A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I understand…" Blackthorn said, her mouth twisted. She seemed frustrated for some reason.

They heard the call of more goblins approaching. According to the map that Verdant had brought with them, in the area they were in, they could expect to find goblins primarily, and Black Wolves further to the west. In other words, it was a relatively safe space, since Black Wolves weren't that much stronger than regular goblins.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

It was a group of ten that were coming in. Oliver didn't have his eyes on all of them, but he could still feel his whole group stiffen behind them. How odd for a man so often lacking in perception.

Pauline and Amelia fumbled with the long daggers that they'd had sheathed at their hips, and they held them out in front of themselves with quivering arms. Even Verdant shifted his spear into position, moving to protect the girls.

Blackthorn, to her credit, stepped out to join Oliver. She drew her rapier from its hilt. It was a beautiful weapon, with plated silver on its hilt. It suited her immensely.

"I'll deal with this lot, and leave one for you," Oliver said.

Lasha looked doubtful, even though she'd already seen Oliver deal with a group of five with terrifying ease. She heeded his command regardless. He'd made her promise that fact – that whilst they were fighting, she would obey his words like orders. He wouldn't accept responsibility for her otherwise.

The goblins came crashing through the trees, loud and excited. Oliver soon chopped into that excitement, along with two heads. With a single slash, he'd already trimmed away the momentum that the group had as they ran through the underbrush, over the crunching snow.

Two corpses fell, quieting the others. Their speed didn't fall completely, but their wariness shot up. That was the issue with using goblins as training material. They – for all their viciousness – were immensely intelligent creatures, far more able than others to discern the differences in strength between themselves and the enemy.

In a group, their morale was still firm, though. With three more swift slashes, Oliver cut apart three more goblins. He did not slow as he moved on to the final bunch of them. They could not even readjust their position as he waded in amongst them, his flow perfectly, and the momentum entirely within his favour.

Compared to the enemies that he'd faced in the past, and the obstacles that he'd overcome, the goblins were so terrifyingly weak that it was almost anticlimactic. But at the same time, it served to illustrate just how far he'd come, and there was a certain thrill in that.

Eventually, there was only one left, and as Oliver feared, it seemed ready to run.

"This one's yours," Oliver said, moving behind the creature to block its escape route off. He forced it to look at Blackthorn. She stood with her sword extended, ready, her skin pale, but then, wasn't she always pale?

The goblin realized that the enemy in front of it was a threat far easier to overcome than what lay behind it. It knew that the only way it could hold onto its life would be to break through from the front. That exacerbated its viciousness, and it flung itself at Blackthorn with the goblin madness that Oliver had grown used to.

It lashed out with its spear. Blackthorn dodged her head to the side to avoid it. She was fast, and well-trained. A lone goblin should have been very little threat to her. When its spear missed, the beast discarded it without second thought, and it bounded off the ground again, this time with its jaw wide open, going for Lasha's neck. Stay connected via empire

"My Lady!" Pauline screamed in horror.

Oliver drew himself closer, ready, just in time to see Lasha's rapier skewer the goblin straight through its neck.

It choked and grabbed at the blade with fingers slippy from blood.

"Kick it off," Oliver shouted. "Don't waste any more time than you need to on one."

The girl recovered her senses at his command. She booted the creature with the wooden heel of her hunting boots, and left it to die, choking on its own blood from the gash in its neck.

She breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw it pass. Goblin blood stained the white lip of her blue hunting skirt. She looked at it for a moment, the disgust written on her face, before sighing and accepting that too.

"Easy, right?" Oliver said, joining her.

She gave him a stiff nod in reply.

"But different all the same. Like I said, training with a sword in the nice secure clearing at Verdant's place, that's all well and good, but it doesn't properly match the battlefield. It doesn't match the fear and the chaos. You've got more things to fight with than just the enemy," Oliver told her.

Again, she nodded, with far more understanding than she had when he told her the same thing back at the Academy.

"We'll do three next," Oliver said.

"Not two?" Lasha asked in alarm. Mentally, she'd been prepared for two, gradually working her way up.

"No, these are two easy for you. You slacked at the end there, because you didn't have any new opponents to react to. That's a bad habit if you build it up. You want to finish your enemy and free your sword as quickly as you're able. You never know what's going to be coming for your back," Oliver told her.

She relented, biting her lip, looking unsure of herself. Gods, he knew that feeling. His entire career with the sword had been a whole string of unsureness, of tests that he didn't know whether he'd be able to overcome.

"It's rough, I know," he told her, more quietly than before, a bit more understanding there. "Don't doubt yourself too much. You're going to feel afraid. Allow it to stay there, and you just focus on your sword. That's your training for today, learning to fight with fear."

"Was it the same for you?" She asked. She seemed unusually frail.

He nodded his assurance. "Worse, probably. I was a lot weaker than you when I had to slay my first goblin."