A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Would you like the cloak, my Lady?" Amelia asked.
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Blackthorn nodded mutely, and allowed the leather cloak to be fastened around her neck. Oliver assumed it was meant to stop the blood from getting onto the sleeves of her tight navy combat jacket, but he still reckoned that to be a pointless endeavour.

"Oh, I just realized – we've finally got someone to watch out for you two, don't we? That's a relief," Oliver said. The two girls had been quite a liability the week before with no one to defend them.

Amelia blanched at the prospect, twisting her face. "No thank you," she said curtly, ignoring the way Kaya's face fell.

"That would be a relief," Pauline said honestly. Her eyes were still nervously flitting through the trees. They could hear the sounds of screeching goblins a distance away. Unsettling noises, especially for the uninitiated. He could see his three new retainers twitching as well.

"Off we go then, I suppose," Oliver said, stepping out into the clearing first. The goblins were already there, waiting, viciously tearing apart the corpse of a boar. There must have been ten of them there, at least.

He saw the three boys stiffen. Karesh was in their centre. He was the biggest of them. It made sense to put him there. But where they hesitated, Blackthorn did not. She'd already grown accustomed to them the previous week.

She charged – somewhat recklessly – towards the group, obviously intending to take them off guard, before they could form up and begin surrounding her.

They let her get five strides ahead, before Jorah gathered his confidence first. "Damn it, you two! She's going to get mauled! Move it!"

He sprinted ahead of them, cursing. Karesh followed immediately after, trailed by a pale-faced Kaya. They should have been practising with those spears through the entirety of their Academy careers, and yet now, as they ran into combat, they looked awkward in their hands.

"You seem relaxed, my Lord," Verdant noted, as he came to the side of him.

"Ah, only for now," Oliver said. "I have faith enough that they'll be able to deal with the likes of goblins without too much trouble – at least, when they fight as a group."

They watched Blackthorn spear a goblin through the side of the neck with her rapier, as it attempted to twist and scramble to its feet to meet her. The rest of the troupe shrieked, and jumped to their feet when they finally noticed her approach. Two flung themselves at her with reckless abandon. No spears in their hands, just jagged fingernails and shark-toothed mouths.

She was too quick to be overturned by that. She remembered the lesson from last week, of withdrawing her blade the instant she'd made the killing shot. They'd worked on it in training as well. She was even stronger than she had been last week, as though what Oliver showed her in training now made more sense to her, and she absorbed the knowledge more greedily.

A sword through one chest, and then a raised boot, as she cast her leg upwards with admirable flexibility and caught the flying goblin underneath its jaw, sending it sprawling to the ground.

By now, the other seven were converging, looking to surround her. Some had even grabbed their spears – a rare bit of lucidity to see from an angry goblin.

They jumped for her sides, 3 from one direction, and 4 from another. Ordinarily, he would have expected to see Blackthorn step back, when confronted with such overwhelm. She was getting better at that – at fighting on the back foot. In fact, as they'd seen the previous week, she seemed to do even better on the backfoot than the front. She had a natural counterattackers rhythm to her.

A bellow from her rear gave reason for her actions. The three boys lowered their spears, and went charging for the four goblins on the right, staying tight together, shoulder to shoulder, as they'd been trained to. Apparently, the yellow-shirted combat class focused heavily on group fighting tactics, far more so than the noble's class.

It proved effective. With the goblins' attention on Blackthorn, the three of them were able to punch through the goblins without resistance. They seemed surprised to stick the point of their spear in, and have it find flesh. That sensation made them hesitate, just as it had with Blackthorn the previous week.

"Don't freeze up!" Oliver shouted. "Get your spears out and finish the job!"

They straightened immediately at his command. Jorah booted the final goblin down, just as he had seen Blackthorn do, and then he finished it with his short spear. Only then did he seem to notice the problem to their left. The last three goblins were descending down upon Blackthorn.

"Shit!" He cursed. "Kaya! Karesh! Let's move!"

All his own movements came with respect to them. It was that group fighting mentality that they'd been instilled with. It was interesting for Oliver to watch. It brought back glimpses of the soldiers that fought under Lombard, just stiffer, more rigid.

Blackthorn stepped back, as the first of the goblins in the arrowhead jumped her. That same motion that he'd seen from her the previous week. She let her weight rest on her back foot, her muscles coiled like a spring, turning a backwards step into an opportunity to load up. Then, she sprang forward with impossible speed, faster even than the speedy goblins. She punched it straight through the eye.

Oliver heard Jorah and the boys gasp in admiration. He smiled. She was good. She was worthy of that kind of respect. Her counterattacking strike was even more crisp than he'd from her the week before.

"You training her?" The Minister of Blades asked from Oliver's right. He twitched slightly in surprise, unsure of when the man had managed to get so close to him. He sighed, cursing his poor perception for what must have been the hundredth time.

"A bit," Oliver said.

"That's not the Blackthorn swordstyle," he noted. He glanced at Oliver, but didn't say anything further. He seemed content to stroll off to the side, and merely watch, and Jorah arrived with backup, and the three boys put an end to the last of the goblins.