, he needed strength, he needed more.

It ached at him, he clutched at his heart. Something was missing, something important. Some wounds hadn't healed. Your journey continues on empire

"BASTARD--! YOU STRUCK A PROFESSOR!" Heathclaw's nose was bloody, as he laid in a heap on the ground, half-stunned, though his righteous anger still burned just as hotly.

Oliver reached down, and grasped the man. Heathclaw's hand snuck out. There was power in it, and speed. The speed of a man in the Third Boundary… and yet, this man was weaker than Lombard. Oliver slapped his hand aside, and glared at him, the gold still spinning in his eyes.