A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I'm in agreement," Oliver said. "You make sure Jorah doesn't catch a cut. I'll take care of the Blessed fools, if you'll buy time for me."

"Do not worry for me, Ser," Jorah said firmly. "It is you that they are after. To keep you alive would mean to repel their purpose. I would succumb to a thousand poisons if I could simply achieve that."

Oliver drew his sword. "I'd rather you didn't succumb to any of them."

He heard a voice in his head, laughing louder than Alistar. Excited. Thirty. Hungry. All inadequate words to describe the want that Ingolsol had.

"Yes, yes, yes!" He shouted. "This is it, boy. Don't you hold out on me now. Don't you dare. I've kept you alive for this – we've kept alive for this. Allow me this moment, make it run red with blood."

"I have no need for restraint or mercy. A single man shall live – but even he will wish he hadn't," Oliver said aloud, answering Ingolsol. The others thought that it was them that they were speaking to. Oliver fixed the weight of his gaze on the spearmen to the front. He met their eyes, forcing upon them the full force of his being. He saw a hand quiver, and then two.

They were already beginning to break. He could feel that sense for them, as he'd learned to do with monsters. The power to make them feel fear had grown even stronger than before.

Finally, he lofted his blade. Verdant held his ready too. The enemy likely didn't know that Verdant was of the Second Boundary, just as they were. They would underestimate him. It was worth betting on the fact, in this realm where no errors could be made. The very thing Asabel had assumed had happened the night before had come into full force the following evening.

But this was battle. This was a realm that Oliver Patrick had control over.

"You going out swinging then?" Alistar said lazily. It was him that Oliver faced off against. He seemed slower. Oliver told himself that he'd take him out first.

The long spears of the guardsmen stood between them, but there was already a hesitation to their hands. It would not take much to break their formation. The fear was already there. It said much that they'd assumed a defensive position, despite being the attackers themselves.

Oliver shifted his foot slightly to the right. Without truly knowing it, they were all focusing on him now, even the allies that attempted to hold his back. That slight movement of his right foot brought out a larger reaction from the spearmen than it ought to have, magnified by their fear. Their hands flexed, as they gripped their weapons tighter, locking themselves in place, anticipating his leap.

He stepped to the left, ever so slightly, and they reacted even more strongly to that. When he shifted his foot back to the right, using far more speed, their unity broke, and their spears were pointed off in different directions. He crashed through them, rushing straight ahead.

One man recovered fast enough to level a poison-covered point towards his chest. Oliver brushed the blow out of the way, and grasped onto the spear with his free hand, closing the distance with a single lightning fast step. He ran his sword through the man's neck, killing him in an instant.

"What!?" Alistar said, stunned. He hadn't been able to keep up with the speed. He fumbled for a better grip on his longside, just as the spearmen were repositioning themselves, looking for Oliver's chest with their points.

"Charge them!" Fabian shouted. "Just a single cut! Move! Make yourselves useful!"

From the sounds of heavy boots on the stone floor behind him, Oliver could tell that the battle was about to begin over there within a matter of moments. He only hoped that Verdant would be able to defend himself well enough to avoid a cut, despite his clumsiness in battle. Jorah, he hoped, would at least be able to keep the spear points off of him.

All the while, Ingolsol's delighted cries rang out.

"Kill them all!" He shouted in glee. "Make them suffer!"

When Oliver turned his eyes towards the next spearman in line, his normally grey pupils were almost entirely golden. The arms that guided the spear towards his enemy froze, as the man stood transfixed in place.

"USE IT!" Ingolsol bellowed. Oliver was in no position to refuse.

"Defend me," Oliver told the man. Another spear point came from the right, and without knowing what he was doing, the man lept in front of it.

"Osborn!?" Came a shocked cry, as the man pierced his own comrade. There came only a grunt in reply. A moment later, the same man who had shouted was the same man that lost the use of his throat, as Oliver's sword bit through it. Continue your saga on empire

Osborn stumbled. The poison's effect was not instantaneous, and the wound that he'd taken was not critical. Another point came towards Oliver, and he thrust himself in the way of that too.

Even without Osborn's assistance, Oliver had more than sufficient ability to crush the wall of men – especially now that he was in the centre of them. But with the help of Osborn, what would have been a comfortable victory turned into a one-sided slaughter. They could not even meet Oliver's eye, as he hit them with the full force of Ingolsol's lust.

He cleaved through three men as quickly as another man would brush his nose. He completely collapsed the right side of the spear wall in the span of moments, leaving just a single man by himself. A half-hearted thrust of the spear came for Oliver, but he easily evaded it, and turned wrenched the weapon free from the man's grip.

"Traitor," Alistar said in a grave voice, shoving a sword through Osborn's back. He freed the blade with a swift boot to the corpse's behind, and shoved him to the floor.

Oliver tossed the long spear into the ranks of the remaining few. It was not a weapon meant for throwing. It was far too heavy and unbalanced for that. But with Oliver's strength, it made an effective tool. Alistar bellowed as Oliver ran at him, swinging his blade in the boy's path. Oliver ducked it with ease, and set upon the remaining men instead.